MEPs rejected the EU’s emphasis on a humanitarian response to the ongoing Syrian crisis at a European Parliament plenary debate on the international strategy in Strasbourg on Wednesday, as absent EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s representative, the new Irish presidency’s European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton insisted “we are working tirelessly every day to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people”.
Pre-empting calls from increasingly impatient members of the chamber for direct military assistance to the Syrian opposition to be planned and implemented, however, she added despite the fact that “the political solution to the heart-wrenching, and almost 2 year long, conflict in Syria is not yet in sight”, a military “option is still very divisive and runs the risk of hardening the conflict”.
Leading the subsequent onslaught from representatives of the constituent political groups in the chamber was Spanish Christian Democrat Jose Ignacio Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, who charged that EU assurances at the start of the conflict “that it was just a question of time before (authoritarian Syrian President Bashar al) Assad fell” had proved gravely unfounded, as he slammed Russia for stalling UN Security Council resolutions and insisting it “has something to answer for to the international community on its attitude on Syria”. The EU also came in for some criticism from the foreign affairs committee member, as he questioned why no EU representatives were present at a tripartite meeting last week in Geneva between UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League Secretary-general Nabil Elaraby.
Conceding the EU had not been present at the Geneva talks, Creighton nevertheless insisted that that was at Brahimi’s discretion, as she reiterated “that it is of course the commitment of the EU to be fully engaged in every possible dialogue and forum there is an opportunity to contribute to”.
“We keep on trying to win time to see if Assad finally succeeds in crushing his opposition, which doesn’t seem likely, or to see if the opposition can finally get coordinated and organised and end up toppling the regime. This being the situation, the international community must do something,” Salafranca insisted.
“We citizens of the EU do not just expect the EU to respond to the serious humanitarian crisis that is here. What they expect is that we should be able to put a stop to this bloodbath, that we should be able to establish measures that really bring an end to this disgraceful situation. They expect us to be up to the events which require that the international community in general, and the EU in particular, be able to put an end finally to the appalling suffering of the Syrian people,” he concluded.
Picking up where Salafranca left on in his critique of Europe’s failure to act decisively on the Syrian crisis, Belgian Socialist Democrat Veronique De Keyser said while the EU’s “assumption was that time would play in our favour, that Bashar al Assad would leave, it’s not such a certainty anymore that time is on our side”, as she invoked Wednesday’s terror attack on the University of Aleppo that resulted in 87 deaths and the intervention of Arab states on the ground in Syria. “People are actually installed in Syria and are making the situation totally unmanageable. When you look at that, you really have to wonder whether time is on our side or against us,” she continued.
Asserting that Brahimi’s as yet-unsuccessful peace plan was outdated, she called for “a Plan B, a fallback solution”, as she referred to Monday’s Swiss-initiated appeal to the UN Security Council to refer Syrian atrocities to the International Criminal Court for judgement, as she finally questioned if “the EU is acting as a player in its own right”.
Dutch Liberal Democrat Marietje Schaake meanwhile issued a ringing indictment of the absent Ashton as she called into question “the EU’s impact in teh world under her leadership”. Citing her chosen visit to Kosovo in lieu of attending the plenary session in Strasbourg, she cautioned that that country “reminds us of how long the damage of conflict can last”.
“ In the former Yugoslavia too, it took Europe too long to act and history seems to repeat itself and it embarrasses us”, as she accused of the international community of “allowing the situation in Syria to drag on” throughout its two year duration, because of its fundamental inability to take decisive action. Similarly raising the Swiss appeal to the UNSC, which was co-signed by all but one EU member states, she asked “why Sweden is the only EU state not in favour of referring Assad to the ICC. What is the reason for a lack of unity among our member states?”
“We must save the Syrians who are crushed, freezing and starving, between a murderous regime and an increasing radicalised armed opposition. Our priority should be to stop the killing and the humanitarian disaster and we are a very long way from acting accordingly,” concluded her blistering attack.
Dutch Christian Democrat Bastiaan Belder sought to unequivocally state the two available options available to the west in Syria as he called for 2013 to be “the year for real politics”. Either a military offensive could be launched to displace Assad forcibly from office, which would necessitate ongoing civil war at a disastrous cost to infrastructure and humanitarian factors as well as causing probable instability in neighbouring countries, or priority should be given to ending the civil war through continuing political dialogue. Calling for clarification on what steps were being made to foster national reconciliation and disarmament, however, he expressed scepticism about the likelihood of the debate bringing any further clarity to the situation.
Portuguese Socialist Marisa Matias meanwhile contended the ongoing crisis constituted “a tragedy for which the responsibility is shared by the cruel and undemocratic regime of the Assad family and many EU countries which very much supported them for years, as well as internal groups”. Peace must come first, she concluded.
Continuing the charge, Belgian unaffiliated member Philip Claeys contended that “parliament’s euphoria about the Arab Spring was misplaced”, as he cautioned against similar “ideological blindness” to that employed in Egypt which led the EU to embrace replacing “one secular dictatorship by an even-worse dictatorship, that of Sharia”, as he called on the EU “to do everything possible to ensure that al Qaeda and its allies don’t gain a footing in Syria”.
Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva refuted calls for a military option to employed in Syria, as as she warned that “Syria is not Libya, Syria is much better militarily”.
“When I talk to people in the region, they tell me if there was a military action, they fear that would lead to unleashing chemical weapons and with the humanitarian consequences much greater than we currently have. So a military solution won’t deliver the kind of results we want, it is a political solution that we all have to raise our voices to urge for,” she added.
Responding to questions from within the chamber, Creighton rounded off the debate by conceding that “We are all aware of the shortcomings of our combined efforts, whether on the diplomatic or humanitarian front”.
“It’s not a perfect process, that’s for sure. But the situation cannot just be simplified as sometimes it’s easy to do. We need to look into all the possible options, all aspects and opportunities for NGOs and the different civilian organisations to see how we can help them, how we can best support them, how we can ensure that humanitarian aid meets the target which is the civilians who are suffering for a variety of reasons which have been set out by members, not least the deteriorating weather conditions, and we are acting with them in a very concrete way, in a very coordinated way and were doing everything we can to support them on the ground,” she concluded.

by: Shari Ryness

EJP