|
|
|
August 22, 2004
REVIEWS: Looking for friends
The treatise under review is a welcome publication, a pioneering work, covering various aspects of Pakistan’s relations with the European Union, which is described by the author as a “unique phenomenon, in a world based on the state system”. A timely study as well, it is. Most Pakistanis feel that they have had enough of the suffocating embrace of the sole superpower. There are worries too that true to its traditions, the US may once again abandon Pakistan when it feels the “alliance” has served its purpose.
Hence, wisdom would suggest looking for reliable friends and allies that may help in times of need. Cultivating the European Union would then seem to be a top priority for Pakistan.
The author, Dr Naveed Ahmad Tahir who is the director of the Area Study Centre for Europe, focuses on the developments in Pakistan-EU relations in the light of the heightened tensions in South Asia, the post 9/11 international scenario and the “war against terror” which has pushed Pakistan once again into the limelight.
The assurance from the big powers that the stability and economic uplift of Pakistan are important for international peace and security has lacked consistency. The EU has been no exception. It has raised what it calls the “core” question: “whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons?” The EU members according to this report “have pleaded that multilateralism, the cardinal principle of EU strategy against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, should be put to practice with its full force in the context of Pakistan’s nuclear programme”.
Apart from the fact that the allegations against Pakistan are a proof of the West’s bias against Pakistan’s nuclear programme, they have a disruptive impact on Pakistan. Not at all a friendly act, one may say.
The survey includes a brief note on the European Union itself — a union of states which have voluntarily given up some of their sovereign rights in the sphere of policy-making to the institutions of the European Union.
It is rightly pointed out that in the bipolar setup of the Cold War the European Community’s major member states — Britain, France and Germany — had largely played second fiddle to the United States in international affairs, for they were beholden to Washington and the Atlantic Alliance for ensuring their security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. In the unipolar world order of today the European Union, now a major commercial and economic power, has begun to assert its views on important international issues.
EU also wants its cherished values accepted by the rest of the world — democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law. At the same time, however, the EU claims that it favours a policy of constructive engagement with individual regions, because it believes that differences on these matters cannot always be resolved through sanctions and ostracism.
After the EU had adopted its common foreign and security policy (CFSP) in the early nineties its members have often challenged the United States’ policies in world affairs. Instances include the EU-US clash on the Iraq crisis in 2003 which demonstrated the European resolve to have its own foreign and security policy. But the rift on Iraq between the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Denmark on the one hand and France, Germany and Belgium on the other completely paralyzed the CFSP.
There is a brighter side to the crisis. The stubborn resistance put up by France, Germany, Russia and China in holding out against US pressure to bulldoze a new UN resolution to legalize its attack on Iraq indicated the eventual emergence of a more balanced international dispensation to counter-balance American unilateralism. The author however concedes that such a bloc is not imminent.
The vicissitudes of Indo-Pakistan relations have affected the EU’s and its member states’ relations with the two countries. India, as a bigger state, has an obvious edge. Thus the EU has lately distinguished India as a worthy strategic partner in the 21st century sharing with the Union the “universal values of democracy and respect for human rights, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms”.
The book surveys the whole gamut of EU-Pakistan relations with their ups and downs. Till the writing of the book the cooperative treaty had not been ratified by the European Parliament. “This is in stark contrast to the ease with which the third generation cooperation pact with India was signed and ratified despite the dismal human rights record of that country and its overt ambitions to enhance its nuclear and missile arsenal”, observes Dr Naveed Tahir. Now that the cooperation agreement has been ratified the cooperation between Pakistan and the EU should be enhanced.
In the past, diplomatic ties with the individual European governments were considered more important than contacts with European Community institutions. Since the EU institutions are now acquiring stronger roles and may soon have more control over the union’s foreign and security policy, Pakistan would do well to seek a closer understanding with them.
But Pakistan must at the same time put its own house in order. By addressing thorny issues as democracy, human rights, environmental norms, drug trafficking, illegal migrations, terrorism and WMD, Islamabad can pave the way for more cordial ties with the Europeans. To overcome these problems, it must alleviate poverty and spread literacy and education. It is significant that the EU has been helping out in both these areas.
The author stresses the need for trade rather than aid for development. The essence of Pakistan’s policy should be to “make the country attractive in the international investment market by offering fiscal and tariff relief and providing procedural and social facilitation. Besides providing full safeguards to protect foreign investment, special attention should also be given to the development of human capital and the base for quality services”. A tall order indeed, if not an impossible task.
Study of the treatise under review should give our foreign policy establishment — bureaucrats, scholars, journalists — a sense of urgency in forging relations with the EU. As such the book needs to be circulated widely.
It may be pointed out that the writer has depended for reference purposes mostly on one Pakistani newspaper i.e Dawn. It would have enhanced the survey’s scholarly worth had more sources been used. Similarly, she should also have drawn from the EU media and the opinions of scholars and NGOs working on the ground to give a fuller and better understanding of the relations between the European Union and Pakistan.
A survey of EU-Pakistan Relations in the Contemporary Regional and International Setting: Political, Security, Economic and Development Aspect
By Naveed Ahmad Tahir
Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi
133pp. Rs200. US$10
|
|
|
|
