Europe's Summit With Arab League Ends As It Began, Overshadowed By Brexit
SOURCE: FORBES
BY: DOMINIC DUDLEY
The first ever summit between the European Union and the Arab League was meant to be about developing trade ties between the two regions, improving security, reducing unemployment, encouraging cross-border investment and dealing with migration issues.
What the two-day summit in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh was not designed to deal with was the continuing uncertainty over the U.K.’s planned withdrawal from the E.U. However, for European leaders at least, Brexit dominated the agenda.
British prime minister Theresa May travelled to the summit with optimists talking about a “deal in the desert”. There was no breakthrough but over the course of the summit other European leaders found themselves adapting to the chaotic reality of British politics, with an increasing acceptance that Brexit day itself might have to be pushed back from the current date of March 29.
Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, on arriving at the summit, that it would be better to postpone Brexit unless there was a clear breakthrough in Westminster soon. “If there is, at the beginning of March, no support for the deal we have, then I think it would be good to postpone the Brexit,” he told waiting media.
Others echoed that position as the summit drew to a conclusion. European Council President Donald Tusk said “I believe that in this situation we are in, an extension would be a rational solution.”
May continues to insist she can avoid such a scenario, but she is giving herself some room to change tack. “We still have it within our grasp to leave the E.U. with a deal on March 29,” she said at the summit, clearly leaving open the possibility that she might yet seek an extension to the Article 50 process – the legal mechanism under which the U.K. is leaving the E.U.
Crunch votes
May returns to London after the summit facing (yet another) crucial week in parliament. Over the weekend, she made it clear her government would not give parliament another chance to vote on her withdrawal deal until March 12 – just 17 days before the U.K. is due to leave the E.U. That in itself is an implicit sign that nothing has changed since the deal was overwhelmingly rejected by MPs in January.
However, on Wednesday parliament could force a change in the government’s stance. A joint proposal by backbenchers Yvette Cooper of the Labour Party and Oliver Letwin of the Conservatives gives MPs the opportunity to force the government to request an extension to the Article 50 process if no deal has been agreed by March 13.
An alternative amendment offered by Conservative MPs Simon Hart and Andrew Percy would open the way to delaying Brexit day until May 23, which would buy the prime minister a little more time and would avoid the complication of the U.K. having to take part in elections for the European Parliament (which take place over four days, starting on February 23).
Three cabinet ministers – Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke – publicly signaled their willingness to defy the prime minister and vote in favour of the Cooper-Letwin motion in an article for the Daily Mail on February 23. Since then there has been speculation that May might pre-empt the rebellion by announcing she is prepared to ask for an extension to the Article 50 process if that becomes unavoidable. In an interview on BBC Radio 4 on the morning of February 25, Defence minister Tobias Ellwood appeared to hint that could happen, saying “You need to hear what she has to say when she gets back” from the E.U.-Arab League summit.
Others senior figures have privately signaled they think the time has come for more decisive action by May. One government source, speaking off the record prior to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, said “We can’t keep pushing the can down the road… I’m not sure what more can be gained out of the next four weeks.”
If May cannot make real progress this week, the source added that “it is more than possible.. that parliament will pass something that will move control from government to parliament. I don’t really approve of that. I think government should be in charge, but I think that’s a risk.”
The Daily Telegraph claimed on February 25 that the government has been drawing up plans to delay Brexit by two months, although it is unclear if Brussels would accept such a short-term extension. Few in Brussels will have confidence that May can build support for a deal in two months given that she has failed to do so over more than two years. Another media report over the weekend suggested E.U. officials would prefer to delay it until 2021.
Summit stasis
While the U.K. and the E.U. struggled to move forward with the Brexit process at the summit, there was also little sign the summit had done much to advance relations between European and Arab leaders. Expectations had in any case been low given, among other things, the clear differences between the two sides on human rights and divisions within the Arab League bloc.
As a result, the final declaration did little more than repeat well-rehearsed positions on a variety of issues. The most contentious point came when Egypt’s President Abdel el-Sisi was forced into a defence of his government’s atrocious human rights record.
In any case, judging by the representatives attending the event, some Arab countries took it rather less seriously than others.
There were some heads of state, such as King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain, President Barham Salih of Iraq, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia.
However, others opted for more low-key delegations. The UAE team was led by Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, the Ruler of Fujairah – one of seven emirates that make up the UAE and far less powerful than Abu Dhabi or Dubai, whose leaders usually make the running at such events. Qatar (which is locked in a long-running diplomatic dispute with the host Egypt) sent its ambassador to the Arab League, Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al-Sahlawi.
