EU More Effective: No Political Conditionality

EU More Effective: No Political Conditionality

Marina Ottaway & Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment, 2005, Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 265

Moreover, leaving aside threats of force, even the use of the bully pulpit for only peaceful calls for reform makes it difficult for the United States to truly engage in a dialogue with Arab countries and understand the complexities of the reform process. The bully pulpit lends itself to proclamations about good and evil, right and wrong, not to elaborating on the enormous complexity and the many gray areas of the political reform process. If you add to the mixture the discontinuities in U.S. policy resulting from the four-year election cycle and the partisan politicization of foreign policy, the United States has a hard time engaging consistently over the long term on these issues.

European countries can. They have done so for ten years, and undoubtedly they will continue to do so. The continuity of the European policy is ensured by the fact that engagement, particularly with its Mediterranean rim, is not a matter of choice but of necessity for Europe. The repercussions of the political and economic problems of the Middle East are felt directly by European countries – they are taking place in the immediate neighborhood. There is no military barrier that can make a difference under these conditions. But while European countries have been patiently engaging in unending economic dialogue and cultural exchanges, they have tiptoed cautiously around the crucial political issues. By forcing the issue of political reform into the public debate, the United States may have opened the door to a more effective European policy. It remains to be seen whether European countries will walk through that door.
EU REJECTS CONDITIONALITY AND HARD-LINE TACTICS TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY

Richard Youngs, Researcher FRIDE, 2005, [Fundacion par alas Relaciones Inernacionales y el Diaolgo Exterior], Unchartered Journey: promoting democracy in the middle east, eds. T. Carothers & M. Ottaway, p. 238-9

Second, the notion of “partnership” is strikingly prominent in the way that European governments had the Brussels institutions frame their new reform policies. Famed for its proclivity to “positive engagement,” the EU is unsurprisingly not converting wholesale to strongly coercive strategy in pursuit of political change. Some more critical pressure has been exerted in relation to specific cases, such as Egypt’s restrictive 1999 NGO law or Tunisia’s frustration of a number of European aid projects (indeed, relations with Tunisia have become stormy enough for some assistance to be held back). But overt punitive conditionality remains anathema to most European states. Even the northern “like-minded” states judge talk of conditionality as “too pushy.” Although Spain has always been one of the states most reluctant to contemplate coercive measures, new Prime Minister Zapatero is committing himself to returning to an even more strongly “traditional” approach of convivial alliance building in the Middle East. Any European-level measure that could be deemed interventionist is studiously avoided. Language in the EU’s draft security suggesting that the EU would intervene to “defend democracy” was removed at the behest of member states. Europeans are united in opposing the notion of certain states—Iran, Libya, and Syria—being excluded from the United States’ new proposed initiatives in the region. Indeed, European engagement with these states aimed at counterproliferation has—almost openly—been bought at the cost of diminished leverage over political reform.

EU CP: EU More Effective

Daniela Huber, Senior Fellow Instituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, 2015, Democracy Promotion and Foreign Policy: Identity and Interests in US, EU, and Non-Western Democracies, p. 143

In terms of commonality, democracy promotion as a shared purpose in foreign policy receives broad public support among Europeans. A 2005 survey of the German Marshall Fund found that “asked if it should be the role off the EU to help establish democracy in other countries, an overwhelming majority of European (74 percent) agreed”. Similar results were found by Eurobarometer in 2006 and 2007 with 87 percent and 82 percent respectively supporting the development of democracy-based relations between the EU and its neighbors. In December 2011, against the backdrop of the euro crisis and the Arab Spring, 84 percent of Europeans supported development aid and a strong focus on EU and on good governance and human rights. Democracy promotion clearly is a shared goal and European citizens expect the EU to include democracy promotion in foreign policy.

EU CP: Civil Society Assistance Effective

Doyle Stevick, Education Professor-University of South Carolina, 2008, Advancing Democracy Through Education: US influence abroad and domestic practices, eds. E. Stevic & B. Levinson, p. 102

The European-American discrepancy in funding for civil society must be understood in the context of education reform in the region. Two important differences are at work here. First, the EU worked directly with governments and thus had both better access to pursue influence and, through the promise of membership in the EU, much greater leverage. Their civil society support is just one small aspect of their overall work in education and democratization. Second, as a Council of Europe official explained, “While Europe must be concerned with the whole education system, the U.S. can concentrate its resources on the ideological aspects” (personal communication, June 2002).