Some events are more memorable than others and serve as landmarks for a term in office. I will always remember attending a ceremony in Paris in December 2019 to honor 13 French soldiers who had died in Mali. It was my first official act as high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
I will also remember my visit to Niger in July. I witnessed the tangible results of EU-Niger cooperation with the inauguration of the Gorou Banda solar power plant near Niamey. In Agadez, I also saw hundreds of social housing units built with EU support. Then-Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum’s ambitious vision and actions offered real hope in a region that had fallen prey to authoritarian drift. That is why, shortly after my visit, the military coup on July 26 was a shock for me.
After a discussion with my European counterparts, in the presence of the Nigerien minister of foreign affairs and the president of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), I would like to share a few thoughts on the situation in Niger and the Sahel.
We must maintain unwavering support for Bazoum, the democratically elected president, for “as long as it takes,” demanding a return to constitutional order in Niger. The future of democracy across the region is at stake. The democracy that the people of Niger want, the one that ECOWAS is promoting, and the one that the EU is defending around the world.
Nor should our support for ECOWAS waver. There is no room for secondary arrangements or parallel mediation channels. As Europeans, we have long supported the search for “African solutions to African problems.” At a time when ECOWAS is taking an unprecedentedly firm and consequential stand, we must follow up our words with action.
In addition to defending its democratic values, the EU also has a major interest in seeing Niger return to the path of constitutional order. Another Sahelian country falling into the hands of a military junta would have far-reaching negative consequences for Europe in terms of security, migration flows and the geopolitical balance of power. It is a mistake to believe that military juntas can effectively combat terrorist movements or human trafficking. The best bulwarks against such threats are democratic states with the ambition, will and means to create new opportunities for their people.
Certainly, EU policy toward the Sahel has not been as successful as we had hoped in recent years. We have sometimes been too focused on the security dimension alone, and our efforts to help strengthen the rule of law and provide basic services have not been sufficient or visible enough. The “strategic patience” we have shown toward the military juntas in the region has also not had any concrete results other than encouraging new vocations.
Despite this necessary self-criticism, we must not forget that Europe’s roadmap in the Sahel in recent years has been a Sahelian one. We have committed our soldiers, our money and our political capital to the region because Sahelian countries asked us to do so.
What can we do now? We can suspend our budgetary support for and security cooperation with Niger, work toward the adoption of sanctions, and show solidarity in response to the unjustified expulsion of the ambassador of one of our member states. However, we must also go further. Since it would be unreasonable to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, we must adopt a different approach.
Security cooperation, the issuing of visas and economic development programs must be reconsidered, and we must move quickly in deciding what needs to change — both with respect to Niger and other countries across the Sahel. We will need to hold this showdown with the military juntas without falling into the traps set by regimes that rely principally on manipulation and disinformation. With little results to show for their anti-terrorism or economic development efforts, the region’s juntas have found these to be their most effective tools.
The Sahel is a test for the entire EU. No one should be pleased by the difficulties that France is encountering in the region. It has become a convenient scapegoat for juntas looking to manufacture national cohesion while concealing their own failures and abuses. France, however, is not the problem in the Sahel — the military juntas are — they lack both the means to fight terrorism effectively and the ambition to improve their people’s daily lives and future prospects.
Those who rejoice, in Europe or elsewhere, at the difficulties encountered by Europeans in the Sahel do not fully appreciate what is at stake. We will all pay a high price if we fail to remain coherent and united. Only a united Europe can influence the course of events. The coming weeks will tell whether we are up to the task of responding to expectations in this strategic region.
Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is vice president of the European Commission for a Stronger Europe in the World.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
A single photograph can cut through a lot of noise, but it can also be used to misrepresent the truth. At the very least, it can concentrate the mind on something that requires further investigation. On Monday last week, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) and former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) held a news conference in which they showed a photograph of former foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), now Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy chairman. In the image Hsiao is seated next to Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association chairman Han Ying-huan (韓螢煥). The two men were holding
I first met Professor Ray Jiing (井迎瑞) as a film and documentary student at Shih Hsin University’s (SHU) Department of Radio Television and Film in 1988. The following year, he went on to become the director of the Chinese Taipei Film Archive — forerunner of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI). Over his eight-year tenure, Jiing rescued and restored over 200 classic Taiwanese films. In 1997, he established the Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary and Film Archiving at Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA), and I joined the program in his third cohort of students. Beyond a
President William Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) May 20 second-anniversary address was not just a routine policy review; it was damage control. US President Donald Trump’s remarks — that he did not want to see anyone move toward independence and that the delivery of a major Taiwan arms package could depend on the progress of US-China relations — unsettled Taiwan’s public and created an opening for opposition parties to question whether Taiwan was being treated as a bargaining chip in Washington’s dealings with Beijing. Lai’s speech was designed to close that opening. The address covered the expected ground: sovereignty, cross-strait relations, defense spending,
RSS