Tag: Arab Spring

The European support to Tunisia should not turn into empowering the very people and groups against whom Tunisians revolted in 2011, writes Mourad Teyeb.

EU officials on Thursday (4 July) urged Egypt's military-backed government to refrain from bloodshed and to quickly restore democracy, just hours after the army  took charge for the second time in less than three years following anti-government revolts.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz announced today (4 April) that he will revive the ‘Union for the Mediterranean’, a now moribund initiative first launched in 2008 by the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, during a parliamentary summit on 7 April in Marseille.

Ahead of today's visit of Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali to Brussels, experts warn that Europe must strike a balance in its efforts to support democratic change in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Council of Europe has unveiled a three-year, €4.8-million initiative aimed at strengthening democracy and human rights in the southern Mediterranean. The project by the continent’s oldest political body will attempt to assist Morocco and Tunisia in their post-Arab Spring democratic transition, by offering its experience and expertise, gleaned from over 60 years driving political reform in Europe, Pilar Morales told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

The number of Syrian refugees fleeing fighting in their country has reached 115,000 and aid agencies must develop a plan to deal with the growing humanitarian emergency, EU officials said on Monday (23 July).

António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told a Brussels audience yesterday (20 April) that the European Union's asylum system was "extremely dysfunctional" and that he didn't believe that reforms could meet a December 2012 target.

Democracy will not necessarily deliver successful results when applied in the non-Western sphere. It can set general guidelines, but varieties will persist, writes Roman Rukomeda from Ukrainian Foundation for Democracy - People First.

The European Union is likely to adopt fresh sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the coming week, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said.

What if there are democratic elections and the people choose a regime that violates the principles of Western human rights? What happens if, after tremendous Western effort to force democratic elections, the electorate chooses to reject Western values and pursue a very different direction? George Friedman, leading expert at Stratfor, the US intelligence consulting firm, offers a view on recent development in Egypt.

The European Union has only one way out of the present financial, economic and institutional crisis: enlargement of its territorial borders bringing an infusion of 'new blood' and centralisation of management inside the EU, argues Dr Roman Rukomeda.

Massive violence against Christian Copts in Egypt and the ransacking of a TV station in Tunisia by Islamists is raising the long-avoided question whether the Arab spring has opened the door to democracy or to cultural and religious intolerance instead.

Europe's recovery cannot succeed if European societies continue to economically and politically exclude their young people, argue Henri Lastenouse and Xavier Damman.

A chorus of countries led by the EU and the US has called for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying they will impose further sanctions on a regime which is "torturing and slaughtering" its own people in what the UN said could be crimes against humanity.

The European Commission yesterday (25 July) ruled that Italy and France did not breach EU rules by adopting their own measures to deal with an influx of migrants from Tunisia earlier this year, but failed to respect the "spirit" of the Schengen agreement.

The European Union said today (20 June) it was preparing to expand its sanctions on Syria in response to worsening violence against opponents of the government. 

Europe must be more assertive in its foreign policy, especially by unambiguously supporting the Arab revolutions, otherwise it risks wasting an historic opportunity which could later count against it, said former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

Tom Spencer analyses in depth the background and context of the Arab revolutions, the European Union's "flabby diplomacy" and the repercussions these developments will have on the EU's political leaders, arguing that these could even prematurely end Catherine Ashton's term as the bloc's foreign affairs chief.

Russia, a traditional ally of many Arab regimes that are being ousted by democratic revolutions, claims its diplomats "saw the changes coming" and that most of the autocratic regimes had in fact "overstayed their luck".

Events in the Arab world have awakened Azerbaijan’s society, and while it is too early to say whether there will be mass protests, the fear and disappointment which were prevalent in Azerbaijan are no longer visible, writes Arif Yunusov of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, arguing that political life in Azerbaijan has been enriched by the emergence of a new power: the young.

Security forces have arrested some 500 pro-democracy sympathisers across Syria after the government sent in tanks to try to crush protests in the city of Deraa, a Syrian rights organisation said today (26 April). The EU condemned the "violent repressions".

More than 40 governments and international organisations are meeting today (29 March) in London to try to lay the groundwork for a Libya without leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Today's (11 March) EU summit took a somewhat surreal turn, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron left the other 25 EU leaders hanging around while they bilaterally discussed what were believed to be hardline options against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.