Since the last Report on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) sent to the Presidents’ Council in March 2017, there have been some developments regarding this region worth pointing out.
Since the last Report sent to the President Council last November 2016, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa is not showing any signs of improvement. It continues to deteriorate and at the same time is in a permanent flux. The roots of this instability can be found first, in a broader participation of some
external actors to this region and second, to the decrease of activities from countries of the region, mainly due to the worsening of their economic situation as an outcome of lower oil prices added to the realisation that the rebel groups they are helping to fight in
Syria are leaning towards the Al Qaeda ideology and praxis.
Some nations of the Western world took domination of the Middle East from the Ottomans and exercised it for almost a century. They created entities that were modelled on European nation-states. However these entities did not conform to the definition of a nation in a region predominantly Arab and Muslim. And this reality was not taken into account because at the lower level there were tribes, clans and ethnic groups that were divided by new borders.
The leaks by Edward Snowden in 2013 of details of the surveillance by US and allied intelligence agencies of private communications have prompted debate about the relationship between the right to security and the right to privacy, and the controls that should exist on official surveillance of private communications, in particular of communications generated in another state. This EuroDefense paper recommends action to be taken on these issues on the European level, and includes a proposal for enhanced collective defence against cyber threats.
After the revolution five years ago, Tunisia has experienced a political development that could be considered as a model for democratic evolution in many counties where the uprisings started in 2011. However, the spread of protests since mid-January 2016 reveals the depth of its unresolved and festering socioeconomic crisis and exposes how little has changed in the power structures of Tunisia.
In the last months, the fighting of all rebel factions in Syria against Assad’s regime shows that the Government has lost the lead and is giving signs of weakness. In the streets and souks of Alep and Damascus the conversations are about how close looms the end of the Assad dynasty.
Four years after the rebels and NATO air campaign overthrew Kaddafi, the cohesive political entity known as Libya does not exist as such anymore. The Central government is only a name and tribal and different religious factions are struggling for the power and above all to own and manage the country’s oil wealth.
Europe should embark on reasonable development of its space-based facilities by embracing the concept of self sufficiency: this entails the acquisition of assets which are modest compared to American equipment, but which will enable it to verify and analyse data that are sensitive and crucial for decision-taking in the event of a crisis, in accordance with the principle of “autonomous capabilities” which the European Council has endorsed many times over. As far as space-based infrastructure is concerned, Europe should have capabilities that are consistent with the Headline Goal 2010 adopted by the European Union.
