In Focus: The Eastern Mediterranean

I N F O C US

2021. 2nd Issue ISSN 2677 -111X

The Eastern Mediterranean

Major challenges

Country strategies

Energy landscape

Security issues

IN FOCUS

2021. 2nd Issue ISSN 2677-111X

The Eastern Mediterranean

All rights reserved. Articles found in this publication are the intellectual property of the Antall József Knowledge Centre. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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5

Welcoming Words

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2 Introduction and Interviews 6 The Countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region 8 Egypt, the Largest Country in the Eastern Mediterranean—Interview with HE Péter Kveck Former Ambassador of Hungary to Egypt, Presently Director General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade 14 Israel’s Eastern Mediterranean Strategy— Interview with HE Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, the Ambassador of Israel to Hungary 17 The Situation of Christianity in the Middle East— Interview with State Secretary Tristan Azbej 24

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112 125

6 Antall József Knowledge Centre The Eastern Mediterranean: Between Rivalry and Alliance Building

132 134

7 Authors 135 Guest Authors 135 Authors of AJKC 136

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Country Studies Endgame in Syria? The Dilemmas of Reconstruction Israel’s Strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean Step by Step: Cairo’s Maritime Ambitions and the Build-up of the Egyptian Navy Jordan: In between the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean Threats and Challenges in the Post-Qaddafi Libya Cyprus in the EU: From Integration to Present-Day Challenges and Opportunities Greece: Return to the Eastern Mediterranean Crises and a Search for Reforms in Lebanon

30 32 40

Horizontal Topics The Importance of the Eastern Mediterranean for the Gas Supply Security Endeavours of the European Union Migration in the Eastern Mediterranean— Key Trends and Challenges

TABLE OF CONTENTS

References of Pictures and Used Data

51 57 67 77 87

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96 101

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9 Next Issue

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Interests of External Actors Influencing the Eastern Mediterranean: Where Do the US, Russian, and Chinese Interests Collide?

French Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean

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WELCOMING WORDS

Dear Readers,

Editor’s Note

Although the European Union many times tends to see itself as an island of calm, geopolitical realities have always been springing up on its fringes. These may sometimes seem to be fraught with dangers but can equally create opportunities if scrutinised minutely and understood correctly. One of such hotspots riveting public attention in recent years is the Eastern Mediterranean, a place that joins three vast and powerful continents.

This region poses several risks as a fertile ground for conflicts that can affect the EU both directly, through maritime border disputes involving its member states, and indirectly, through the influx of migrants and refugees, for instance. However, it can also open up a wide scope for action, by having a possible role in Europe’s energy diversification plans and by providing many excellent investment opportunities.

As the region is not likely to wane in importance—on the contrary, it is expected to compel even more attention in the coming years—we decided to dedicate our present issue to some of its timeliest and most challenging questions. We hope that, browsing through the articles and interviews, our readers can stay au courant with the unfolding affairs of this territory and become aware of its importance.

The Eastern Mediterranean is, without a doubt, home to diverse ambitions, fault lines, challenges, and opportunities. This region is not only a geographical meeting point of the Balkans, Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, but it is also a region in which the potential for cooperation and conflicts among and within states exist in parallel and where complex geopolitical and security realities can be identified. The year 2020 was especially eventful, and the Eastern Mediterranean often grabbed the headlines. This also motivated our institution to give the region’s present dynamics a closer look. By publishing this issue, the Antall József Knowledge Centre’s goal is to give a comprehensive insight into the realities of a complex region: we offer interviews with diplomats and many articles aim at bringing the Eastern Mediterranean closer to our readers.

Topics like the dilemmas of the reconstruction in Syria, the internal and external challenges of Libya, the crises and the quest for reforms in Lebanon, or Israel’s strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean are just some of the many others our issue covers.

Tamás Kozma—Editor

Zsombor Szabolcs Pál—Editor-in-Chief

WELCOMING WORDS

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2

INTRODUCTION AND INTERVIEWS

THE COUNTRIES OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

GREECE Mediterranean Sea

LIBYA

Black Sea

TURKEY

CYPRUS SYRIA

LEBANON

ISRAEL

JORDAN

EGYPT

Red Sea

GREECE

OFFICIAL NAME: Hellenic Republic (Greek: Ελληνική Δημοκρατία: Elliniki Dimokratia) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Ymnos eis tin Eleftherian (Greek: Ύμνος εις την Ελευθερίαν lit. "Hymn to Liberty") CAPITAL: Athens (Greek: Αθήνα) AREA: 131,957 km2 GDP: USD 209.85 billion, GDP per capita: USD 19,582 PRIME MINISTER: Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greek: Κυριάκος Μητσοτάκης) OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Greek POPULATION: 10.717 million FORM OF STATE: parliamentary republic

TURKEY

OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) NATIONAL ANTHEM: İstiklal Marșı (lit. “Independence March”) CAPITAL: Ankara AREA: 783,562 km2 GDP: USD 761.42 billion, GDP per capita: USD 9,126 PRESIDENT: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Turkish POPULATION: 83.429 million FORM OF STATE: presidential republic

CYPRUS

OFFICIAL NAME: Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία: Kypriaki Dimokratia, Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Ymnos eis tin Eleftherian (Greek: Ύμνος εις την Ελευθερίαν, lit. “Hymn to Liberty”) CAPITAL: Nicosia (Greek: Λευκωσία Lefkosía, Turkish: Lefkoșa) AREA: 9,251 km2 (of which 3,355 km2 belongs to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Turkey) GDP: USD 24.95 billion, GDP per capita: USD 27,858 PRESIDENT: Nikos Anastasiades (Greek: Νίκος Αναστασιάδης) OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Greek, Turkish POPULATION: 1.198 million FORM OF STATE: presidential republic

SYRIA

OFFICIAL NAME: Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: ‫اﻟﺠﻤﻬﻮر�ﺔ اﻟﻌ���ﺔ اﻟﺴﻮر�ﺔ‬: al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah) National anthem: Ḥumāt ad-Diyār (Arabic: ‫ ﺣﻤﺎة اﻟﺪ�ﺎر‬lit. “Guardians of the Homeland”) ْ CAPITAL: Damascus (Arabic: ‫) ِد َﻣﺸﻖ‬ Area: 187,437 km2 GDP: USD 40.4 billion, GDP per capita: USD 2,032 (data from 2007) َْ ‫ﱠ‬ PRESIDENT: Bashar al-Assad (Arabic: ‫َ)�ﺸﺎر اﻷ َﺳﺪ‬ OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Arabic POPULATION: 17.070 million FORM OF STATE: presidential republic

LEBANON

OFFICIAL NAME: Lebanese Republic (Arabic: ‫اﻟﺠﻤﻬﻮر�ﺔ اﻟﻠﺒﻨﺎﻧ�ﺔ‬: al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Kullunā li-l-waṭan � (Arabic: ‫ �ﻠﻨﺎ ﻟﻠﻮﻃﻦ‬lit. “All of us! For our country”) CAPITAL: Beirut (Arabic: ‫) �ﺑ�وت‬ AREA: 10,400 km2 GDP: USD 51.9 billion, GDP per capita: USD 7,583 PRIME MINISTER: Hassan Diab (Arabic: ‫)ﺣﺴﺎن د�ﺎب‬ OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Arabic POPULATION: 6.855 million FORM OF STATE: parliamentary republic

JORDAN

OFFICIAL NAME: Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (‫اﻟﻤﻤﻠ�ﺔ اﻷردﻧ�ﺔ اﻟﻬﺎﺷﻤ�ﺔ‬: Al-Mamlakah al-’Urdunniyyah Al-Hāshimiyyah) NATIONAL ANTHEM: As-Salām Al-Malakī Al-ʾUrdunī � (Arabic: �‫اﻷرد‬ �‫اﻟﻤﻠ‬ ‫ اﻟﺴﻼم‬lit. “The Royal Anthem of Jordan”) � � CAPITAL: Amman (Arabic: ‫) َﻋ ّﻤﺎن‬ AREA: 89,342 km2 GDP: USD 44.5 billion, GDP per capita: USD 4,405 King: King Abdullah II (Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein; � � � Arabic: �‫اﻟﺤﺴ‬ ‫اﻟﺜﺎ� ﺑﻦ‬ � ‫)ﻋ�ﺪﷲ‬ OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Arabic POPULATION: 10.101 million FORM OF STATE: parliamentary constitutional monarchy

ISRAEL

OFFICIAL NAME: State of Israel (Hebrew: ‫שׂרָ אֵל‬ ְ ִ ‫מדִינ ַת י‬ ְ : Medinat Yisra'el) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Hatikvah (‫תקְו ָה‬ ִּ ‫ה‬ ַ lit. “The Hope”) CAPITAL: Jerusalem (Hebrew: ‫שלַי ִם‬ ָ ׁ ‫) י ְרוּ‬, currently unrecognised by most of the international community AREA: 21,937 km2 GDP: USD 394.6 billion, GDP per capita: USD 43,588 PRIME MINISTER: Benjamin Netanyahu (Hebrew: ‫בּנְיָמִין נְתַנְי ָהוּ‬ ִ ), from 13 June 2021 Naftali Bennett (Hebrew: ‫בּנ ֶט‬ ֶ ‫תלִי‬ ּ ָ ְ‫)נַפ‬ OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Hebrew POPULATION: 9.053 million FORM OF STATE: parliamentary democracy

EGYPT

OFFICIAL NAME: Arab Republic of Egypt (Arabic: ‫ﺟﻤﻬﻮر�ﺔ ﻣ� اﻟﻌ���ﺔ‬: Jumhūrīyat Miṣr al-ʻArabīyah) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Bilady, Bilady, Bilady (Arabic: ‫ �ﻼدي‬،‫ �ﻼدي‬،‫ �ﻼدي‬lit. “My Homeland, My Homeland, My Homeland”) CAPITAL: Cairo (Arabic: ‫)اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة‬ AREA: 1,001,450 km2 GDP: USD 303.1 billion, GDP per capita: USD 3,019 PRESIDENT: Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi � � (Arabic: ��‫اﻟﺴ‬ ‫ﺣﺴ� ﺧﻠ�ﻞ‬ ‫)ﻋ�ﺪ اﻟﻔﺘﺎح ﺳﻌ�ﺪ‬ � OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Arabic POPULATION: 100.388 million FORM OF STATE: presidential republic

LIBYA

OFFICIAL NAME: State of Libya (Arabic: ‫دوﻟﺔ ﻟﻴ��ﺎ‬: Dawlat Lībiyā) NATIONAL ANTHEM: Libya, Libya, Libya (Arabic: ‫) ﻟﻴ��ﺎ ﻟﻴ��ﺎ ﻟﻴ��ﺎ‬ CAPITAL: Tripoli (Arabic: ‫)ﻃﺮا�ﻠﺲ‬ AREA: 1,759,540 km2 GDP: USD 52.09 billion, GDP per capita: USD 7,685 PRIME MINISTER: Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba (Arabic: ‫)ﻋ�ﺪ اﻟﺤﻤ�ﺪ اﻟﺪﺑ��ﺔ‬ OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Arabic POPULATION: 6.855 million FORM OF STATE: interim government

AREA (KM2, 2020)*

GDP AND GDP PER CAPITA (CURRENT USD, 2019, EXCEPT SYRIA: 2007)** 1,759,540

GDP (USD billion) $

303.10

$ 1,001,450

$

783,562

761.42 394.65

$

209.85

$

52.09

$

51.99

$

44.50

$

40.40

$

24.95

GDP per capita $

187,437 $

131,957

27,858

$

19,582 9,126

$

89,342 21,937 10,400 9,251

$

7,685

$

7,583

$

4,405

$

3,019

$

2,032

POPULATION (MILLION, 2019)**

1.198

6.855

Greece

6.855

Turkey

Cyprus

9.053

Syria

10.101

Lebanon

43,588

10.717

Jordan

* The World Factbook ** World Bank

17.07

Israel

83.429

Egypt

100.388

Libya

EGYPT, THE LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN—INTERVIEW WITH HE PÉTER KVECK FORMER AMBASSADOR OF HUNGARY TO EGYPT, PRESENTLY DIRECTOR GENERAL AT THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE

Lukács Krajcsír, February 2021, Budapest we work together. Besides, Egypt is an ancient civilisation, a fascinating, vibrant country that offers a lot to explore and to discover. Moreover, Egyptians are very warm-hearted, friendly, and open people, similarly to Hungarians.

Your Excellency, first of all, can you tell us a few words about your diplomatic career?

What attracts you the most in Egypt?

Becoming a diplomat has been my dream since my early youth. Learning about other countries, cultures, and peoples, communicating with them in their languages, and serving my country at the same time have always attracted me very much. Diplomacy to me is not only my work but also my hobby and passion. I have been a Hungarian diplomat for more than two decades, and it makes me very proud.

Concerning Egypt, I would say it is a country of opportunities for Hungary in terms of political, business, and cultural cooperation. There are many areas where both countries can benefit if 14

INTERVIEWS

Egypt is marking the 10th anniversary of the 2011 revolution in January. As an ambassador, what were your experiences about the “Arab Spring”? What kind of challenges did Hungarian diplomacy face back then? Has the revolution changed the life of Egyptians?

To be honest, I do not like the term “Arab Spring,” nor do Egyptians, by the way. There were certainly legitimate aspirations for a better life and democracy. Unfortunately, these noble and understandable wishes were very soon misused by some extremist forces to follow their own political agenda and the country fell into chaos and disorder. The revolution of 2013 corrected the wrong course and put the country back on track and helped it return to its natural development. Hungarian diplomacy took the right decision at the right time. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the first European leader who congratulated President Sisi on his electoral victory in 2014 and who invited him to pay an official visit to his country. This visit took place in 2015. The Hungarian–Egyptian relations have been on a fast-track development since then.

In 2020, a completely new problem arose in the world: the COVID-19 virus. How

deeply has the pandemic affected Egypt’s society? What measures did the Egyptian government take? What are the economic and social consequences of COVID-19 in the country?

Egypt, just as many other countries in the world, has been seriously hit by COVID-19, although the numbers are still relatively low in proportion to the population. It is the tourism industry that has particularly been suffering from the negative impacts of the pandemic, the sector that gives about 13% of the country’s GDP. Nevertheless, the Egyptian government and society have been dealing with the situation in a responsible way, although the loss of revenues created serious difficulties for many citizens and companies.

For Egypt, many challenges come from outside the country’s borders, too. Can you tell us about these and how they affect the country’s relations with other regional states?

Egypt became an island of stability in an increasingly volatile region. If we look at the situation in Libya or Sudan, we can imagine the difficulties that Egypt needs to face in order to tackle the influx of terrorism, illegal migration, and other kinds of organised crime. Cairo is also using its regional influence to deal with these challenges, particularly in organisations such as the Arab League or the African Union.

Furthermore, Egypt as an honest broker is very active in all kinds of regional groups and initiatives aimed at stabilising the situation in Libya and Sudan.

Is there any cooperation between Egypt and the European Union? Are there any common efforts to reduce the migration pressure?

Egypt has had an association agreement with the European Union since 2004. Cairo is an active member of the Union for the Mediterranean, the forum of cooperation between the EU and the countries of its southern neighbourhood. Egypt is the main trading partner of the EU in the whole Southern Mediterranean region. The EU–Egypt trade volume has doubled since 2004, and

HUNGARIAN DIPLOMACY TOOK THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE RIGHT TIME. PRIME MINISTER VIKTOR ORBÁN WAS THE FIRST EUROPEAN LEADER WHO CONGRATULATED PRESIDENT SISI ON HIS ELECTORAL VICTORY IN 2014 AND WHO INVITED HIM TO PAY AN OFFICIAL VISIT TO HIS COUNTRY. it reached EUR 27.3 billion by 2019. Hungary is a strong supporter of strengthening the cooperation between Egypt and the EU. We are convinced that Egypt is a major ally of Europe in keeping the MENA region stable and in fighting against terrorism and illegal migration, and the EU should acknowledge this fact, as well.

Do you find it realistic that the Central European nations can improve their relations with Egypt through the Visegrad Group, or do our countries prefer bilateral cooperation with Cairo?

The Visegrad Group established close cooperation with Egypt several years ago. We started at the political director’s level, and, later INTERVIEWS

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on, we upgraded it to the ministerial level. Prime Minister Orbán hosted the first V4–Egypt summit in Budapest in 2017, when Hungary was holding the rotating presidency of the group. I think the V4 countries and Egypt are natural partners to each other. They have similar views on many important international affairs, and they can support each other when it comes to strengthening regional cooperation in Europe or the MENA region. The V4 countries have a deep understanding of the situation in Egypt, they respect the legitimate decision of the Egyptian people to choose their own way of development, and they do not have any hidden political agenda. All these constitute a strong basis for building a long-standing and comprehensive strategic partnership between Egypt and the V4 countries.

It has always been an important goal in Egypt to play a central role in the Arab world. Against this backdrop, did Cairo support Hungary in any way when Budapest was trying to tighten its relations with other Arab countries or when Budapest was looking for economic opportunities in the region?

Egypt has been giving us its full support in all these matters. Hungarian diplomacy can rely on Egypt’s contacts and expertise both in Africa and the Arab world. There are regular political consultations between the two countries, and Hungary has been profiting a lot by using this opportunity.

Talking about bilateral relations, what are the main results of the Hungarian–Egyptian economic and trade cooperation?

I think the crown diamond of our cooperation is the railway project effective since April 2020.

Hungary, in cooperation with Russia, provides 1,300 railway wagons for Egypt at a value of over one billion euros, which has been the biggest-ever purchase by Egyptian National Railways since its establishment in 1854 and the biggest-ever export deal between Hungary and Egypt. Besides that, we have many promising projects in water treatment, renewable energy, and agriculture, among others.

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INTERVIEWS

The Hungarian Scientific and Cultural Centre has for decades been working in Cairo. How strong are the cultural relations between the two countries? Are there many Hungarians studying in Egypt, and vice versa?

Cultural cooperation has always been a strong component of our bilateral ties with Egypt. The Hungarian Cultural Institute has been working since the mid-1970s, and it has played a major role in creating a positive picture in the Egyptians’ minds about Hungary. Cairo’s Ain Shams University is the only place in the Arab world and Africa to teach Hungarian language and literature. Many interesting cultural programmes took place in the past years. It makes me proud, for example, that we managed to organise a big concert in the prestigious Cairo Opera House with the title “Viva Hungaria” to commemorate the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. Hungary has been offering one hundred scholarships per year to Egyptian students since 2015, and many Hungarian students go to Egypt to study the Arabic language or archaeology, for example.

According to your opinion, what are the prospects of Egyptian–Hungarian relations?

In which fields can Budapest provide useful assistance for Cairo?

Hungarian–Egyptian relations have positive prospects in all fields. Political ties between our countries are excellent. There is very good chemistry between the top leadership of our countries. We have many joint projects in the pipeline the implementation of which will further strengthen our comprehensive cooperation.

ISRAEL’S EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN STRATEGY— INTERVIEW WITH HE YACOV HADAS-HANDELSMAN, THE AMBASSADOR OF ISRAEL TO HUNGARY Zsolt Csepregi, 20 January 2021, Budapest

Your Excellency, let us start with a broad question. How do you see Israel’s position as both an Eastern Mediterranean and a Middle Eastern state? How can these two aspects complement each other? And where do they collide if they collide at all?

Well, first of all, Israel is not the only country that could be described as having one leg here and one leg there. The Eastern Mediterranean has gained additional importance in recent years, and some of its importance stems from its connection to the Middle East. What do I mean by this? We have been witnessing the ongoing civil war in Syria, where, in order to prevent Assad’s regime from being destroyed by ISIS and all the other rebels, the Russians returned to the region. In some sense, they have returned with greater military capacity than they used to have there during the Cold War, and, now, they are in control of this area.

Then, you have the gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean: a financial bonanza and an energy resource which is also a solution to the problem of climate change—or, at least, a partial one because, while being a fossil material, gas is still less contaminating than oil or, of course, coal. This is also why the area has gained more importance than it used to have before.

In my interpretation, Israel’s position has in recent years improved. It has happened so because we have been the first to extract the gas deposits. Apart from Egypt, of course, as they have been dealing with offshore gas for years but mainly in the western side of the region near the Alexandria area. Israel is economically better off today because we have started to develop our fields, and we have been swift to utilise them, so the Israeli economy can now switch rapidly from all kinds of energy sources to either renewable energy or, at least, energy extracted from natural gas.

Israel’s position has also changed significantly in light of the so-called Arab Spring, which was, of course, not an “Arab Spring.” I have to mention that it was very depressing to watch on television recently that people in Tunisia or Libya are missing Ben Ali or Qaddafi.

In this complex region, Israel is like a huge lighthouse in the middle of a stormy ocean where you can find shelter. One just has to look at the process of Israel’s normalising or, in some cases, renormalising its relations with the states of the Gulf and North Africa. It has not just come out of a void. It is the result of the changes in a world where the Arab countries understand that, on the one hand, the US is not that interested in being the world’s police anymore, and, on the other hand, the “bad guys” are still on the march. By INTERVIEWS

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THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN HAS GAINED ADDITIONAL IMPORTANCE IN RECENT YEARS, AND SOME OF ITS IMPORTANCE STEMS FROM ITS CONNECTION TO THE MIDDLE EAST. “bad guys,” I mean mainly Iran in this region. And you have, of course, unexpected developments like the coronavirus pandemic, which leaves many countries and communities helpless, as they do not know what to do.

Meanwhile, there is no progress in the Palestinian–Israeli track. However, people feel now a bigger need to deal with daily life.

Primarily, you need to look for something to bring home, food to feed your family. Therefore, many people in the region say, “Look at the Israelis there, in the midst of us. They have a western country.” I am not even mentioning that we are a democracy but that we are a western country.

They say, “Israel is a start-up nation.” The Arab states have actually been cooperating with Israel under the table for many years. I can tell you this by first-hand experience: I was part of this because I was the director of the Middle East and Peace Process Division at the ministry, in Jerusalem, for almost six years.

Having served as the head of the Israeli office in Qatar, I think that it is about time we bring our relations with the Arab countries out into the open. We are not a “mistress” anymore, we are ready to come out of the closet and say, “Yes, we 18

INTERVIEWS

are in love.” The matchmaker was Donald Trump with his ideas and with the “deal of the century.”

Some Arab leaders asked, “What are we waiting for? Why can we not cooperate with Israel? Why can we not talk to Israel? Why can we not work with Israel? It is for our mutual benefit. The Israelis get what they want, and we get what we want.”

From their point of view, they will tell the Israelis and the World that the Palestinian issue is still there. Yes, it is there. However, the major change now is that, for the first time, the Palestinians were practically denied their virtual veto right, as they could claim for many years: “If you want to cooperate with Israel, you have to get the seal of approval from us because the Israelis are only interested in normalisation and they do not want to deal with the territorial problems and give us a state. If you give something to Israel, they will not give us a state.”

I think the European Union is the only one that does not understand this ongoing new process, because, for it, the old paradigm regarding the peace process is still there. The tension between Israel and the Union did not start under Netanyahu because of this or that policy. It started when we were in the midst of the Annapolis Process, in 2008. I was there, so I know it. During this process, the European Union wanted to upgrade Israel’s position not only as a token of appreciation, but also because achieving closer relations with Israel would suit the European Union. However, the European Union has other, politically motivated intentions in mind, and it checks you, tests you, and treats you according to your merits. If you are good by their standards, they let you cooperate, but, if you are not good enough, they say “So what should we cooperate on? We will not take you into our scientific and research programme Horizon 2020.” In 2008, the European Union wanted to upgrade Israel’s position to something unique, but the Palestinians and the Egyptians stopped the process. They convinced the EU that, if they upgraded the relations with Israel, it would discourage the Israelis from completing the peace process. Now, the peace process remains locked in stalemate, and this is not our fault. Ehud Olmert was like Ehud Barak, he

offered everything to achieve peace with the Palestinians, and they rejected even this offer.

People saw this, and they were almost ready to ask: “OK, but why? Why do we have to put up with it? Enough is enough.” So this is a new era, you see a new era of cooperation. And we have a win-win situation here.

As I have said, Israel is a lighthouse in this stormy water of the Middle East, and this fact is even becoming much more relevant today.

Israel’s position, therefore, improved, but, naturally, we should not sit idle and say, “We do not have to do anything now.” Another reason for the importance of this region today is Turkey and Turkish policy. It does not matter whether you like or dislike these policies. Turkey is a major factor that you have to take into consideration now in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the Middle East.

Only a last thought about this question. You know, in Arabic, and especially in Egypt, there is an expression. Former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who is the secretary general of the Arab League today, always refers to the Middle East as the Arab Middle East. Why is that?

Because, in the Middle East, all countries are Arab except for three: Iran, which is Muslim but Shiite, not Arab, Turkey, which is Sunni, but not Arab, and Israel, which is none of the above. We are like a fish bone stuck in your throat. However, the Arabs know that we do not have any aspirations to dominate the Middle East. In the propaganda, people might say otherwise, but they know it is not true. You cannot say the same about Iran and Turkey. Iran is not an Eastern Mediterranean country, but Turkey is. It is not for nothing that relations between Turkey and Egypt have been so strained since the Arab Spring. The relations were strained even under Mohamed Morsi but for a different reason, because Erdoğan tried to lecture him. He went there for a visit, and he told him, “Listen, there is no contradiction between Islam and modernisation. Just take the Turkish example.” And the Egyptians told him, “You can go home, we do not need your advice. Who are you?” And here you can see that it all comes down to the issue that Arabs think Muslims who are not Arabs are inferior.

The Eastern Mediterranean has gained a lot of importance in recent years. Each of its countries has important factors and trends, like Libya and its instability, then Egypt with its hardships, but Egypt, of course, also controls a very significant international gateway, the Suez Canal. Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus all are very important. And as I said, currently it is not less important what is under than what is over the water. The undersea natural gas deposits are the wealth of the region, and, by the way, they are also the wealth of Europe. Why is that? Because it is an alternative supply channel, which means that you, even Hungary, will be in a better position to bargain for a lower price per unit of natural gas, which means that, at the end of the day, you will pay less for your heating bill.

You mentioned the European Union, and you also mentioned old-new friends in the Arab world. However, Israel also has new friends in the Eastern Mediterranean part of the European Union: Greece and Cyprus.

How do you see the partnership between these states and Israel? Does it only focus on the economy? We have recently seen that Israel and Greece also signed military agreements. What potential do you see in this cooperation?

First of all, let me correct some things to be accurate. The thing you have referred to is not a military agreement, it is a contract. It is a major contract for modernising the Greek training aircraft and the connected capabilities, worth USD 1.8 billion. It is not a military pact between Israel and Greece. Regardless, we have everything for a comprehensive partnership, including economic cooperation. Israel and Cyprus have gas resources. Cyprus is connected to Greece, which serves as a major hub and a terminal for gas transit. Through Greece, as it is located on mainland Europe, the road to Budapest, for example, is open, so Hungary also has an interest in this connectivity.

The cooperation, however, is not limited only to this economic partnership. It is gradually extending to all domains, which is natural, as we are neighbours with Greece and Cyprus.

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Similarly, we also cooperate very closely with the Egyptians when it comes to security. We see things eye to eye because the Egyptians and President Sisi understand exactly what the threatening potential of terrorism is in the Sinai Peninsula and the rest of the country. Let us not forget that Egypt, at a certain stage, declared Hamas to be a terrorist organisation. They did it because they were more than convinced that Hamas had been cooperating with Daesh, with ISIS, and other extreme groups in the Sinai Peninsula. The nature of the relations between Egypt and Iran also shows that they are perfectly aware of the reality. I know that, in the end, it comes down to politics, which means that sometimes you turn a blind eye, and sometimes you do not. You have to make a compromise.

A compromise does not mean that I change my mind on you. At the end of the day, there are many shared interests between Israel and Egypt.

Talking about Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece, they also have their own triangle focussing on the economy, trade, and Turkey.

Finally, everyone is alarmed by the Russians, as the Americans are not happy with their current geopolitical actions. We have lots of operations in Syria, so we must coordinate them together all the time in order not to have an accident.

We had one once, and even that one was too painful, although it was not us who caused this tragedy. A Russian military transport aircraft was shot down by a Syrian missile, as Israeli jets were operating somewhere there. The Syrians missed the target. Many Russian soldiers were killed; it was a catastrophe.

Apart from Greece and Cyprus, we see that Italy, France, and many other countries are also active in the region. Do you think that the European Union can have a new role in the Eastern Mediterranean? How can Central Europe contribute to a more cooperative Mediterranean neighbourhood?

First of all, of course, Europe has an interest in this, an economic interest—and also a political one—because nobody wants instability. Stability is important for everyone and especially for Europe these days. Second, Europe has two 20

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member states in this area, which are Greece and Cyprus. Cyprus is occupied by Turkey; 3040% of its territory is controlled by Turkey, a state not belonging to the European Union. Then, there are further EU member states in the outer circle but still in the region: Malta, Bulgaria, and Romania. Therefore, the EU has an interest in the region; it has an interest because Europe needs to secure its energy sources, and the supply routes and some of the pipelines come through Turkey to Europe, while new energy resources will come to Europe from the deep sea.

Now, if you ask me about the role of the V4, let me tell you that, first of all, what we witness today in the European Union is a crystallisation of small alliances and small blocks. It is natural that this happens because each block has common interests. Hungary’s interests are much closer to the interests of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and maybe even Austria. In the end, there is no common European foreign policy stance, there are only compromises. Such an example was the Palestinians’ application to become a member of UNESCO. We, the Israelis, lobbied against it in the EU, and, regardless of the position of some of the member states due to French pressure, the EU abstained during the vote instead of voting “no.” At the end of the day, the most important matters on the EU’s agenda are the daily, relevant topics, first and foremost economic questions, and not necessarily foreign policy issues. The European Union is the single biggest trade market in the world, an economic giant, which is the greatest asset it has.

Condemning Israel for some of our government’s decisions like a bid for additional 800 housing units in East Jerusalem or some similar matters is not the real issue for the EU. The European Union has an interest in the region, and, as I said, this interest is mainly economic, but there is also a political aspect to be considered, because some member states of the European Union are located in the Eastern Mediterranean. I will just mention that one can only imagine where Greece and Cyprus would be today without the European Union. If it had not been important for the Germans, both countries would have gone bankrupt five years ago, but

the necessary funds were pumped into Greece under the leadership of Merkel. The Greeks benefitted from their EU membership, but, again, Merkel did not do it only because she loves the Greeks. She did it out of interest because, if Greece had fallen over the cliff, it would have dragged Germany and others with it. Therefore, Merkel was ready to give the Greeks more money so it could recover and settle the account later. This is a kind of mutual responsibility and group work. That is why they have invested a lot in Greece. And they do not want to lose their investment.

So this is the long answer to the question what the role of Europe is in the region. It has a significant role, but the problem is that, as in many other cases, it focusses its activities on the wrong aspects. Do not try to educate everyone, because it will not work. Try to cooperate with everyone, and then you can get, in my humble opinion, the same result but in a different manner.

Your answer leads us to my last question.

It might be a bit of science fiction; still, the European Union always insists on creating regional frameworks and regional cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

There were very positive signs coming from the Israeli–Lebanese indirect negotiations.

How do you see, can the Eastern Mediterranean benefit from overcoming the conflicts it used to face and from having some kind of regional cooperation beyond what you have already mentioned? Certain triangles have already emerged in the region.

First, regarding the Lebanese–Israeli rapproche­ ment, I must tell you it is stuck again. It is like dancing what I would call a “reverse tango”: tango is two steps forward, one step back. In this case, it is always one step forward, two steps back, or, at least, sideways, and not towards a solution. However, the main reason why the Lebanese agreed was the economy, as Lebanon is bankrupt. It is not for nothing that you also have all these demonstrations against Hezbollah. The Lebanese are fed up

IN THIS COMPLEX REGION, ISRAEL IS LIKE A HUGE LIGHTHOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STORMY OCEAN. with their situation. Hezbollah has exhausted the country, and it has taken the whole country hostage. However, the last straw that broke the camel’s back was what happened in the port of Beirut several months ago, that catastrophe.

It was a disaster bound to happen. Hezbollah, which controls the port, has its own interests.

They kept dangerous materials there, and they exploded. So this is for one thing. For another, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, got mixed up in this confusion during the Syrian Civil War. His Iranian masters ordered him to help Assad and the Syrian army, or what was left of it, through Hezbollah, along with Iranian soldiers, mainly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Afghan and Iraqi militias. We made sure that they could not move. Nobody knows exactly how many but at least hundreds of Hezbollah members were killed and thousands were injured. They suffered heavy losses. And people in the 21st century start asking questions even in dictatorships.

They say, “I am ready to accept that my son will sacrifice his life to fight the Zionist infidels, but I am not ready to accept that my son will sacrifice his life, fighting for Assad against whoever he is fighting.” This is why Nasrallah finds the current situation very difficult.

Now, Nasrallah can say that he has 100,000 missiles and he is working on developing their accuracy, but the equipment needed for this work, for some reason or another, is bombed from the sky all the time. We are now almost fifteen years after the Second Lebanon War. I INTERVIEWS

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THE EU HAS AN INTEREST IN THE REGION; IT HAS AN INTEREST BECAUSE EUROPE NEEDS TO SECURE ITS ENERGY SOURCES. can still remember that day when the war broke out, I was in charge of the Middle East, and I ran the situation room during this war in the ministry from 12 July 2006. Now, in half a year, on 12 July 2021, it will be the fifteenth anniversary of the day when the war broke out. Where has Nasrallah lived since then? He now lives in the gutters somewhere. He does not live like us. He remembers, he knows very well what happened fifteen years ago and what can happen again.

And he is in dire straits because his Iranian masters are pushing him in one direction, while he is in Lebanon, and he understands that there is a limit. He is like a lemon: the Iranians keep on squeezing him, but, in the end, they squeeze every last drop from him, and nothing more comes after that drop. And he is getting there now. So the Lebanese agreed at the end of 2020 to indirect negotiations with Israel mediated by the UN and the US in an attempt to settle the line of the maritime borders. There are three or four internationally recognised methods to measure boundaries, and surface boundaries and maritime boundaries are not always the same. Why does this matter? Because there are a number of legitimate solutions, but the involved parties, Israel and Lebanon, have to agree on something. However, we have already been extracting natural gas there, and they have not. We do not extract directly from the disputed area, but the Lebanese do not recognise political boundaries; they recognise geological 22

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boundaries. So when we pump gas out of the sea, the gas sometimes comes from their part to our part. This is what bothers them, and it bothers them rightfully. The Lebanese are ready to negotiate because they need money. They badly need money. And this condition promotes a kind of regional partnership.

Concerning regional cooperation, we are in favour of it because we think that, first of all, we can help others. It is not that we want to patronise anyone. We treat everybody as an equal party, and we are ready to help, especially in agriculture and water management. We are a very developed country, and we can help and cooperate, and not only on this. We are there, we know the climate, we know the people, we know the culture. So can regional cooperation work? The paradox is that cooperation can work between Israel and Arab countries much more than between Arab countries themselves, and that is for two reasons. First of all, Israel does not have the barriers between its country and any other Arab countries that other Arab countries have between them. Look at the rivalries between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. When I was the head of our trade office in Qatar between 2001 and 2003, there was no Saudi ambassador there, just like currently there is none. So when at the beginning of 2021 the Americans managed to square the circle and to facilitate a kind of reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar it seemed that the Saudis were going to send an ambassador to Qatar, and Qatar was going to send an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. And hearing this, I said I was having déjà vu. You see, when I was there, Al Jazeera and everybody was talking about that the Israeli were there, while the Saudi were not.

You know the Qataris are traitors according to some other Arab countries. In a way, Saudi Arabia and Israel have much more in common than Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It is not that they do not have common issues to cooperate on, but they have a significant barrier between them.

Let me tell you another personal example.

In the autumn of 1993, I was the counsellor at our embassy in London. It was after the

Oslo Accords, the big euphoria, when, on 13 September 1993, late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli minister of foreign affairs Shimon Peres were standing with the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Yasser Arafat and signed the agreement. Everybody was talking about a new Middle East, the vision of Peres, and cooperation. Then, there was a one-day seminar organised in London by the European Commission about the prospects of peace in the Middle East. And the person who was at the time the director of the directorate general, which dealt with external relations and with the European neighbourhood, poured cold water on our enthusiasm. We were passionate about the new prospects, but he dampened our enthusiasm. He looked at me and said: “There will not be any cooperation.” And what was the reason for that? It was not politics or prejudice, nothing like that. The reason for it was the fact that, at the time, only 7% of the Arab trade was conducted in the region. I talk about 1993. I am sure that the figures have changed, but, unfortunately, I do not think that they have changed drastically. The majority of Arab trade happens with external markets. They trade with Europe. At that time, only 7% of the total trade was among themselves. He also said at the time that the only thing the Arab countries could offer was energy. And energy works in a way that the Saudis will not sell oil to Algeria, and vice versa, because they have their own resources for their own consumption. They give some donations to poor brothers like Jordan or Mauritania, but the rest goes to Europe, the United States, China, or whoever is ready to pay more. They do not have anything else to sell.

So I do not know whether one could expect effective cooperation among Arab countries.

There is Egyptian–Greek cooperation, but what about an Egyptian–Libyan or Egyptian– Sudanese one? Other parties which could be involved in greater cooperation with the Arab countries could be either Israel or Europe. But do not try to teach the Arab countries what is best for them. Even if you know better, and sometimes we do know better, they have their dignity. They have their pride, and, even if they

make their own mistakes sometimes, let them make their own mistakes because those are their mistakes and they will learn from them. However, they have a different culture, and sometimes it is going backwards. It does not matter whether we agree with it, or not. It does not matter whether it matches your democratic standards, but you have to understand the cultural differences.

Actually, you, in Hungary should understand it better than others because sometimes you also face this situation at your meetings with your fellow members in the European Union. There are lots of differences you have to respect, and it is a long process to learn how to respect them.

It takes a long time because everyone has their own tradition, their own culture, and you have to understand this.

Now, to answer your question, I think that, today, in the era of globalisation, our future and our welfare depend on cooperation. You cannot do things on your own. The boundaries have shrunk, and the world has become a global village, so there is no doubt that the future lies in regional cooperation. It can help to save raw material, money, reduce expenses—and we have not even touched the issue of climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, which are gaining more and more weight because of overpopulation or other reasons.

This pandemic we face now is a great example: with today’s technological advances you can fly to the Moon, but then one virus or a minor change in the worldwide precipitation regime can cause everything to come to a standstill.

There are people who tell you that it is another proof of God, while others tell you it is nature.

At any rate, it shows how small we are and to what extent our plans and visions could be disrupted by something unexpected. Therefore, I believe that, today, more than ever, the future lies in regional cooperation. You cannot stand on your own, and this also refers back to your first question, because this is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that motivates these countries, especially in the Gulf, to come out of the closet and openly cooperate with Israel. They need us, and we also need them geo-strategically and economically.

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THE SITUATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST—INTERVIEW WITH STATE SECRETARY TRISTAN AZBEJ Tamás Kozma–Zsombor Szabolcs Pál, 14 January 2021, Budapest

As a State Secretary, you are tasked with coordinating Hungarian aid programmes aimed at helping persecuted Christians all around the world. Could you sum up your activities and the main principles of the Hungarian government’s humanitarian efforts? What can a small country like Hungary do for the millions of persecuted Christians all around the world?

The Hungary Helps programme is Hungary’s international aid programme that has been running under this name since the beginning of 2017. As Hungary is an emerging donor in terms of international aid, it became important to set a solid framework for the government’s international aid activity within the state structure.

A few decades ago, Hungary was on the receiving end of aid, but we have since stepped up our share in international solidarity. Now, what makes a notable difference between the Hungarian 24

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international aid activity and many other national or international aid programmes is that we were the first to recognise the extent of Christian persecution in the world. We found that it was not only one of the most pressing human rights crises of our age but also the least addressed one. We also think that this situation, the lack of freedom of religion and belief, which makes it difficult for Christians around the world to follow their religion, is also connected to humanitarian crises in many instances. For example, in the Middle East, it was quite well known that ISIS carried out genocide and mass atrocities based on religious intolerance and religious hatred against the Yazidis, Christians, and other faith groups which created a humanitarian crisis that was very specific to those groups who were attacked or oppressed because of their religious identity.

Christians are the most persecuted belief group across the globe: we have just received statistical data showing that 340 million Christians are persecuted or discriminated around the world for their faith. That is why we have become committed to dealing with this issue on a governmental and, more importantly, on an international level. Therefore, the Hungarian government decided to identify aiding persecuted Christians as one of the key priorities of its international aid policy. There is a common misunderstanding that Hungary Helps means aiding persecuted Christians.

Through its programme, Hungary does not help Christians exclusively; that would not be consistent with Christian values. However, our support for persecuted Christians is explicit— non-exclusive, but explicit. Moreover, for this programme, the Hungarian government set up a dedicated department that has the term “aid for

persecuted Christians” in its title—we were the first government to dedicate a governmental unit to this overwhelming global phenomenon. During the last four years up until now, when we are making this interview, we started eighty-five aid projects in more than thirty countries, and the total number of our persecuted Christian beneficiaries has just exceeded one hundred thousand.

This means that, through humanitarian aid, rehabilitation aid, and educational programmes, we have contributed to more than one hundred thousand discriminated or persecuted Christians and members of a few other religious groups.

Our support gave them the opportunity to be able to remain in their ancestral homelands or, in many cases, return to their homelands from migration or from refugee status.

You started your career in diplomacy in the Middle East and have had various trips there as the responsible for the Hungary Helps programme. How do you see the situation of Christians in this region, and where are their communities most at risk? Where do they have the most supportive circumstances?

As you have mentioned, I spent four years in diplomatic service in Israel, and it gave me personal experience on the complex social structure and history of the Middle East, and the different attempts, success stories, and failures of people from various ethnic or faith backgrounds, living together in such a patchwork of cultures, traditions, languages, and ethnicities. That was my first encounter with the different groups of Middle Eastern Christians.

Today, one of the greatest assets that we have at this state secretariat is that we have a widespread, lively, and direct contact with Christian churches in the Middle East, Africa, and some other parts of the world. This way, we can form a good, clear, and detailed picture of their situation. Based on that, I can say that Christians and other Muslim denominations—the latter being usually in majority—found a stable way to live together over the centuries. What has changed this modus vivendi was the appearance of a modern political ideology: political Islamism.

It is not always well known that political Islamism

is not an ancient tradition, as it started, some would say, around the 1970s, and its political beliefs are based on the perverted religious theses of some more radical Islamist theologians. And, since the Middle East has always been fraught with tense political and ethnic conflicts, the quasi-state-like organisation ISIS’s appearance in the region ignited something that resulted in armed conflicts and destabilisation almost to the extent of genocide. What we see when we look at the conflict in Syria and Iraq is that today, with the collapse of ISIS as a quasi-state-like entity, the situation of Christians is not as severe as it was before.

However, Christians are a minority everywhere except for Lebanon, where they make up a significant portion of society. It is almost a historical cliché that, whenever there is conflict, minorities usually suffer more than the majority population. Now, we saw what happened in the Middle East in the near past. What is more, statistics show an absolutely tragic tendency among Christian communities in the region. One example is Syria, where the number of Christians was 2.3 million only a decade ago. However, even the most optimistic estimates say that they hardly reach one million today. The more realistic and pessimistic estimates, on the other hand, say that there are only about 800,000 Christians left in Syria. In Iraq, the situation is even more dramatic. According to the statistics, the number of Christians before the 2004 war in Iraq was 1.5 million. Today, this number is dramatically low, around 200,000. It is less than one-fifth of the number they had there one and a half decades ago. Some people would think that Christianity may have had a short-lived presence in the Middle East, but the truth is that Middle Eastern Christian communities are among the most ancient groups in which all Christian civilisation is rooted, and they have been present in this region for two thousand years. They have not just survived two thousand years there but even flourished. There is, however, a dramatic tendency that suggests, if there is no international collaboration or intention to save the Christians of the Middle East, they will disappear—first in Iraq within a very few years or, at best, within our INTERVIEWS

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lifetime. We are talking about a 200,000-strong Christian group that has survived two millennia and is now disappearing within our lifetime. I think that would be a true shame on our generation and the international community if we could not save these Christians. If they are not saved, then they will have the same fate as, for example, the historical Jewish community had in Iraq. They were a strong group back in the past, but today, they are almost gone.

That is the situation in Iraq and Syria, but there is also Lebanon, which could be regarded as the last bastion of Christianity in the Middle East.

There are no sectarian groups oppressing or persecuting Christians in Lebanon. However, the many different types of crises in that country can easily cause the Christian population to reduce— its members can choose to migrate elsewhere because of their high level of education and the lack of perspective in the country. On the other hand, there are other cases, for instance, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, where Christians are treated as an equal part of society: they are respected, and their human rights are protected.

What forms of hardships do Christians need to face in the region? Is there any difference between different Christian denominations?

Does violence against them come mainly from the state and authorities or from nonstate actors and the wider society?

Our approach to support Christians is that we try to meet their needs. Some international aid programmes commit the mistake that they try to be smarter than the people they support. They follow their own agenda instead of listening closely to the actual community they try to support. We work the other way round. We go to the site, and we ask the representatives of the community about how we can help. And they generally answer, “Provide us aid and support so we may be able to remain in our homeland.” Christian communities are usually the last ones to migrate from a crisis-hit zone because, most of the time, they are patriotic, and they feel a special responsibility towards their wider community, including people of other faiths and other communities they live together 26

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with. That comes from the Christian world view and from how Christians think about a person’s responsibilities. However, to help them remain in their societies and homelands, we need to secure three things, that is, their lives, their homes, and their livelihood.

When I say, “secure their lives,” I mean it literally because they have suffered armed conflicts, violent persecution, and even genocide.

Therefore, within the Hungary Helps programme, one type of the aid we provide is humanitarian fast relief after terrorist attacks or other armed crises. Secondly, they need help to secure the places where they live. This means that there has been a tremendous loss in infrastructure in Syria or in some other countries such as Lebanon, where the economic and financial crisis impaired the maintenance of infrastructure and social services. Therefore, we support the rehabilitation of these communities’ infrastructure, educational and healthcare institutions, and even churches because that is what they need. Thirdly, they need help to secure their livelihood. Christians in the Middle East have always contributed to their communities and to the economy to a great degree. They are well educated, so they are present in trade, industry, and other important areas. However, because they had to flee and because of the war, they have lost their livelihood. Consequently, they also need support in economic rehabilitation. Finally, there is a special need that we have also recognised.

In some cases, the local Christian youth has limited access to higher education. That is why we offer them scholarship programmes at Hungarian universities with the aim that they come here, study at our institutions, and, after graduation, they return to their communities and help rebuild them.

Now, let me come back to your question if there is any difference between denominations.

The Islamists and jihadists all attack the believers and followers of Christ, so there is no big difference between the Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholics, and Protestants. That being said, there is still a slight difference because the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholics have a longer historical presence in the region. As

a consequence, slightly less radical Islamists would treat them as communities that, contrary to the whole Islamic world view, still belong to the People of the Book, the Abrahamic religion. And that resulted in a different level of persecution, which means, in some cases, these Christians were offered the opportunity to flee before being murdered. Protestant churches, on the other hand, are often regarded by these jihadist and Islamist groups as agents of the West and, particularly, the US because they usually have a very close relation with their sister churches in the US. Consequently, they sometimes face harsher discrimination.

All in all, it is mostly non-state actors that persecute Christians in the Middle East.

Regarding the states and the authorities, most of them have tolerance towards Christianity in recent history. There are countries and governments that are non-Christian but still value the presence of Christianity very much and are committed to preserving their Christian communities. We know only about very few instances when some authorities turned a blind eye to the cases of non-state actors committing atrocities against Christians. But that is usually not the case, and these are mainly authorities not belonging to the central government.

Do you have help programmes drawn on your own initiative, or do you organise your activity listening to local needs on all occasions as you have already suggested?

We are not doing anything for the communities without the communities. And what the community needs is that we help them stay in their country. In Hungary, one of the most important principles in our migration policies is that we are against mass migration. We think that it is harmful to all parties involved, for the source and the receiving communities and the migrants themselves. We believe that, instead of bringing people facing social challenges or being in trouble to Europe through migration, it is in everybody’s best interest to bring help and aid where the problem is to stabilise the country and to help people stay there and have a prosperous life with human dignity.

CHRISTIANS ARE THE MOST PERSECUTED BELIEF GROUP ACROSS THE GLOBE: 340 MILLION CHRISTIANS ARE PERSECUTED OR DISCRIMINATED AROUND THE WORLD FOR THEIR FAITH. Do you have partners, either state or nonstate actors in the Middle East or globally, who you can cooperate with in helping these Christian communities?

What is special about our programme is that, whenever it is possible, we do not use middleman agencies or international organisations. While we are fully transparent to local authorities, we do not involve them in the chain of transferring money or sending donations. In most cases, our beneficiaries are local church institutions or local faith-based organisations, charities, and missions. This is the most efficient and direct way. We do have partners in Hungary: all major historical churches are partners to our programme. Besides, we cooperate with well-referenced Hungarian faith-based charity organisations, for instance, the Hungarian Interchurch Aid or the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, and many others.

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communities, because we also have a programme for the persecuted Yazidis and the persecuted Muslim communities just like for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

And who can you cooperate with in a European context? Is there any V4 cooperation in this regard? Do you have partnerships with other European states or worldwide?

Within the European Union, we have formalised cooperation with Poland. Perhaps it is not surprising because we have much common ground not only in our policies but in our views on solidarity as well as humanitarian and migration policy. We have also formalised cooperation and joint projects with, for example, Estonia, Greece, and the Netherlands. Moreover, we are very close to starting joint projects with Germany and Slovenia. So, within the European Union, we have many allies. However, perhaps our most important diplomatic achievement was outside Europe, because the Hungary Helps programme also has a cooperation with USAID. We have not only cooperation but joint large-scale projects in northern Iraq for the persecuted Christian and Yazidi communities.

As you have mentioned, stopping migration and helping people locally is one of the main building blocks of the Hungarian government’s migration strategy. In your view, how much could you achieve through your programme in the Middle East in this regard?

In the Middle East and mostly North Africa, we have passed the mark of 100,000 direct beneficiaries. Of course, this sort of aid always has a cascade effect, so the indirect beneficiaries of our programme could be a multiple of that. Yet, even if we are talking about hundreds of thousands, that is only a minority of the people in need and the people who could be a target for organisations promoting migration. Since we are a small country having a relatively young aid programme, no one could expect from us to solve the problem of persecuted Christians. However, I also see it 28

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as a major achievement that we could put the whole issue, and the possible response to it, on the international diplomatic community’s agenda. We have raised issues together with other governments and international organisations and inspired other governments to introduce new policies and programmes. We hold international conferences every two years.

The first conference had about a few hundred foreign attendances from less than twenty countries with no high-level official government representation. On the last one, we had more than four hundred international participants from over thirty countries, and high-level government representation from twelve countries. That was the second conference on the persecution of Christians, which means that we managed to thematise the international humanitarian and diplomatic discourse. Therefore, I think we can greatly contribute to the preservation of these communities if we can further mobilise other governments and form this international alliance.

How do you see the future of your programme? How could you develop it? Do you see the directions you should follow in the future?

I think that the Hungarian government dedicates reasonable resources to this programme. Of course, we are responsible for maintaining the well-being and the future of the Hungarian people. However, we have taken on a moral obligation to show solidarity internationally, and we can expand our efforts. The way to go forward is to be persistent in representing the case of persecuted Christians in the world and to increase the scale of our efforts by involving other governments and possible donors while inspiring the European Union’s foreign aid policy to better meet the needs of those people who suffer the humanitarian crisis because of religion-based intolerance.

Do you think that your cooperation with Middle Eastern Christian or other religious communities can create a problem for their governments or other local authorities?

Well, the keyword is respect. Respect from both sides. As I have already said, it is not typical that state actors persecute Christians in the Middle East. Most of the governments and authorities protect and value their Christian communities and Christian compatriots.

Therefore, they have no objection to our aid activities. There is a requirement, of course, that we should be transparent, which we are always willing to comply with because we are also against the practice when Hungarian organisations are supported under the mask of charity but with a clear intention to interfere in our country’s internal politics. We want to avoid even a suspicion about that; therefore, our cooperation with local governments is transparent and mutually committed.

Finally, let me ask you: which has been your most successful programme in the region, and which was the most special and unforgettable to you?

Perhaps the most successful project, the project that carries hope for the future, is our support programme for reconstructing the northern Iraqi town Telskuf. This town is inhabited by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and it is on the Nineveh Plains. Talking of Chaldeans and the Nineveh Plains, you can see how ancient this Christian community is.

This town was overrun and conquered by ISIS in 2014, so all its Christian population had to flee. And ISIS did a lot of damage, they destroyed the local church and all religious monuments. And, when they were driven out, more than nine hundred buildings were damaged in the fight. So, it became a ghost city because no one lived there and nine hundred of its buildings were severely damaged.

We decided to provide aid to these Chaldean Christians in Iraq through the Hungary Helps programme so that they can reconstruct Telskuf. As a result, almost one thousand have returned out of the 1300 families that had fled from the city, which means that about threequarters of these people have returned to this completely abandoned town. Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, the whole Christian

population in Iraq has decreased to one-fifth of the size it had one and a half decades ago.

We managed to save the community with a not too large but very targeted donation worth about EUR 2 million. When people returned, life found its way again. It was very touching when the priest of the community told us that the town was renamed Telskuf, the Daughter of Hungary. Whenever I have a diplomatic meeting with other governments, I always explain that, of course, we take great pride in having a town called the Daughter of Hungary on the Nineveh Plains, but it would be equally wonderful to have there, for example, another one called the “Son of the European Union” or the “Grandchildren of the United Nations.” This is how we want to mobilise other governments for this cause.

However, for me, personally, the most touching occasion was when I visited another site we supported in Beirut, Lebanon. Lebanese people take care of almost two million refugees.

So, today, about half of the population in the country is made up by refugees. They are all in a difficult situation—still, Lebanese people show solidarity and take care of such a large crowd of people. And Lebanese churches are at the forefront of this charity service. Now, together with the Syrian Catholic Church, we supported a school called the Angel of Peace, where the students are all refugees from Syria and Iraq. I once visited this school and talked to the children, and I could learn about their tragic lives. Many of them were traumatised. I told them about Hungarian people’s solidarity along with our programme. What happened then was that the children and their priests stood up and started to pray for Hungary and Hungarians. It was not a prayer of gratitude for providence; as they explained, they were praying so that Hungarians, and I think all the people in the West, have strong faith. I figure they meant that we should have strong faith in our identity. I think it was really touching but it was also a very important message from the Middle East, from those people who preserve their identity, their traditions and belong to their homeland even in times of persecution.

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COUNTRY STUDIES

ENDGAME IN SYRIA? THE DILEMMAS OF RECONSTRUCTION László Csicsmann The military scene in Syria witnessed a radical change with the recent defeat of the Islamic State (IS) near the city of Baghouz in 2019.

Despite the military setback of the terrorist organisation, Jihadism still poses a significant risk to the country. After the elimination of the former rebel strongholds in southern Syria, Idlib province became the main military challenge for the Assad regime. This article analyses the recent political and economic developments of the Syrian conflict on a local, regional, and global level. It argues that, with the US’s disengagement from Syria under the Trump administration, Russia has become the main policymaker in the conflict. This interpretation echoes Assad’s narrative, who portrays himself as the winner of the civil war. The goal of the regime is to re-establish the pre–Arab Spring political structures, returning to the pre-2011 political settings. However, the recent shift in the local, regional, and global geopolitical context does not promote this objective. The author would argue that the Assad regime has not won but survived the civil war, and its existence is not taken for granted in the long run.1 RECENT LOCAL DEVELOPMENTS IN SYRIA With the defeat of the Islamic State in Syria, the military phase of the conflict seems to be in its final phase. After the military combat, the country has been divided into four parts, three of which are not under the sovereignty of the Assad regime today: 1) The territory controlled by the Assad regime. Since reoccupying the southern part of the country from the rebel groups, the Assad regime has sovereignty over the most densely populated cities in Syria except for Idlib province.

The Assad regime claims that the country has returned to its normal life since the defeat of 32

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the Islamic State and the regime provides all the necessities for the citizens. The administration in Damascus follows Bashar al-Assad, who perceives himself as a politically legitimate president due to the “successful” 2014 election.

According to the amended constitution, the next presidential elections will take place in 2021 in which Assad could be nominated as a presidential candidate. This narrative also has an effect on the refugee situation. Currently, six or seven million Syrian citizens get asylum in one of the neighbouring countries or elsewhere.

This situation satisfies the regime, as most of the refugees are the main opponents of Assad’s rule in Syria. The Assad regime does not have the intention to resettle the refugees in Syria after terminating the civil war, as the current population of 16 million serves the interests of those who are ruling Damascus.

The regime has already started the reconstruction process since 2017. According to a recent estimate, the reconstruction in Syria would cost USD 250 billion, which raises several questions.2 After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the regime transformed itself into a typical war economy. During the flowering of Assad’s rule, the regime was based on the support of the Alawite minority and the Sunni trading class in important cities such as Damascus and Aleppo. This unwritten social contract was breached after the unfolding of the popular uprising which turned into a civil war in July 2012. A new kind of balance has emerged since then, reinforcing the Assad regime which builds on new types of warlords and businessmen controlling Syria. To strengthen this new type of bargain, the regime has adopted several laws and legal measures which also serve as a means of confiscating the lands and property of the old guard and those who left

the country.3 The presidential decree number 10 of the year 2018 stipulates that all properties can be confiscated, which serves the interest of those twenty to thirty warlords in Syria who fight for the survival of the Assad regime.4 The political part of the reconstruction, better to be called reconciliation, has started under the auspices of the Astana process which has been launched by Russia, Iran, and Turkey. A Constitutional Committee was established in September 2019, aimed at adopting a new constitution in the foreseeable future. The committee consists of three political blocs: the Syrian Negotiations Committee (basically the opposition to the Assad regime), the so-called Middle Third (the members of the civil society), and the representatives of the Assad regime.5 It has two different bodies; the first is aimed at preparing the new constitution, while the

second is responsible for approving the draft text. The political process is limited due to the lack of consensus among the parties involved in it. The Assad regime does not show any interest in advancing the political process, as it tries to sell the idea that the state of normalcy has returned. As it was mentioned earlier, the next presidential elections are supposed to take place in 2021, which can help boost the legitimacy of the existing regime. However, the regime very much depends on the regional and global players’ interests both politically and economically.

2) The rebel stronghold Idlib province, the last territory under the control of the rebels, has a population of around three million. Currently, it is dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a radical jihadist–Salafist organisation close to al-Qaeda. In 2017, the HTS established the

The approximate military situation in Syria, in spring 2021

Controlled by the Syrian Arab Republic (Syrian Armed Forces [SAA] and allies) Controlled by the Syrian Salvation Government: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS] and allies) Controlled by the Syrian Interim Government (Syrian National Army [SNA] and allies) and Turkish Armed Forces Controlled by Rojava (Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF]) Controlled by Revolutionary Commando Army (MaT) and United States Armed Forces Joint control between SAA and SDF SAA and opposition faction stable truce area

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Government of National Salvation, calling for a genuine Syrian-led political transition. The HTS has been regarded as a terrorist organisation by both Russia and the United States; however, it shares pragmatic relations with Turkey.6 After reoccupying the southern parts of the country with Russian support, the regime launched a military offensive in December 2019 against the HTS based in Idlib. The HTS has frequently attacked military bases belonging to Russia (for instance, the Hmeimim Air Base). Political tension escalated during spring 2020 due to the Turkish cooperation with the HTS, which was heavily criticised by Moscow.

3) The Kurdish quasi-autonomous territory (Rojava) has been under the de facto control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2012. In March 2016, the Rojava Democratic Federation was established by the dominant political party of the region, the PYD (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, Democratic Union Party).

The PYD as a political force has been neglected

in the political negotiations on the future of Syria. It proposes an ideology which is based on Murray Bookchin’s democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy.7 4) The north-western and north-central part of Syria has been under the occupation of Turkish forces since 2016, when Ankara intervened to prevent the Kurdish minority from forming a united autonomous territory from the areas east and west to the Euphrates. Turkey has launched three military offensives against the Islamic State forces and the Kurdish peshmergas. The latest military incursion took place in October 2019, and it aimed at establishing a security buffer zone at the Turkish–Syrian border. The Assad regime criticises the role of Turkey in Syria and claims that the country breached its sovereignty.

THE REGIONAL GEOPOLITICAL IMBALANCE AND THE SYRIAN CRISIS The Middle East has been trapped in the new Cold War of the 21st century, the rift between

Countries in the broader region with military involvement in the civil war

RUSSIA

FRANCE Crimea

TURKEY SYRIA LEBANON

IRAQ

IRAN

JORDAN

SAUDI ARABIA

Syria Countries that give official military support for the Syrian government Factions/groups that support the opposition with military forces that are located in the coloured country Countries that support the Syrian rebels

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Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Syrian conflict is a mirror of regional developments in which two regional actors, namely, Iran and Turkey, have been playing the most active role. Both regional players act under the guidance of Russia, which has initiated the Astana process, aimed at establishing a political framework for a lasting solution to the civil war, in January 2017. Iran’s and Turkey’s perception of the Syrian conflict differ fundamentally, as Tehran has an interest in maintaining and strengthening the ruling Assad regime, while Ankara’s goal is to support the anti-Assad rebel groups in Idlib. There are other important regional actors shaping the dynamics of the Syrian crisis, namely, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintains a physical presence in the country, as it has the intention to connect the so-called Shia Crescent, Iran’s zone of influence comprising the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shia communities, and the Alawites living in Syria. The so-called Shia militias, the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU, al-Hashd al-Shaabi), together with the Hezbollah forces, have been actively fighting on the ground in Syria to preserve the Assad regime. Iran is interested not only militarily or politically in the Syrian reconstruction programme, initiated by the ruling regime in Damascus, but also economically. Having signed the nuclear deal with the major powers, Iran became a legitimate regional player in the Middle East. As the sanctions against it are lifted only gradually, Iran has limited financial assets to support the reconstruction process in Syria.

The IRGC has invested in electricity production, telecommunication, and the phosphate-mining industry.8 However, Trump’s decision in the summer of 2018 to withdraw from the nuclear deal further reduced opportunities for Iran to invest in the Syrian economy. Iran’s limited ability to advance its interests in Syria was aggravated by the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the al-Quds forces, and Abu Mahdi alMuhandis, the former head of Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and the deputy leader of the PMU, in January 2020.

Syria’s Constitutional Committe in 2019

150 The Syrian conflict is held hostage to the rift between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The GCC countries have generally supported the antiAssad rebel groups since 2011. Some countries participated in the aerial bombings of the Islamic State launched by the United States in September 2014. However, the GCC countries have kept a low profile in Syria in recent years.

The main goal of the GCC countries is to contain the Iranian expansion in the conflictdriven country. It means that the oil monarchies are not interested in reconstruction which would serve Iran’s interest. The United Arab Emirates has recently shown a more pragmatic approach to the recognition of the Assad regime, as Abu Dhabi reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018.9 It is important for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to marginalise the role of the Turkish–Qatari alliance in Syria’s reconstruction.

Syria is only a minor part of a larger geopolitical competition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Qatar would like to build a gas pipeline from the Gulf to Syria; therefore, the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria serves its interest. At the same time, Israel, together with Greece and Cyprus have signed an agreement to lay the EastMed pipeline with the political and financial support of the GCC countries and the EU. The establishment of this new infrastructure will evade the members of the Astana process, Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Despite the fact that there is a certain kind of cooperation between Russia and the GCC countries, the oil monarchies have no interest in covering the bill of the reconstruction.

Israel has an ambiguous position on the Syrian crisis. While the Assad regime has been considered as the “known devil” by the country, COUNTRY STUDIES

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The Shia Crescent Estimated percentage range of Shia by country in 2009

SYRIA

15-20% LEBANON

45-55%

IRAN

IRAQ

90-95%

45-55%

KUWAIT

20-25% BAHRAIN

65-75% QATAR SAUDI ARABIA

10-15%

10%

UAE

10%

OMAN

5-10%

YEMEN

35-40%

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Israel also has an interest in keeping the Islamic State-style radicalism out of the Middle Eastern country’s territory. The increased presence of the Iranian soldiers and the Shia militias posed a security threat to it; therefore, the Jewish State not only attacked the infrastructure of Hezbollah but also directly clashed with the Iranian forces in Syria. In the last two years, Syria witnessed a more direct confrontation between the regional powers. After the Iranian forces had moved closer to the Israeli border in 2019, Russia’s mediation between the two countries resulted in the quasi-withdrawal of the Iranian soldiers from the neighbourhood of Israel. By signing the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrein and normalising its relations with other Arab countries, Israel is now formally part of an anti-Iranian alliance. Thus, Prime Minister Netanyahu could reverse the marginalisation of the Jewish State in the MENA region.

Turkey has been playing the most active role among the regional players since the outbreak of the conflict. As it was mentioned earlier, Turkey is an occupying force in the north-western part of Syria. Turkey runs its own reconstruction, building on the local groups in the rebel-held territories of Idlib province. The country’s longterm goal is to prevent any kind of separatism among the Kurds and, at the same time, to establish a security zone between Turkey and Syria. Turkey’s policy on the Syrian crisis has profoundly changed from the total denial of the Assad regime to a more pragmatic approach.

Today, Turkey’s Syria policy is not necessarily aimed at ousting the ruling regime from power.

However, Turkey has no interest in advancing Russia’s or Iran’s position in Syria. The abovementioned regional transformation—namely, the EastMed and the Abraham Accords—has direct consequences on Turkey’s regional position.

Maintaining influence in Syria and taking part in the reconstruction are key interests for Turkey.10 THE GLOBAL SCENE: INTEREST AND DISINTEREST IN THE RECONSTRUCTION Three global players could shape the political and economic reconstruction project from outside: Russia, the United States, and the European

Union. With the gradual US disengagement from the Syrian conflict, Russia has the upper hand to decide about the future of the Assad regime and the Syrian state. Russia’s active role in the Syrian conflict is not entirely new, but, with the country’s military intervention in 2015, it rose to a higher level. The Syrian conflict is an important “power projection” for Russia to demonstrate its global power status to the world. The country’s goal in the Syrian conflict is to balance among different actors and to try to manage the conflict through a power-sharing agreement. It does not mean that Moscow insists on maintaining the Assad regime in power forever.

Russia has a strong economic presence in the country, as it has invested USD 20 billion in the Middle Eastern country since 2008. Russia has a profound interest in the energy sector, and Russian companies have conducted negotiations on the development of the Syrian railway system. In 2019, the Russian Stroytransgaz won the reconstruction project of the Tartus port facilities valued at USD 500 million.11 As Raymond Hinnebusch points out, Russia has a larger geopolitical role in the Syrian conflict than other global actors; however, its financial capability to support the reconstruction is remarkably limited.12 This thesis has been proved by Russia’s inability to finance the reconstruction in southern Syria after it had been re-occupied by the Assad regime. Russia again acted as a mediator between the socalled rebel groups and the regime, which led to the reconciliation agreement signed in the city of Bosra in July 2018.13 They promised to resettle the internally displaced people, to create functioning state organs, and to provide an economic perspective. Neither Russia nor the Assad regime has fulfilled this promise in Southern Syria. It means that it is not possible to discuss the reconstruction in Syria without the role of Western powers.

Western powers, Washington and Brussels, have not been interested in a Russian-led Syrian reconstruction. They have a limited geopolitical role; however, their geo-economic potential is elevated. Both the US and the EU stick to the COUNTRY STUDIES

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The Qatar–Turkey pipeline TURKEY

GEORGIA BULGARIA

AZERBAIJAN ARMENIA TURKEY

GREECE

SYRIA

IRAN

CYPRUS LEBANON

IRAQ

ISRAEL JORDAN

KUWAIT BAHRAIN QATAR

EGYPT SAUDI ARABIA

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for a ceasefire and eighteen-month negotiated political transition. This conditionality prevents any real EU or US contribution to the Syrian reconstruction, which helps the Assad regime to survive. The Syria policy of the United States is a complex phenomenon including the maximum pressure policy on Iran, the protection of Israel’s safety, the fight against terrorism, and the containment of the Assad regime.14 The Trump administration announced the US military disengagement from Syria in 2018 rearranging the soldiers mainly to the Persian Gulf. Syria is still under a series of US sanctions imposed in or after 2011, which prevents any potential contribution to the reconstruction process.

For Washington, it is important to monitor the role of Turkey and its deepening cooperation with Russia. Ankara’s purchase of the S-400 defence system has been heavily criticised by the White House. The United States gives 38

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the Syrian conflict over to Russia; it does not mean, however, that Washington left the Kurdish minority altogether alone.

The European Union is not the most important strategic player on the ground; however, it is committed to contributing to the reconstruction. The precondition of any significant EU investment in Syria is based on progress in the political transition laid down by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. At the same time, the EU maintains a system of sanctions against Syria and some targeted Syrian citizens. The EU adopted a Syria strategy in 2017 which echoes the principles of the above-mentioned United Nations resolution: protecting the civilians, promoting democracy and human rights, and facilitating the political transition. The EU’s perception of the Syrian crisis does not entirely meet realities.

The gradual disengagement of the United States from Middle Eastern affairs, as well as

the Russian power projection and Russia’s increased influence, has been weakening the European positions in the Middle East. Brussels lacks any pragmatic approach to the eventuality of a strengthening Assad regime. Its most important commitment is the humanitarian aid valued at more than EUR 17 billion since 2011.15 There is no consent on extending the sanctions regime among the member states, as it has contributed to reduceing the EU’s already weakening position in the region.

ENDNOTES 1 Lina Khatib: Bashar al-Assad’s Hollow Victory. Foreign Affairs. 17 January 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bAWo > 2 Erwin van Veen: The Geopolitics of Syria’s Reconstruction.

A Case of Matryoshka. Syria Studies. 2019/1. 33–56.

3 Muriel Asseburg: Reconstruction in Syria. Challenges and Policy Options for the EU and its Member States. SWP Research Paper 11. July 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bAWr > 4 Nadine Almanasfi: State-led urban development in Syria and the prospects for effective post-conflict reconstruction.

Syria Studies. 2019/1. 88.

5 Karam Shaar–Ayman Dasouki: Syria’s Constitutional

CONCLUSION The Syrian civil war has entered a new phase with the recent military victories of the Assad regime. The Western media have often claimed that the Assad regime in Damascus is close to its end; however, with continued support from Russia, the strategic power relations shifted.

It is not possible to turn the clock back, as the damages made by the civil war have had irreversible consequences since 2011. The attention of the international community has recently turned towards political and economic reconstruction. This paper has shown how perceptions differ from country to country.

There is no consent about how to deal with the current Syrian situation neither on a regional nor on a global level. Reconstruction has a different meaning in Moscow, Washington, and Brussels.

What is strikingly new is how the European and American perceptions of the Middle Eastern issues have started to diverge. From a European point of view, the Syrian reconstruction offers the member states a new opportunity to reengage with Middle Eastern countries. However, the EU’s Syria policy should be reformulated with a more pragmatic approach, allowing more opportunities for the member states. If the EU continues to adopt its value-based policy on the Syrian civil war, it will be left out of the reconstruction process. However, without the financial help of the Western countries or the GCC bloc, a realistic reconstruction process is not possible in Syria.

Committee: The Devil in the Detail. Middle East Institute. 16 November 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bD2i > 6 Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi: Idlib and its Environs.

Narrowing Prospects for a Rebel Holdout. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 5 February 2020. <http://bitly. ws/bD2C > 7 Michael Knapp–Joost Jongerden: Communal Democracy: The Social Contract and Confederalism in Rojava.

Comparative Islamic Studies. 2016/1. 87–109.

8 Faysal Itani: Geo-Economics: Russia and Iran in Syria.

Syria Studies. 2019/1. 23–31.

9 Joseph Daher: Dynamics and Evolution of UAE–Syria Relations: Between Expectations and Obstacles. Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute. War-time and Post-conflict in Syria. Research Project Report, 2019/14. 25 October 2019. <http://bitly.ws/ bD2H > 10 Jan van Leeuwen–Erwin van Veen: Turkey in northwestern Syria. Rebuilding empire at the margins. CRU Policy Brief.

June 2019. <http://bitly.ws/bD2M > 11 Aron Lund: From Cold War to Civil War: 75 Years of Russian–Syrian Relations. UI Paper. 2019/7. 44. <http://bitly. ws/bD2P > 12 Raymond Hinnebusch: The Bat tle over Syria’s Reconstruction. Global Policy. 2020/1. 113–123.

13 Jennifer Cafarella–Jason Zhou: Russia’s Dead-end Diplomacy in Syria. Institute for the Study of War. November 2019. <http://bitly.ws/bD2S > 14 Michael A. Ratney: Five Conundrums: The United States and the Conflict in Syria. Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives 32. 31 July 2019. <http://bitly. ws/bD2U > 15 Asseburg, 24.

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ISRAEL’S STRATEGY IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Zsolt Csepregi Questions of a country’s relative geographic position are no alien to a Hungarian audience.

Being identified as a Central, Eastern, or East-Central European country is an issue for debate with many consequences in the realm of politics and society, as words and expressions matter greatly in human affairs. Israeli debates regarding their position and geopolitical orientation must be viewed through a similar lens. The Jewish state has been in an uneasy position in the Middle East since its modernday inception in 1948. It is, at the same time, in the heart of the Middle East, has connections to Eurasia and Africa, and serves as the sole bridge between the continents, while it is also discriminated and threatened politically.

Through many wars and (much more welcome) peace accords, Israel managed to secure itself to a relatively high degree in the Middle East, with cold peace enduring on its eastern and southern borders. As pressure slowly reduced from the north as well, the previously overlooked Mediterranean aspect of the state came to the foreground. Naturally, Israel has always been an Eastern Mediterranean country and society.

Its culture, cuisine, vistas, and outlook on the world resemble much more that of Saloniki, Izmir, or Beirut than of Doha or Aden. That is, if we are talking about the coastal, Tel Avivian or Haifan scene, if we go to the mountains of Israel, visit the vibrant communities belonging to the four Abrahamic religions, the Jewish, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, we can immediately imagine their counterparts in the Meteora in Greece or on Mount Lebanon. Still, there is a debate enduring even in the highest echelons of Israeli strategic thinking on whether the country is a Middle Eastern or an Eastern Mediterranean power, a mixture of the two, or something completely different.

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BENEFITS AND THREATS FROM THE SEA This renewed Israeli interest during the last decade towards its western maritime neighbourhood had its reasons. The underlying causes were, and still are, both positive and negative in their nature and very much interlinked. No other example portrays this dual nature better than the issue of hydrocarbon reserves in Israel’s exclusive economic zone: these resources bring benefits but also threats to those owing or aspiring to owe them. Israeli leaders and society experienced a pleasant shock after 2009 with the discovery of the Tamar gas field, and especially in 2010, when the first exploration of the Leviathan gas field also proved successful. At the time of its discovery, the latter was the largest natural gas deposit in the Mediterranean, containing reserves that can make Israel energy independent for decades to come. This windfall brought about a significant shift in Israeli strategic thinking, as earlier the prevailing self-image in the country was perfectly encapsulated by the somewhat sarcastic remark by late David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, who said that, in His eternal wisdom, the Creator had given to Israel the only place in the Middle East which had no oil.

Technically, he was, of course, right, as Israel only has some negligible deposits on land, and he did not imagine that the ever-underestimated sea (Jews and their predecessors, the Israelites, were hardly maritime people even in ancient times) would become such a boon. Israel not only became practically self-sufficient in electricity generation (which is only limited by price considerations) but also came to possess a significant amount of natural gas to export.

Having new import sources was a welcome development for Europe, as well, which, thereby, had the opportunity to reduce its dependence

on traditional fossil fuel powers.1 Therefore, from an Israeli point of view, the country gained not only a resource but also an asset to trade and build new and deeper bonds on.2 As mentioned before, these resources had to be defended, since, with greater potential benefits came greater regional competition in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel joined the maritime competition quite late and had to do a lot to catch up. The Israeli navy lagged behind the other branches of the Israel Defence Forces for a long time and served only as a coast guard force.3 Its backwardness is interesting, considering how much Israel is reliant on maritime transportation routes compared to its hostile, or at least unreliable, land borders.

During the Cold War, Israel could rely on US support for guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Mediterranean.4 Fiercer regional competition and the relative lack of superpower

The Levant Basin, where Israel’s gas fields are located

interest in the last couple of decades, and especially after the Cold War, inspired Israel to develop its navy. Currently, the advanced, nextgeneration Sa’ar corvettes—built by state-ofthe-art German shipbuilding companies—and Dolphin submarines are a powerful deterrent against any regional foes.

The technological advancement parallels a doctrinal expansion in Israeli forces, as newer weapons systems enable more distant and longer-term deployments at sea, both above and under.5 Haifa, the strategic port and industrial city located on the shores of the Mediterranean, is home to the Israeli submarine fleet, which is reportedly Israel’s second, unconfirmed nuclear deterrence pillar, complementing the first, also unconfirmed land-based nuclear missile pillar.6 Besides these activities under cover of the sea, the main role of the navy is to protect the gas platforms from both conventional and

TURKEY

SYRIA

CYPRUS

LEBANON IRAQ West Bank

ISRAEL

JORDAN

EGYPT

SAUDI ARABIA Levant Basin Oil and gas fields Oil and natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean Region COUNTRY STUDIES

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unconventional threats. The former might not be a remote possibility, considering regional tensions between armed forces due to the contested exclusive economic zones in the region. However, it is still not a daily worry of Israeli decision makers and military leadership.

On the other hand, asymmetric threats such as land–sea missile attacks from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah or motorboat attacks from other terrorist groups are regular threats that are discouraged by patrolling Israeli navy forces.

FRIENDS, FOES, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN Configuring navy forces, doctrine, and force posture is probably one of the most difficult aspects of Israeli military planning due to the ambiguous strategic environment in the region.

There are, however, welcome trends from an Israeli point of view mainly due to the Israeli– Greek–Cypriot axis and the continuing Arab– Israeli rapprochement. The emergence of Greek and Cypriot interests in cooperating with Israel are quite a recent phenomenon, as, during the 1990s, Turkish–Israeli cooperation flourished in defence-related issues, balancing a Greek– Syrian–Kurdish axis. This has, of course, changed because of the gradual deterioration of Israeli–Turkish relations and the discovery of hydrocarbon resources in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is important to highlight that the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot cooperation is still developing; therefore, it is clear that the parties dynamically adjust the fields they are aiming to cooperate on.7 Beyond energy infrastructure,

INS Rahav, Israel’s fifth German-made Dolphin submarine 42

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the axis apparently has a military and security cooperation aspect to it, as well. Logically, the two mid-tier naval powers, Greece and Israel, and the small yet strategically located Cyprus aim to align their strategies and act as a united front vis-à-vis larger actors such as Egypt and Turkey. I intentionally avoid the expression “acting against,” as the Eastern Mediterranean has until now been quite stable, considering the sizeable disagreements among regional actors.

Nevertheless, all of them know that a regional conflict would be damaging to every party and that there are no hegemons in the region which could come out of it as a clear winner.

Therefore, regardless of tense relations, any cooperation is welcome, while avoiding armed conflicts with unforeseeable consequences is a must for all actors.

The picture becomes even more complicated if we start factoring in Egypt, which is a slumbering, internally occupied giant in the region that possesses remarkable geographic and demographic potential, while its implosion threatens not only its neighbours but Europe, as well. For now, it seems that Cairo, knowing that it punches well below its weight in foreign and security affairs due to its domestic hardships, bands together with the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot quasi-alliance to make up for its shortcomings.

Its efforts are centred around natural gas infrastructure development, which is a convenient and lucrative reason to form a joint platform.8 Naturally, all these efforts by Egypt aim at softly balancing Turkey, which not only threatens Greece and Cyprus with its actions but also agitates Egypt by involving Libya in its schemes to expand its exclusive economic zone.9 In reality, Israel has found that it has become part of a regional coalition, a position the country was hardly used to during decades of relative regional isolation and hostility; therefore, the leadership of the Jewish state will surely make the most of this new-found favourable alignment in its neighbourhood.

A final element of the above picture has emerged with the recent normalisation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

While the UAE is not a Mediterranean power,

A view of Haifa, Israel’s strategic port and industrial city

it is interested in the region for two main reasons: first, to position itself as a capable Middle Eastern power and, second, to balance against the Turkish–Qatari axis.10 In the Eastern Mediterranean, these Emirati interests materialise in supporting the Haftar government in Libya against Turkey11 and in aligning with the Israeli–Greek–Cypriot axis to counter Turkish “expansion,”12 which includes military cooperation with the Greek–Cypriot forces.13 As the UAE normalises its relations with Israel (alongside like-minded Bahrain and with Saudi Arabia’s tacit agreement), the cooperative framework between the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean is becoming even denser and more multifaceted. Finally, even Israel’s former enemies are becoming more manageable in the region. While the Iran-supported Hezbollah terror group is a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, its host country (or rather captive), Lebanon, is engaged in indirect negotiations with Israel over maritime borders, showing that the mutual benefits may very well overcome mutual hostilities.14

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Beyond regional considerations, the Eastern Mediterranean is an important space where the interests of the major powers such as the US, Europe, China, and Russia collide. Israel cannot withdraw from these competitions, because of its military and economic prowess combined with its strategic location. The prime manifestation of its challenging situation is the recent emergence of Chinese interest in Israeli ports and other strategic assets.15 The United States was quick to reprimand its Middle Eastern partner not to engage too deeply with its global competitor.16 Its greatest fear is that China will come to possess sensitive military technologies from Israel and obtain assets by which it will be well-positioned to spy on US forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, the entryway to the Suez Canal and, thereby, to the Indian Ocean. It is no surprise that the Israeli– UAE normalisation under the wings of the US also led Emirati companies to fill the capital gaps in Israeli infrastructure development in strategic port assets.17 These are minor, yet potentially COUNTRY STUDIES

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The Greece–Cyprus–Israel axis in the making during their 2017 summit on offshore gas (from left to right: Nikos Anastasiades, president of the Republic of Cyprus, Alexis Tsipras, prime minister of Greece, and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel)

significant steps in balancing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims at connecting the two ends of Eurasia through Iran and Turkey. An alternative route is emerging between the Indian Ocean basin and the Eastern Mediterranean through the Israeli–Emirati axis.

From a European point of view, this means more opportunities to be connected to the booming markets of Asia, a welcome possibility in any case. Even though Israel’s most important consideration is to find a balance between its economic interest in engaging with China and its overall strategic interest in maintaining its close multifaceted partnership with the US, other powers have to be factored in, as well.

Russia is, of course, acting in Syria as a security guarantor of the Assad regime, and Israel has to conduct its limited anti-Iranian, anti-Assad, and anti-Hezbollah military campaign in close coordination with Russia. While the interests of Jerusalem and Moscow hardly align, the 44

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two countries are partners in many affairs and careful to avoid any armed clashes between the Israeli army and the Russian expeditionary forces in Syria. Also, Israel will aim at utilising its blossoming relations with Greece, Cyprus, and Italy to reach EU decision makers and, by offering economic benefits, such as natural gas export, potentially ease the pressure from European capitals with the aid of Athens and Nicosia. As the above examples show, the Eastern Mediterranean is a vital component of virtually all the important foreign relations of Israel, a factor which always has to be taken into consideration and employed in order to reap maximum gains.

CONCLUSION Surely, Israel will continue to be an emerging actor in the Eastern Mediterranean in both economic and security affairs. After decades of being reliant on outside energy sources and

experiencing naval blockades by its enemies, it will deepen its engagement in its maritime zone, enhancing its strategic depth. It will act in unison with Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt but will also aim at reducing tensions and foster cooperation with Turkey and achieve at least “live-and-letlive” relations with Lebanon. Certainly, Israel will continue developing advanced naval military capabilities contributing to stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, as the Jewish state possesses a powerful deterrent posture, a much-needed element in the turbulent region.

However, Israel’s inherent limitations do not permit it to become an overall global player; its niche capabilities make it a significant, or even, a valuable target in global schemes for accessing its technology and infrastructure assets. Israel is expected to continue making its regional and global cooperative networks denser and manœuvring between the global powers in order to reap the most benefit from its strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean and to enhance its security.

8 Salma el Wardany–Mirette Magdy: Egypt, Greece, Cyprus Form Six-Member Mediterranean Gas Group. Bloomberg. 22 September 2020. <https://bloom.bg/3bJpmgG > 9 Stephan Roll: ‘Egypt’s leadership feels markedly threatened by Turkey.’ DW. 11 August 2020. <https://bit. ly/3ssmA68 > 10 Cinzia Bianco: Gulf monarchies and the eastern Mediterranean: Growing ambitions. European Council on Foreign Relations. May 2020. <https://bit.ly/2ZOMpAX > 11 Jared Malsin: U.A.E. Boosted Arms Transfers to Libya to Salvage Warlord’s Campaign, U.N. Panel Finds. The Wall Street Journal. 29 September 2020. <https://on.wsj. com/3aQte00 > 12 Ahmed Diab: Turkish Expansion in the Region: Motives, Restrictions and Prospects. Emirates Policy Center. 10 November 2020. <https://bit.ly/3bJrB3A > 13 Vassilis Nedos: Greece, UAE commit to mutual defense assistance. Ekathimerini.com. 23 November 2020. <https:// bit.ly/3bG5kmT > 14 Edy Cohen: Israel and Lebanon to Open Negotiations.

The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. 25 November 2020. <https://bit.ly/3dMONR1 > 15 Zsolt Csepregi: For the Money, the Power or Glory?

AJRC-Analyses, 2019A03. 28 November 2020. <https://bit. ly/3uJZ0DU >

ENDNOTES

16 Mercy A. Kuo: US–China–Israel Relations: Pompeo’s Visit.

1 Zsolt Csepregi–Tamás Kozma: From the Caspian to the

Insights from Yoram Evron. The Diplomat. 27 May 2020.

Red Sea—New Opportunities for Europe’s Energy Security. In

<https://bit.ly/3sxIMeS >

Focus: Energy. Overvoltage in the World of Power. 2017/4.

17 Jaafar Qassem: UAE, Israeli operators bid in Haifa Port

89–93.

privatization. Anadolu Agency. 30 October 2020. <https://bit.

2 Hugh Lovatt: Israel’s geopolitical windfall. European Council

ly/3bGSXqP >

on Foreign Relations. May 2020. <https://bit.ly/2ZPLjVO > 3 Eitan Shamir: From Junior Associate to Senior Partner?

The Israeli Navy’s Strategic Challenges in the 21 st Century.

The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. 1 November 2020. <https://bit.ly/2NWM5xw > 4 Efraim Inbar: Israel’s Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean. Middle East Forum. 2004. <https://bit. ly/3dLI49V > 5 Seth J. Frantzman: Israel shifts naval doctrine with new Sa’ar 6 warships. Defense News. 5 November 2020. <https:// bit.ly/37Oo9TX > 6 Viktor Esin: Advantageous Ambiguity: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal. Carnegie Moscow Center. 25 September 2020. <https://bit.ly/3bDP9Xl > 7 Orna Mizrahi: Israel’s Policy in its Triangular Relations with Greece and Cyprus. Strategic Assessment – A Multidisciplinary Journal on National Security. 2020/July. 98–105.

COUNTRY STUDIES

45

STEP BY STEP: CAIRO’S MARITIME AMBITIONS AND THE BUILD-UP OF THE EGYPTIAN NAVY Lukács Krajcsír ECONOMIC AND GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS It has been well known for years that the Levant Basin—the waters of Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey—contains circa 122.4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.1 Cairo has worked with other regional players to create a new multilateral framework and to promote a new regional pattern for economic cooperation, informal dialogue, and political interdependence to overcome the existing fault lines in the wider Mediterranean facing quite a few power struggles.2 In recent years, several cooperation agreements among Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel, e.g., on the delimitation of their exclusive economic zones, have been signed. One of the biggest achievements was the establishment of the international body of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMFG) in January 2020, headquartered in Cairo. The members of the so-called “OPEC of Mediterranean gas” are Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, while the EU, the US, and the United Arab Emirates are its permanent observers and France has also applied for membership. As the Egyptian diplomacy described, the EMFG

is an international organisation that respects its member states’ rights to resource extraction, declares common war against “illegal drillings and mining” by other countries (e.g., Turkey), and strengthens energy cooperation (for instance, by building gas pipelines) among its members.3 Cairo’s strong commitment to protecting—by legal and military means alike—its undersea resources stems from the fact that Egypt also has a lot of gas within its maritime borders.

Foreign energy companies, such as British Petrol (BP), Deutsche Erdoel AG (DEA AG), Ente Nazionali Idrocarburi (ENI), Russian Rosneft, and Emirati Mubadala, have discovered six large fields so far.

With the windfall gas wealth of Zohr and the country’s latest discoveries (e.g., the Nour gas field), 58% of Egypt’s gas production comes from deep-water reservoirs in the Eastern Mediterranean.4 President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi claimed in 2019 that Egypt has achieved natural gas self-sufficiency thanks to its new findings.

Moreover, the Arab country could become a regional hub for energy trade and the main distributor of liquefied natural gas.5

Table 1: Egypt’s biggest offshore natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean as of April 2020 Field name

Date

Estimation of reserves (billion cubic metres)

Atoll

2015

15

BP (100)

Nooros

2015

20

ENI (75), BP (25)

West Nile Delta

2015

50

BP (83), DE AG (17)

Zohr

2015

850

ENI (50), Rosneft (30), BP (10), Mubadala (10)

West Baltim

2016

10

ENI (50), BP (50)

Nour

2019

20

ENI (40), BP (25), Mubadala (20), others (15)

46

COUNTRY STUDIES

Main exploiters and their shares (%)

Consequently, it is not groundless to assume that these resources could be the cure for Egypt’s economy, which suffered heavily from the COVID-19 pandemic economically and socially alike in 2020. International monetary organisations predicted only 2% economic growth for the country in 2020. Due to the slowdown in global trade, revenues from the Suez Canal have been falling with transit fees having been reduced by 35–75% for some ships, depending on their type and destination.

As all international flights have been suspended, tourism has suffered the most since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Economists and experts expect that, despite the government’s USD 6.1 billion rescue package, Egypt’s unemployment rate and inflation will rise, while the exchange reserves and the state subsidies will decrease. The latter could severely hit the poor and the members of the lower class, who became highly dependent on subventions. The proportion of those who live under or around the poverty line has already increased significantly in Egypt: according to World Bank estimates, 60% of Egypt’s population has been either poor or in the vulnerable category since 2019.6 Therefore, the stakes are too high for Egypt: The leadership is fully aware of the fact that the country which controls the gas fields and makes sure their production is smooth could become the dominant maritime power in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Besides, the gas could be a boon for a country’s economy. Both regional power status and solving economic troubles are goals Cairo works towards; however, it also needs a strong and effective naval fleet to achieve them.

THE ROAD TO BECOMING A BLUE-WATER NAVY POWER After President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi had taken office in 2014, Cairo submitted an extensive plan to modernise the Egyptian Armed Forces (EAF).

Unlike the county’s former military development programmes, this one focussed on not only Egypt’s air and land capabilities but also the improvement of its naval skills because, albeit established in 1928, the Egyptian Navy (EN)

The two Mistral-class ships of the Egyptian Navy: the Anwar al-Sadat in the foreground and the Gamal Abdel Nasser in the background

still lagged behind the Egyptian Ground Forces and the Egyptian Air Force. During the Cold War, Egypt’s naval forces were mainly tasked with protecting the more than 2,000-kilometre coastline and the Red Sea, defending the Suez Canal, counterbalancing the Western (first the British and, later the US) naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, and, preferably with the help of other Arab states, maintaining an efficient blockade against Israel. Although the EN could not achieve lasting success in any of these objectives, Egyptian warships and submarines remained a force to be reckoned with. After President Anwar al-Sadat had made a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, thus making Cairo Washington’s main Arab ally, and after the Cold War had ended, the EN was gradually pushed into the background. The Egyptian leadership in the so-called War on Terror declared by President George W. Bush in response to 9/11 mostly relied on its ground and air forces, and not on its fleet (for example, when it fought against radical Islamist groups in the Sinai-peninsula). Today Egypt maintains two main fleets: the Mediterranean (the Northern Command) and the Red Sea (the Southern Command), but, in recent years, it has also formed the 2nd Navy Special Forces Brigade to counter terrorism. The EN has 18,000 officers and sailors in active military service and 14,000 in reserve. Until 2014, it mainly fought against human trafficking, illegal migration, arms smuggling, and piracy in the Red Sea. Thwarting terrorist attacks against essential maritime COUNTRY STUDIES

47

Egyptian Navy Frigate transits the Istanbul strait towards the Black Sea for a joint exercise with the Russian Navy.

infrastructures—for instance, oil and gas rigs— was also one of its main duties.7 In recent years, the country’s comprehensive strategy aimed at reinforcing Egypt’s naval power, focussing on rather its offensive than defensive capabilities, because the Arab country wants to set up an efficient blue-water navy.8 To make this dream come true, Egypt needs to purchase new weapons and military systems.

Consequently, the government has spent tens of billions of dollars to get the latest naval equipment since 2014. Most of the new ships have been bought from Western states (France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States), and even its old, Soviet-made boats were equipped with the latest US-supplied missiles and targeting defence systems. The Egyptian Navy also operates a large number of aircraft, including twenty SH-2G helicopters, Gazelle naval helicopters, and F-16 fighters equipped with 100-kilometre-range anti-ship missiles. Other important purchases include four Gowind 2500 corvettes and an Aquitaineclass FREMM multipurpose frigate from France, 48

COUNTRY STUDIES

four Type-209/1400mod German-made dieselelectric attack submarines, and an Ambassador MK III fast missile craft and coastal patrol boats from the United States. Despite stillexisting tensions between Cairo and Rome, Italy delivered the first Bergamini-class FREMM to Egypt at the end of 2020—and the second one will probably be sent during the first half of 2021.9 The navy’s crown jewels are two French-made Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, which had been organically built for Russia but Egypt could buy them for EUR 950 million in 2016 because the Russian sale had been put on hold due to the annexation of Crimea. The two helicopter and troop carriers, named after former Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar al-Sadat, provide the Egyptians with the capability to transport up to twenty helicopters, multiple landing barges, and dozens of armoured vehicles.10 Buying new weapons for the EN is one thing, but increasing the navy’s efficiency is a horse of a different colour. Gaining proper naval skills and handling the new equipment adequately, training

and doing military exercises are all indispensable.

For Cairo, it is important to organise its drills with other maritime powers: helped by its closest allies, the EN can test and improve its strategy and doctrine while developing operational experience as well as learning and adopting military tactics other than its own.

In 2020, the number of naval exercises greatly increased and they also differed from the previous ones. As defence expert Ahmad Eliba aptly noted, “Earlier drills concentrated on unifying military concepts and joint cooperation, but 2020 drills are more advanced in terms of training programs with more interactive exercises to counter threats and risks.”11 Many examples prove this point. In October, French and Egyptian warships and aeroplanes conducted joint military drills in the northern Mediterranean. Ten days later, Egyptian and Spanish naval forces performed a passing exercise in the area of responsibility of the Northern Fleet. In November, Egypt joined its Arab allies (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Sudan) in a naval drill dubbed Saif al-Arab (Sword of Arabs) at the Mohamed Naguib Military Base in northwest Egypt. In the same month, the British Royal Navy also held a military exercise with the Egyptian Navy.

Despite the conflicts between Moscow and the West, Egypt conducted the so-called Bridge of Friendship–2020 joint exercise with Russia, which did not take place in the Mediterranean but on the waters of the Black Sea. The parties not only concentrated on launching missiles and artillery training but also performed manœuvres to practice deploying troops on land and return supplies to the sea. However, the biggest and most important among all naval drills in 2020 was Medusa 10. The multi-day training in December included air and naval forces from Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, but, later, Emirati and French units also joined in. Moreover, other Arab countries (Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and Western states (Germany, Italy, and the US) also participated as observers. Egyptian Navy sent multi-mission guided-missile frigates, one submarine, two fast patrol boats, several multirole aircraft, and helicopters.12

The weapon-modernisation programme also included the development of military infrastructure and naval ports. Until 2014, Egypt had two main naval bases: the Ras Banas Naval Base in the south-eastern part of the Red Sea, which secured the Red Sea and the Gulf of Bab el-Mandeb and the eastern Port Said Navy Base. However, challenges from Egypt’s neighbourhood led to the creation of new bases, too. Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the new headquarters of Egypt’s Southern Command at the Safaga naval base in 2017, as the EAF increased its activity in the Red Sea area to support the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen. The EN reinforced it with a naval commando force and by stationing submarines and other vessels in port.13 Moreover, the civil war in Libya, which started in May 2014, demanded greater attention from Cairo and required steps to prevent any negative consequences for Egypt’s security and territorial integrity. For this reason, the Egyptian leadership constructed a completely new base in Matrouh Governorate. In summer 2017, the so-called Mohammed Naguib Military Base— which comprises 1,155 vital facilities and 72 training areas—became the biggest one of its kind in the Middle East and Africa. The Gargoub naval base (opened during summer 2020 and located west of the city of Marsa Matrouh) has an equal strategic value and plays a central role in counterterrorism operations as well as in the defence of both the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant (which is still under construction) and the oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean.14

The Ambassador MK III fast missile craft COUNTRY STUDIES

49

Clearly, Cairo is not half-hearted when it comes to the development of the Egyptian Armed Forces, especially to building up the Egyptian Navy. It seems, however, that its intense, multi-annual programme started to pay off: by the beginning of 2021, Egypt had already operated eight submarines, forty-seven different missile-carrying warships (corvettes, frigates, and missile boats), more than twenty mine-sweepers, and numerous auxiliary vessels. This also means that, today, the Arab country’s navy is the largest in North Africa and, slowly but surely, it is taking its place among the blue-water navy powers.

(in rank order): United States, France, United Kingdom, China, India, Italy, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey.

9 The main reason behind the tense relations between Egypt and Italy is the so-called Regeni case. Giulio Regeni was a student of 28 who disappeared from the streets of the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His brutalised body bearing signs of extensive torture was found by the side of the road in the outskirts of Cairo on 3 February. However, over the last four years, no one has been arrested for or charged with the student’s murder. Many newspapers and Egyptian opposition figures suggest that Egyptian authorities may be involved in the murder.

10 Agnes Helou: Why is Egypt intensifying its military drills?

Defense News. 30 November 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFNg >; Hi Sutton: New Submarines Spearhead The Egyptian Navy’s

ENDNOTES

Expanding Capabilities. Forbes. 9 May 2020. <http://bitly.ws/

1 Rasha Mahmoud: Egypt and Turkey’s energy face-off in

bFNk >; Luca Peruzzi: First Italian-Built FREMM Delivered To

the Mediterranean. Al-Monitor. 27 March 2020. <http://bitly.

Egypt Reaches Alexandria. Naval News. 31 December 2020.

ws/bFL6 >

<http://bitly.ws/bFNo >

2 Giuseppe Dentice: Matrouh: Egypt’s Linchpin in North

11 Helou, 2020.

Africa and the Mediterranean. Italian Institute for International

12 Alex Kassidiaris: Medusa-10’s Geopolitical Implications in

Political Studies. 6 December 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFLd >

the Eastern Mediterranean. Inside Over. 11 December 2020.

3 Khalid Hassan: Egypt leads international coalition to

<https://bit.ly/3kwaWEC >; Robert Tollast: Egypt–Russia

confront Turkey in eastern Mediterranean. Al-Monitor. 30

naval exercises highlight Cairo’s defence ambitions. The

September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFLm >

National News. 17 November 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFNu >

4 Mohamed Adel: Eni to start gas production of Zohr’s last

13 Sabat Khan: Key naval bases near completion as Cairo

well next week. Daily News. 15 January 2020 <http://bitly.ws/

eyes wider maritime influence in the region. The Arab Weekly.

bFLv >

24 October 2019. <http://bitly.ws/bFNz >

5 Alessia Melcangi: Eastern Mediterranean: Testing Egypt’s

14 Giuseppe. See also Ahmed Morsy: Matrouh: Egypt’s army

Geopolitical Ambitions? Italian Institute for International

is one of the strongest in the region; wise army that protects,

Political Studies. 17 July 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFLy >

doesn’t threaten: El-Sisi. Al-Ahram Online. 20 June 2020.

6 Hussein Mohammed Suleiman: Economic Impact of

<http://bitly.ws/bFNC >

COVID-19: Power ful Shock to Post-Reform Egypt.

EuroMeSCo. June 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bFMh >; Timothy E. Kaldas: The Road to (In)stability: The Impact of Covid-19 on the Egyptian Economy. Italian Institute for International Political Studies. 24 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/ bFMp > 7 Cdr. (Retd.) Eyal Pinko, Strategic, Business Intelligence and Cyber Consulting: Force Buildup of the Egyptian Navy.

Sea and Coast. 27 July 2019. <http://bitly.ws/bFMv > 8 Blue-water navy is a term describing maritime forces in contrast with brown-water navy (operating in river, lake, and littoral environments) and green-water navy (operating near to the shore). Blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally across the deep waters of open oceans.

Today, the following countries have a blue-water navy status 50

COUNTRY STUDIES

JORDAN: IN BETWEEN THE GULF AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN József Kádár The Emirate of Transjordan, today known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, was established

by Great Britain after World War I in 1921. Its territory was part of the Ottoman Empire before World War I and was mainly inhabited by Arab tribes. Abdullah I bin al-Hussein was appointed the head (emir) of the new state. He was the second son of Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi, the sharif and emir of Mecca and the leader of the anti-Ottoman Arab Revolt that broke out in 1916.

As a member of the Hashemite family, he was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, so he—just as the Hashemites—always played an essential role in Middle Eastern politics.

Transjordan itself “was an artificial product of a series of major political accidents during the implementation of the peace settlement”1 after World War I. Like the state itself, the name Transjordan was also artificial; the word means “the territory beyond the River Jordan,” in other words, the east bank of Jordan.

During the first twenty-five years of its history, the new state was part of the British mandate system. The country was considered a military base and a buffer zone between the Eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf, and the Saudi territories, its role being to protect British strategic interests in the Middle East. Britain established an army, called the Arab Legion, which was led and trained

by British military officers and consisted of Arab (mostly Transjordanian) soldiers. Emir Abdullah’s first task as head of state was to create all necessary state institutions and to deal with the Bedouin tribes, especially those who were not satisfied with the new central government.

During the Ottoman era, the Bedouin tribes that lived in the Transjordanian desert had a relatively undisturbed life, as they lived far enough from the Ottoman administration. After World War I, the new situation made some tribes dissatisfied

because the government threatened the tribal chiefs’ traditional political role and, in some cases, their frustration turned into riots. The largest tribal rebellion against the new Transjordanian regime was the Balqa Revolt in 1923. Finally, the emir succeeded in being reconciled with the tribes and in stabilising the state.

In 1928, the Anglo-Transjordanian Treaty was signed, and the so-called Organic Law was also adopted. The latter functioned as the first constitution of Transjordan. Both documents laid down the principles of relations between Britain and Transjordan and the emir’s rights and obligations. The agreement confirmed the ultimate authority of Britain, and its articles “reflected the British preoccupations with Transjordan hitherto, with strategic issues [. . .] and Britain’s relentless pursuit of efficient and effective governance [. . .] to the fore.”2 In the meanwhile, the development of the Transjordanian national identity began. John

Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein the emir of Transjordan (1921– 1946) and the king of Jordan (1946–1951) arriving at Amman in 1920 COUNTRY STUDIES

51

Glubb,3 who served in the Arab Legion from 1930 and took over the army’s leadership in 1939, actively took part in this process. Glubb tried to transform the traditional tribal identity into a Transjordanian national identity, but he did not achieve the desired result.4 The process was prolonged, but the roots of Transjordanian nationalism can be traced back to the 1930s.

During the Mandate era, the relation between the emir and the tribes, just as between the emir and the legion, became closer, resulting in stable governance in Transjordan. This special triangle of political power (the monarchy, the army, and the tribes) seems to be the reason why Jordan could always get over its crises.

Jordan finally gained independence from Britain in 1946, and Abdullah became the king of the new state, so he could continue his policy towards Palestine. The primary goal of his Greater Syria5 scheme was to annex Palestine to his kingdom, and, for this purpose, he had secret negotiations with Palestinian Arabs and Zionists, too. Before the First Arab–Israeli War broke out, Abdullah and the Zionists had concluded a secret agreement on the Arab Legion’s commitment to limiting its military operations only to the Arab territories of Palestine.6 During the war, this unofficial cooperation between Abdullah and Israel was maintained until the armistice agreement was signed in 1949, which finally led to the annexation of the West Bank to Jordan in 1950, when the Jordanian Parliament announced the unification of both banks of the River Jordan. To solve the Palestinian refugee question, the Arabs of the West Bank were granted Jordanian citizenship (none of the other Arab states had given citizenship to Palestinian refugees).7 However, Palestinians were frustrated by the king’s territorial ambitions, a policy that led to the assassination of Abdullah by a Palestinian in 1951.8 After King Abdullah had died, his son, Talal, came to the throne. However, he was not eligible to be the head of the monarchy because he had a mental illness. In summer 1952, King Talal was deposed in favour of his son, Hussein. King Talal’s major project was the reform of Jordan’s constitution, which was adopted in 1952 and provides the legal basis for Jordan even to 52

COUNTRY STUDIES

King Abdullah I of Jordan and John Glubb, leader of the Arab Legion, the day before the King was assassinated

this day.9 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is, therefore, a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral system of representation. The National Assembly consists of two houses: the Chamber of Deputies with forty seats and the Senate with twenty seats.10 The young Hussein, who was only seventeen years old when his father was deposed, had to face several challenges in the first two decades of his reign. He inherited the Palestine refugee problem, and he suddenly fell into the struggle of Middle Eastern politics and the Cold War. Moreover, he had to deal with his grandfather’s elderly politicians and followers. The early 1950s was the era when radical Arab nationalism (i.e., pan-Arabism) was on the rise and the Palestinian nationalism began. Meanwhile, Jordan had its own unofficial ideology, the pan-Jordanism, which stated that the residents of both banks of the River Jordan are Jordanians. The struggle between these three ideologies determined two decades of the history of Jordan.11 The rise of pan-Arabism affected Jordan’s internal politics. Its first two significant consequences in the country were the dismissal of John Glubb as commander of the Arab Legion and the Arabisation of the army. It was renamed as the Jordanian Arab Army (today known as the Jordanian Armed Forces), and all of its British officers and intelligence agents were fired. King Hussein had two fundamental reasons to make this move. The first was personal, since there was a generational gap between Glubb and him, so they had not found a common language. The

second reason was political, as he was trying to gain the trust of the political left by loosening the Anglo-Jordanian relations.12 However, this move made only a little impact on internal politics. In 1956, a parliamentary election was held, and the radical, revolutionary parties won several seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The communist National Front received three seats, the Ba’ath Party two, while eleven seats went to the National Socialist Party.13 The latter was the most successful party in this election, led by Suleiman al-Nabulsi, a radical leftist politician, who was asked to form a government.

Nabulsi, whose service as prime minister coincided with the Suez Crisis, began to break off Jordan’s relations with Britain. In early 1957, Jordan cancelled the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty (signed in 1948) and established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The transition from the British alliance brought an end to British financial aid. Since Jordan had always been dependent on this support, the financial situation of the country turned bad. Although Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia had signed the Arab Solidarity Agreement in January 1957, which would have substituted the British aid, only Saudi Arabia made its first payment. Moreover, the possibility

King Hussein in 1953

of Jordan joining the future United Arab Republic threatened the position of the Hashemite monarchy. After the Eisenhower Doctrine had been announced, the US president could assist any state threatened by communism through financial and military support. The doctrine also aimed at limiting the expansion of Nasser’s influence in the region and encouraged King Hussein to change Jordan’s policy. Assisted by the army, he discarded Prime Minister Suleiman Nabulsi and imposed martial law in April 1957 to protect and stabilise the monarchy. All political parties were banned, and, for the next three decades, political and parliamentary life was severely restricted.14 The Anglo-Jordanian relations were restored but, from then on, the United States became Jordan’s most important political ally and financial supporter.

In the 1960s, Jordan had to face the Palestinian problem and the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) founded in 1964.

The Palestinians, especially those who lived in the West Bank, opposed the Hashemite monarchy.

As a consequence of the Six-Day War in 1967, when the West Bank was lost to Israel, some 300,000 Palestinian refugees crossed the River Jordan and settled in East Bank camps. Thus, the loss of the West Bank was not only a political defeat but also caused a social crisis. Meanwhile, the PLO had more and more political power, especially after Jasser Arafat had seized power within the organisation. Some armed Palestinian fedayeen groups took control over Jordanian regions. Finally, King Hussein decided to expel all PLO forces from Jordan. The special triangle of the monarchy, the tribes, and the army came together again against the common enemy, just like in 1957. In September 1970, a civil war broke out (the event is also called Black September from the Palestinians’ perspective) and, following that, the expulsion of the PLO was concluded within a year. The conflict meant an end to panJordanism and the return to Transjordanianism.

In the 1970s, residents of Palestinian origin were considered strangers, not part of the nation.

However, they still held Jordanian citizenship.15 In 1974, at the Rabat Arab League summit, Jordan agreed, along with the other member states, COUNTRY STUDIES

53

King Abdullah II during his first visit to the United States in 1999

that the PLO was the sole representative of the Palestinians.16 Then, in 1988, Jordan renounced its claims to the West Bank.

In 1989, King Hussein had to face many political challenges. Jordan is a country lacking any natural resources or advanced industry; that is the reason why it depends on external financial aid. Since the end of the 1950s, the United States, oil-producing Arab countries in the Gulf, and international institutions such as the IMF have been Jordan’s prominent supporters.17 In 1988, Jordan’s budget deficit was JOD 388 million, double of the previous year’s. The economic crisis led to political demonstrations demanding not only economic but also political reforms.18 Moreover, changes in the international political scene, e.g., the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, encouraged the king to announce political reforms in his country. He launched his liberalisation programme in 1989, when general elections were also held. These were the first elections since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967. The adoption of the National Charter in 1990 was part of the king’s response to the riots. “The original aim of the charter was to provide a political framework to regulate the transition towards a more liberal form of politics in the kingdom[. . . .] [i]ts greatest importance was in the reassurance that it offered the King about the moves taking place in the direction of greater political liberalisation. The basic contract at the heart of the charter was that the King would allow complete restoration of pluralist, democratic, participatory politics.”19 In 1990, the martial law 54

COUNTRY STUDIES

was lifted, and in 1992, political parties were legalised again.20 In the 1990s and 2000s, Jordan did not participate directly in any conflicts in the Middle East. However, Hussein supported Saddam in the 1990–1991 Gulf War, which led to the temporary suspension of US financial aid, causing damage to Jordan’s international positions.21 In 1994, Jordan was open to conduct peace negotiations with Israel, which ended with the conclusion of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty. Despite the treaty, Israeli–Jordanian relations remained cold, even in 2000, when an Israeli–Palestinian conflict began and Jordan withdrew its ambassador from Israel for years. Meanwhile, in 1999, King Hussein passed away after forty-seven years on the throne, and he was succeeded by his son, Abdullah II bin al-Hussein.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, King Abdullah also had to face terrorism in his country. On a November evening in 2005, a series of coordinated bomb attacks occurred in three hotels in Amman and killed fifty-seven people. Right after the attack, the al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the acts. The government, later, decided to implement anti-terror measures.

In 2011, civil revolts demanding political and economic reforms broke out in various Arab states. This series of events, called the Arab Spring, also reached Jordan, where political

A map from 1955 showing Jordan and the West Bank, which was annexed in 1950 and held until the 1967 SixDay War

Syrian Refugees in Jordan between 18–59 Years (Urban and Camp Based)

IRBID AJLOUN

MAFRAQ

JERASH BALQA ZARQA MADABA

AMMAN

KARAK

TAFILEH

MAAN

1-1,000 AQABA

1,001-10,000 10,001-50,000 50,001-100,000

unrest began well before the outbreak of the revolts. The demonstrations were led by the Muslim Brotherhood, and, in their early phase, they protested at unemployment and corruption and demanded constitutional and electoral law reforms. The very “surprising [thing] about the visible manifestations of the unrest in Jordan [was] the involvement of the non-Palestinian elements of the population.”22 King Abdullah II, responding to the demonstrations, deposed his prime minister, which he did again two more times during the year. In summer, he promised that more reforms would be announced in the future, including new election and political party laws. After the government had announced the new electoral law in 2015, the 2016 parliamentary

elections were the first since 1989 to be held by proportional representation.

Jordan has kept its role as a key buffer between the Gulf and the Levant. The position of the Hashemite monarchy is stable, in spite of the past and present political demonstrations. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq during the 2010s did not pose a military threat to the country’s internal stability. Jordan, however, must face the presence of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Its economy is still dependent on external financial aid. The United States and the Arab Gulf states see Jordan as a key security partner against terrorism or radical ideologies in the region, and that is the reason why they still support the country. “Jordan actively participated in Global Coalition to Counter ISIL COUNTRY STUDIES

55

military efforts and amended key counterterrorism legislation. Jordan continued to provide diplomatic and political support to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in addition to its support for a political resolution to conflicts in Syria and Iraq.”23 Finally, mention must be made of the COVID-19 pandemic which Jordan has been seriously hit by.

Although it impacted all of the world’s countries, “its effect in Jordan has taken a particular toll.”24 Due to the lack of national resources, the economy of the country can only count on tourism and money transfers from Jordanian employees working abroad. However, these two sources of income are still restricted by the global economic impact of the pandemic.

Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988. 115.; Kádár József: Abdalláh király és Izrael.

Transzjordániai–izraeli kapcsolatok az első arab–izraeli háború idején (1947–1951). Iskolakultúra. 2016/12. 46–57.

7 Robins, 73.

8

László Csicsmann: Responsible Freedom and National

Security: Liberalisation and De-liberalisation in Jordan under King Abdullah II. Society and Economy. 2007/1. 99.

9 Robins, 81.; Csicsmann, 99–100.

10 The number of deputies in the Chamber was raised several times during the history of Jordan. Today, there are 130 members in the Chamber of Deputies. The number of seats in the Senate is always half of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies (it is 65 today). Renate Dieterich: Jordan. In: Elections in Asia and the Pacific. A Data Handbook. Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, edited by Dieter Nohlen–Florian Grotz–Christof Hartmann.

Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. 141–154.

ENDNOTES

11 This era, the 1950s and 1960s, is also called the Arab Cold

1 Ma’an Abu Nowar: The History of the Hashemite Kingdom of

War by Malcolm H. Kerr in his book The Arab Cold War. Gamal

Jordan. Creation and Development of Transjordan, 1920-29. Vol.

’Abd al-Nasir and Rivals, 1958–1970. Oxford University Press,

1. Ithaca Press, Oxford, 1989. 1.

Oxford, 1971.

2 Philip Robins: A History of Jordan. Cambridge University

12 Robins, 93–94.

Press, Cambridge, 2004. 36.

13 Dieterich, 151.

3 John Bagot Glubb (1897–1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was

14 Robins, 97–102.

a British army officer. After World War I, he served in Iraq and,

15 József Kádár: The Jordanian Nationalism. Mediterrán

from 1930, in Transjordan. He led the Arab Legion from 1939 to

Tanulmányok. Études sur la Région Méditerranéenne. 2019/1.

1956. He was one of the main political advisors and best friends

91–100.

of Emir/King Abdullah.

16 Közlemény az Arab Liga csúcskonferenciájáról. Rabat, 1974.

4

Yoav Alon: The Tribal System in the Face of the State-

október 29. In: Dokumentumok a Közel-Kelet XX. századi

Formation Process: Mandatory Transjordan, 1921–46.

történetéhez, edited by Lugosi Győző. L’Harmattan Könyvkiadó,

International Journal of Middle East Studies. 2005/2. 215–216.

Budapest, 2006. 440–441.

See also Joseph A. Massad: Colonial Effects. The Making of

17 Oded Eran: Demonstrations in Jordan: A Bona Fide Threat to

National Identity in Jordan. Columbia University Press, New York,

the Regime? Institute for National Security Studies. 7 June 2018.

2001. 144, 148–162.

<https://bit.ly/2NShG3D >

5 Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham) was a former province of the

18 Robins, 166–167.

Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid Caliphate. The Arab name of this

19 Robins, 174.

region, Bilad al-Sham means the “left-hand region” from the per-

20 Csicsmann, 100–101.; Dieterich, 142.

spective of Hijaz, a region in west Saudi Arabia. From the 19th

21 Nigel Ashton: King Hussein of Jordan. A Political Life. Yale

century, most of the Arab leaders’ dream was to recreate Greater

University Press, New Haven–London, 2008. 258–283.

Syria and the Caliphate. In the 20th century, most of the Arab

22 Oded Eran: Jordan. Demonstrations and Reforms on the

statesmen had their own Greater Syria plan: they all wanted to

Back Burner. In: One Year of the Arab Spring: Global and Regional

reunify the Middle East. Greater Syria involves the territories of

Implications, edited by Yoel Guzansky–Mark A. Heller. Institute for

contemporary Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine/Israel, but, ac-

National Security Studies, Tel Aviv, 2017. 49.

cording to some politicians, Egypt, Iraq, or Cyprus can be part of

23 Country Reports on Terrorism 2014. United States

the region, as well.

Department of State. June 2015. 182. <https://bit.ly/3rVoA61 >

6 Rostoványi Zsolt: Együttélésre ítélve. Zsidók és palesztinok

24 Oded Eran: Jordan. A New Political System Faces

harca a Szentföldért. Corvina Kiadó, Budapest, 2006. 104.; Avi

Longstanding Problems. Institute for National Security Studies.

Shlaim: Collusion across the Jordan. King Abdullah, the Zionist

20 October 2020. <https://bit.ly/38jHEUT >

56

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THREATS AND CHALLENGES IN THE POST-QADDAFI LIBYA Erzsébet N. Rózsa In the past decade, the post-Qaddafi Libya—its transition, the struggle for accessing its natural resources, and the fight against terrorism—has repeatedly come to dominate, albeit briefly, the international agenda and the media. The country’s domestic instability poses a range of threats to not just the Libyan state itself but its direct and wider neighbourhood, including the European Union, and, through the presence of global actors in Libya, to the international community at large. This article claims that most of these threats and challenges are related to the geographical location of Libya, on the one hand, and to the artificial structure of the Libyan state, on the other. Both contribute, at the same time, to the interest/disinterest of external powers and to the regional/global dynamics.

A COMPOSITE OF REGIONS—LIBYA ON THE EDGE OF ALL WORLDS Libya has been known ever since antiquity, with its coastal areas even then belonging to two worlds—that of the Phoenicians, who expanded their power to the western part of North Africa from Carthage (the name Tripolitania originates from the Greek name of the three Phoenicianbuilt cities, Tripolis) and that of the Greek, who controlled the eastern part (Cyrene, where the name Cyrenaica derives from, was one of the five Greek cities). This division has more or less remained all through history, with the exception of the period during the Roman empire, which incorporated both, and the first—temporary— spread of the Arab–Islamic caliphate. Following the Arab–Islamic conquest, however, the division soon reappeared, with Tripolitania belonging to the Arab west, the Maghreb, and Cyrenaica remaining part of the Arab east’s, the Mashreq’s development. The other division, between the urban coastal area with a settled-down population

and the inland populated by nomadic Berber tribes, has also remained throughout Libya’s history. The latter, southern region, Fezzan, however, also connected the coast to the African kingdoms and sub-Saharan Africa in general through ancient trans-Saharan trade routes.

European colonisation, in a way, followed the same ancient pattern when the Maghreb came to belong to the French sphere of interest (as a colony or as protectorates) and Egypt (and Sudan) came under British military control. The end of the two worlds yet again was Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, remaining a kind of buffer zone and being left for the Italians to colonise. Italian colonisation and European presence in Libya, however, in a way, “restored” Libya’s ancient belonging to Europe and came to reflect the new geopolitical reality after World War II: the Mediterranean became a scene of great power rivalry, especially with the two new superpowers struggling for influence there.

The present-day Libya came into being with a UN General Assembly resolution in 1951, comprising the three regions of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan. The several different scenarios for the future of the former Italian colony after World War II with different plans for the three regions not only reflected the fact that Libya had always been at the crossroads and on the border of different worlds but also represented—within the state thus established—different pasts and different social and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the United Kingdom of Libya between 1951 and 1963 came to be a federal constitutional monarchy where King Idris left the provinces intact. Its reorganisation into a unitary state being comprised of ten muhafazas became necessary because of the oil discovered in the eastern part of Libya and resulted in the Kingdom of Libya as a unitary constitutional monarchy between 1963 and 1969.

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TRIPOLITANIA

CYRENAICA FEZZAN

Libya’s three traditional regions That Libya which came into being after several years of great-power bargaining and several different scenarios, however, was and has remained “a fragile product of agreements, deals, and compromises, driven by a complex multitude of interests and pressures.”1 Yet it has ever since demonstrated an “unexpected resilience” in spite of all odds, while it has preserved several of its inner cleavages and divisions despite any uniting and unifying efforts. External interests present at its inception and the “logic” of an international order consisting of “nation states” among fixed borders have played an immense role in keeping it together. The threats and challenges emanating from Libya in the post-Qaddafi era to the country’s direct and wider neighbourhood are, thus, closely related to the composite nature and fragility of the state itself and to external presence and interference.

THE FRAGILITY OF THE STATE In spite of the fact that Libya was established as a federal state in 1951, and in spite of its administrative reorganisations to promote “national” unity, the aforementioned historical regional divisions have remained—albeit to a shifting extent. The historical memory of the fight against Italian colonisers and the discovery of oil did create a certain cohesion, yet it was the 1969 Fatah Revolution and the agreement fostered between the two great tribal confederations which established—under the direction of a 58

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small tribe—a functioning state. Modernisation efforts aimed at cementing the state cohesion by promoting and developing a Libyan Arab—panArab, nationalist, and even an Arab socialist— identity, which went hand in hand with an increasing number of people settling down in the towns and cities. Culturally, emotionally, and sometimes, even politically, however, the urban (Mediterranean “cosmopolitan”) vs the rural tribal divisions remained in spite of the dim(ming) tribal affiliations of the newly settled-down population.

Islam could have been a further traditional cementing element especially because Libya is a homogenous Islamic society with almost one hundred per cent of its population being Muslim.

However, the fact that Tripolitania’s population was mainly adhering to Sunni Islam (i.e. the Maliki school), while Cyrenaica was home to the indigenous Sanusiyya movement, developed into a political division. After King Idris, who, as the head of the Sanusiyya, had a strong claim to religious legitimacy, with the 1969 Fatah Revolution not only the monarchy but also the Sanusiyya was abolished (and was forced underground) in the Qaddafi era. Muammar Qaddafi, who propagated the close link between Sunni Islam and socialism, frequently focussed on this topic in his public statements.

As a result, Sunni Islam has remained a strong element of Libyan identity and politics— especially as public religiosity, further coloured by popular/Sufi practices, which are often rooted in sub-Saharan practices, is still strongly present in Libyan society. In general, Libyan society is “conservative in outlook and deeply religious in nature, but with a few exceptions, it has never had any real appetite for the radical Islam advocated by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or its North African affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Equally important is that the general public has shown little interest in an Islamist alternative to the non-ideological 17 February Revolution in 2011.”2 (As a thensurprising consequence, at the first elections organised in the “independent” Libya, the only party with some Islamic affiliations, the Justice and Construction Party, received only 10% of the votes,3 which is worthwhile to compare with

the results of similar parties in, e.g., Egypt or Tunisia.)

Consequently, any leader of Libya had to and would have to face and bridge differences in identities at least on three levels in society, namely, regional, tribal, and religious ones, which are themselves closely interrelated and interlinked.

The fourth societal level of identification—the way of life, which is basically either nomadic or settled down—has been mostly pushed into the background by now, especially by the policies of Qaddafi and modernisation/globalisation. Yet the ideals thereof remain strong, and political developments may even give them a boost. One could have expected that tribal identities would also quietly disappear partly due to Qaddafi’s policies (of playing up different identities in different periods), but, partly due to the insecure transition and the civil war in Libya, tribal identities have restrengthened in many communities and layers of the society. And so have regional or even Islamic identities.

Liberation Day on 23 October 2011 after Qaddafi’s fall was a clear indication of the competing elements of Libyan identity, as the three leaders of the uprising against Qaddafi’s rule gave three very different speeches on the new Libya: In Benghazi, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said: “We are an Islamic country. . . . We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.”4 On the other hand, the leader of the militia liberating Tripoli, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj emphasised “Libyan national identity,” while, for the people of Misrata, “revenge” (i.e., a tribal element) was the most important.

EXTERNAL ACTORS—REGIONAL AND GLOBAL DYNAMICS Despite the above historical, political, and social cleavages, the Libyan state has proved resilient, even if it is more of a kind of inertia under external pressure than a national cohesion that keeps it together. The several-year-long process among the great powers after World War II and the debates in the United Nations General Assembly that eventually led to the proclamation of Libya

reflected the fact that Libya was not the result of a “natural,” endogenous development but a post– World War II construct based on momentary international consensus.

The Libyan state, therefore, has been a field of great-power and regional-power struggles since its inception and even before. Yet, during its seventy years of existence, Libya’s relations to outside (regional and global) actors have been fluctuating between two wide-apart extremes: that of a policy taker (or even subject to great power interests) and that of a policy maker, with the role of the policy shaper occasionally in between. While the former indicates accepting/ enduring external interference, the latter refers to pursuing Libyan interests outside the country’s borders, both in the region and globally.

In the monarchy, the British and US military bases and the containment of an eventual Soviet presence and influence, and, later, the discovery of oil were the main incentives to great power interests. In a regional context, the western orientation in the monarchy’s foreign relations was soon challenged by the Arab nationalism and revolutionary ideology propagated by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Baathists of Syria and Iraq.

The Qaddafi era signalled a significant change in not only its revolutionary rhetoric but also the increasingly ambitious foreign policy Libya started to pursue in its neighbourhood or region and on a global level, as well.

The Fatah Revolution was a watershed or at least the beginning of a new era. Qaddafi, actively assuming the role of the last Arab nationalist, tried to promote Arab unity by—infamously— uniting Libya with several Arab countries in a row (in 1972, with Egypt, in 1974, with Tunisia, in 1980, with Syria, and, later, with Morocco and even Yemen). This meant a stark difference from the kingdom. Yet, by the time Qaddafi came to power, pan-Arabism had been exhausted and, with the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, even discredited to an extent from where it could never recover.

The new leadership also turned to Libya’s wider region, Africa, starting with the Muslim neighbours (Cameroon, Mauritania, or Niger).

This policy seemed successful for a while, only COUNTRY STUDIES

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to have the Africans turn away from Libya later.

Although the African engagement had its ups and downs, it finally led Qaddafi to propose the reform of the Organisation of African Unity into an African Union in 2002, the Commission/Secretariat of which is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The African dimension was complemented by Third World relations, partly in the spirit of the era.

In the Cold War environment, the Jamahiriyyah, Qaddafi’s state model based on the direct political involvement of the masses,5 brought Libya closer to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, yet, by claiming to establish a new third way superseding the existing political systems of both worlds, even this relationship was not free of problems. While the Socialist bloc could not replace the US and western investment and technical assistance, the health care sector was given a boost by the socialist countries’ building, equipping, and staffing several new hospitals.

On a global level, however, Qaddafi’s activism was most noted in his support for armed/terrorist groups, on the one hand, and his pursuing weapons of mass destruction, on the other. Libya not only provided financial help for the IRA or different Palestinian groups, most of which Israel considered as terrorists, but also gave refuge to them and their representatives, as well as ill-famed terrorist persons, for example, Carlos.

“Terrorism was also a cheap alternative that

would enable [Qaddafi] to emerge as a . . . leader in the Arab world.”6 Libya was also involved in the probably most famous terrorist attack before 9/11, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

A similar terrorist attack was also committed against UTA Flight 772 the next year. At about the same time, Libya came to be suspected with the development of chemical weapons (in Rabta and Tarhuna), which was complemented with sporadic news of Libya trying to “buy” nuclear weapons, as well. These two issues—terrorism and weapons of mass destruction—resulted in the total isolation of Libya, which even the access to Libyan oil could not overwrite. Anyhow, oil was a double-edged element: while it was an asset which could be used to promote Libyan interests at home and abroad, it also exposed Libya’s vulnerability to the fluctuation of oil prices, great power competition, and even sanctions.

Libya’s isolation and pariah status were eventually relaxed due to two main steps: at the beginning of the 2000s, Libya surrendered the suspects of the Flight 103 bombing for trial, accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, paid USD 2.7 billion to the victims’ families, and, in 2003, Qaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction. The dismantling of the Libyan chemical weapons and the programme of their development were started

Chart 1: Libya’s crude oil production allocations between 1982 and 2020 (1,000 barrel/day) 1,600 1,425

1,400

1,100 990 990 999 999

1,000

948

996 996

1,037

1,323

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1,149

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800 Apr 1983 – Oct 1984

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1,395

1,233 1,233

1,200

800

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1,522

600 400 200

80 nd

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nd

0

under the supervision of the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In acknowledgement, the US lifted sanctions on Libya and, in 2006, removed Libya from the list of “states sponsors of terrorism.” Although Muammar Qaddafi was slowly “reintegrated” into the international community in the years leading up to the 2011 Libyan Arab Spring, he remained suspected in spite of the cautiously evolving diplomatic relations and Libya’s oil wealth. (At the EU–Africa summit in Tripoli on 29 November 2010, Qaddafi threatened that Africa would look elsewhere for trade partners if the EU kept trying to dictate how the continent should develop.7 He participated in several regional fora, mostly the Arab League and the African Union, and several world leaders met him—the most outstanding incident was when, in July 2009, Barack Obama met him at the G8 summit in Italy.

The Libyan Arab Spring in a way fitted into the series of Arab Spring events, as it reflected serious social and regional discontent, which soon took the shape of a clash between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. Although Libya was considered an oilrich country, it was not visible in the distribution of the benefits of oil income and in the standard of living of the population. Libya was also the only Arab state where there was external interference in how the Arab Spring unfolded. The NATO mission between 31 March and 31 October 2011

soon determined the outcome of the uprising which was deemed by analysts much more to be a tribal war for the distribution of wealth than a democratisation process in the European sense.

In a way, this was a clear continuation of Qaddafi’s policies before 2011, as he had increasingly been behaving as a tribal leader in the previous years (his infamous “zenga zenga” speech not only shocked the whole region but also pointed to the traditional structure of the Arab/desert society based on a social contract between the ruler and the ruled/subjects. The clash between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania resembled the competition of the two cities and two regions in the past few decades and has relevance to this day.

THE POST-QADDAFI ERA The post-Qaddafi era, therefore, repeated and recreated the threats deriving from both the still—or yet again—fragmented nature of the Libyan state and the clash between the regional and external powers’ interests. While these can be analysed on local, regional, and international levels, these levels should be broken down further due to Libya’s specific historical, social, and security characteristics. Local does not simply relate to the territory of the Libyan state but has a much narrower meaning, depending on the case in question, and may mean anything from a city (e.g., Misurata) to a region within Libya nd = no distribution made np = no production level allocated

1,600 1,400 1,200

1,323

1,361 1,404

1,431 1,350

1,296

1,227

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0

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72

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17 Mar 2005 – 30 Jun 2005

1 Nov 2004 – 16 Mar 2005

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nd

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(Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, or Fezzan) to coastal or inland territories. Due to the specific composition and history of the country, regional—even in its broader meaning—may mean the Mediterranean (in some issues, even involving Europe or the European Union), the Arab world and/or the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Africa proper, i.e., the continent itself. The international level seems the easiest to define, but here different dimensions may also play a role from the now historical Third World to the UN, the NATO, the European Union, and others.

While the exact beginning of the post-Qaddafi era may be questioned—the beginning of the uprisings, that of the United Nations Operation Unified Protector (based on the United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973), Qaddafi’s lynching, or the day when the republic was declared, can equally be considered as its point of departure—it definitely exposed all the above-mentioned fault lines in the Libyan society.

The fragility of the state, the tribal and regional affiliations mobilising for or against Qaddafi, the fact that Qaddafi armed the population, and the presence of foreign fighters on the ground caused great concerns in the neighbouring states.

The country’s unpatrolled borders, a signal characteristic of state failure, posed several threats: the fleeing of the Qaddafi elite (including his family) and its trained-in-war fighters (many of whom were mercenaries employed by Qaddafi),8 on the one hand, and the free flow of weapons9 in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, on the other. A further threat, realised only some years later, was the spread of militant Islamic groups.

FLOW OF MIGRANTS/REFUGEES Unpatrolled borders and the fragile—or, at some point, clearly failed—state were the cause of the eventual flow of migrants/refugees towards Europe. (During the NATO operation, Qaddafi threatened Europe with “the opening of the gates of hell,” and the subsequent state failure did really have such a consequence.) According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of 2017 up to 90% of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe departed from Libya,10 yet the number of 62

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Libyans among them is relatively small. As the International Organization for Migration notes “until the 2011 crisis, outward migration was not an issue for the Libyan population . . . during the unrest in 2011: the International Organization of Migration (IOM) estimates around 768,372 foreign-nationals and 422,912 Libyan nationals fled the country during the crisis (as of 8 June 2011) . . . most Libyans are, however, believed to have returned to Libya.”11 These figures clearly reflect that the main problem is not Libyan migration but migration through Libya, as the number of international migrants in the country was 826.5 thousand (i.e., 12% of the local population) in mid-2020.12 This was especially so, as a wide network of migrant smuggling and human trafficking developed in the past decade.

The consequently launched European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation Sophia’s “core mandate is to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture, and dispose of vessels and enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or traffickers, in order to contribute to wider EU efforts to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean and prevent the further loss of life at sea. . . . [In 2017, it was amended with the task of] training Libyan coastguards and navy, as well as contributing to the implementation of the UN arms embargo on the high seas off the coast of Libya.”13 The European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation IRINI, started in March 2020, is mandated with the same tasks: the implementation of the arms embargo, the prevention of the illicit export of oil, building and training the Libyan Coast Guard and the Libyan Navy, as well as the disruption of the business model of human smuggling and trafficking.14 THE CHALLENGE OF MILITANT ISLAM GROUPS From a state sponsoring terrorist activities worldwide in the 1980s, Libya became “a top U.S. ally in combating transnational terrorism”15 when Qaddafi himself became the target of domestic opposition and terrorism. Although, traditionally, Libya was not much receptive to radical Islam and

was not listed among the first states hit hardest by terrorism in general,16 there were some armed groups that challenged the Qaddafi regime from the mid-1980s onwards that identified themselves with Islam, e.g., the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which incorporated, among others, veterans returning from Afghanistan.17 The failure of state authority after the demise of Qaddafi, however, made Libya “a virtual incubator of terrorist groups, hosting all stripes of jihadi organizations including ISIS and AlQaeda.”18 The presence of Transnational Islamist organisations may have two roots: an indigenous local terrorist/radical organisation taking the oath of allegiance to the core organisation, and/or the fighters of the core organisation taking refuge in the “host” country. Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, an organisation established during the Libyan uprising with shifting connections in different phases to both the AQIM and the Islamic State and integrating not only Libyan but also foreign fighters, is a case in point.

The formation of the Islamic State–Libya (IS–Libya) from the three provinces of Barqa (Cyrenaica), Tripolitania, and Fezzan was announced by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in November 2014,19 and, at some point, it was estimated to have nearly 7,000 fighters with Sirte as their centre.20 Al-Qaeda was represented by groups related to the AQIM. Though it seemed that IS–Libya was successfully purged from Sirte in 2016, the option of moving its centre of operations to Libya seemed a realistic scenario with the increasing loss of territory of the core IS. Yet the group “lacked a concentrated, physical presence in Libya, instead spreading into smaller groups with a presence in both urban environments and the sparsely populated desert districts,”21 so, while both the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Arab Army (LNA) were fighting hard against it, it carried out scattered, sporadic attacks in the past two years—recently mostly against LNA forces or civilian targets in the LNA-controlled territory. These attacks, to a certain extent, may be an indication of why the Egyptian government provided support to Field Marshal Haftar, the leader of the LNA.

“IT’S OIL, STUPID!” While these threats and the related many-faceted challenges in themselves would be enough to call for international action, Libya has one asset which has been the centre of international attention ever since its discovery: oil.

Oil has played an important role in the history of modern Libya, and different roles with shifting relevance were assigned to it in the international community: an objective during the monarchy, when it attracted foreign companies, a basis for a policy maker/shaper role through the Qaddafi era, when it provided financial underpinnings for Qaddafi’s ambitious foreign policy agenda, and, yet again, a target today, which, besides the threats listed above, probably serves as the main reason for the international commitment to establishing peace and stability.

Libyan oil wealth is estimated at some 48 billion barrels, which is approximately 3% of all global oil reserves: it secures the ninth position for the country in global ranking and the first in Africa, making Libya a classical rentier state.22 Libyan oil is of very good quality, easy to access, and close to Europe. However, the actual Libyan oil output is very much subject to the fragile domestic situation: in January 2021, e.g., “Libya’s daily production surged to 1.25 million barrels from almost nothing in September after a truce between rival military forces.”23 (See Figure 1–2) Other uncertainty factors are the neglected state of the infrastructure and the security of both the infrastructure and the flow of oil: output has dropped by about 200,000 barrels a day when a leaking pipeline had to be closed down for repairs.24 (The problem of infrastructure, equipment, and technology has been around on and off practically through the whole era of Libyan oil excavation: when the US and the UK were forced to give up their military bases in Libya and Qaddafi turned to the Soviet Union, spare parts became impossible to obtain.)

External powers tried to secure their share and participation in the “reconstruction” of the war-torn Libyan economy, especially in the oil sector, already at a very early stage of the Libyan uprising. This aspiration was also reflected by the first high-level visits to the country: British COUNTRY STUDIES

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Gas pipelines across the Mediterranean and the Sahara North Atlantic Ocean

ITALY Piombino

SPAIN Cordoba Almeria

Mediterranean Sea Mazara del Vallo Koudiet Ed-Draouach El Haouaria

Beni Saf

MOROCCO Hassi R'Mel

TUNISIA

Gela

Mellitah

Wafa LIBYA ALGERIA

NIGER

Trans-Saharan

NIGERIA

Maghreb–Europe Medgaz Warry

Galsi Trans-Mediterranean Greenstream Others

South Atlantic Ocean

prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy were the first highranking politicians to land in Libya after Qaddafi had been ousted in mid-September 2011—even before Qaddafi died. They intended to meet the National Transitional Council, discuss stability, and bring aid. A day later, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also landed in Tripoli to boost international support for the NTC. Russian companies, on the other hand, seemed to suffer significant losses (estimated at USD 7 billion), especially because the new Libya seemed to prefer western investors.25 Though rebel leaders promised „that countries active in supporting their insurrection – notably Britain and France – 64

COUNTRY STUDIES

should expect to be treated favourably once the dust of war had settled,”26 and there were even reports about an eventual French share of some 30%, this was refuted later.

The development of the Libyan domestic situation, however, made several companies scale their operations down, become more cautious,27 and soon, even Russia was back in business with the “private” Wagner Group (and its fighters) to defend Russian interests in the oilfields.

LIBYAN GAS AND THE EASTMED GAS CONTROVERSY Libya itself has significant gas reserves estimated at 1.505 bcm with which the country ranks 23rd globally.28 Yet Libya has borne new relevance to the controversy in the Eastern Mediterranean over the natural gas resources there, which reached its climax in 2020. Libya’s own natural gas resources are not new: a gas pipeline connecting Libya to Italy was planned already in the 1970s. The Greenstream submarine natural gas pipeline was put into operation in 2004 and has since been supplying gas to Italy; even the armed conflict could not disrupt its operation, although the supply quantity was reduced time and again.

The discovery of natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, the efforts to excavate them, and the different cooperation projects have been on the agenda since 2009– 2010. The countries involved in this wave of discoveries have made progress to a varying degree: while Israel and Egypt have already started to produce their newly found gas fields, Cyprus might commence its production only in the years to come. The frequently discussed EastMed pipeline project with a designed capacity of 10 bcm per annum has been the centre of attention since 2013. This pipeline is aimed at supplying gas from the Levantine Basin to European markets; however, because of economic and commercial factors, it is highly questionable whether it will ever be realised.

The EU’s gas demand is expected to further decrease, and LNG might offer more flexibility to European consumers, which casts a further

shadow on the chances of implementing a costly and rather politically motivated pipeline project.

Politically, the very fact that several countries— Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and Palestine—have to cooperate in the EastMed Gas Forum established in January 2020 and headquartered in Cairo and that there are decades-long conflicts among some of them is a threat to the project in itself. Though the planned pipeline is supported by the European Union as a Project of Common Interest, the fact that Turkey was left out of the EastMed Gas Forum altogether not only gives the project a political character but has also included the element of uncertainty, insecurity, and an eventual conflict from the very start.

In November 2019, Turkey and the internationally acknowledged Libyan government in Tripoli led by Fayez al-Sarraj announced an agreement on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea and a deal on expanded security and military cooperation, an indication of the danger of a potential armed conflict in both Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean. The claim that Turkish–Libyan territorial waters constituted a corridor (Figure 3), or rather a wall, preventing any plans for gas pipelines through this maritime zone, threatened with the outbreak of an open armed conflict.

The year 2020 did indeed bring about an upsurge of tension in Libya, where upon the authorisation of the Turkish parliament, Turkish troops helped the Government of National Accord from January 2020 to withstand the

The 2019 agreement between the Government of National Accord and Turkey on their exclusive economic zones TURKEY

LIBYA

forces of the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The Turkish presence practically turned the tide of the war, and the two Libyan parties, the GNA and the LNA, came to conclude a ceasefire in October 2020. Yet the mandate of the Turkish forces was extended for another eighteen months.

Taking into consideration that the internationally acknowledged GNA is supported by Turkey, while the LNA is supported by Egypt, Russia, France, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Jordan, it is clear that the fight within Libya strongly overlaps with the dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean.

CONCLUSION The threats and challenges faced and posed by Libya can be traced back to two—oversimplified but very complex—factors: first, the artificial, composite structure of the Libyan state as established in 1951, and second, Libya’s geographical location. The several layers of its social construct (tribal affiliations, Islam, regional differences, coastal urban vs inner desert ways of life and mentality) not only failed to disappear under the long reign of Muammar Qaddafi, who himself played up the different identity elements, but have gained new momentum since 2011 in the insecure and even civil war–like environment.

In 2021, Libya is still not a unitary state with its two governments, the Tripoli-based, inter­ nationally acknowledged Government of National Accord and the House of Representatives, aligned with the Libyan National Army under the leadership of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

In spite of several external, mostly UN-initiated efforts, Libya is still a failed/failing state posing two direct threats to Europe: migration, to which Libya serves as a transit route in the absence of operational state authority, and militant Islamic activity, to which the very same reason, namely, the absence of operational state authority may provide the scene.

In a paradox way, Libya’s hydrocarbon reserves, which pushed the state towards a more unitary structure upon their discovery, have proven as much of an asset as a liability. The oil wealth served as the basis of the different waves of political activism by the Qaddafi regime (towards COUNTRY STUDIES

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the Arab world, Africa, or the Third World in general), making it, at times, a policy shaper, if not the policy maker Qaddafi hoped to be. Yet, in the failed state environment, oil and gas attract manifold direct external interest (from regional to global powers) and may also draw Libya into disputes (or eventually a war) it is not seeking.

12 Non-official figures and public perception put this figure at twice as many, i.e., well above 1.5 million.

13 About us. EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia. <https://bit. ly/2ZHtEiT > Accessed: 1 February 2021.

14 EU Common Security and Defence Policy, Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI. <https://bit.ly/3pLo1Lg > Accessed: 1 February 2021.

15 Libya’s Terrorist Descent: Causes and Solutions. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and

ENDNOTES

Trade of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. U.S. Government

1 Ronald Bruce St John: Libya. From Colony to Revolution.

Publishing Office, Washington, 2016. <https://bit.ly/3ntGlc3 >

Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2012. 109.

16 Libya was not among the first twenty-eight countries hit

2 Ronald Bruce St John: The Post-Qadhafi economy. In: The

hardest by terrorist attacks. Csiki Tamás [et al.]: A világ

2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi

terrorfenyegetettségének alakulása 2004 és 2011 között (II.

Future, edited by Jason Pack. Palgrave MacMillan, New York,

rész). NKE Stratégiai Védelmi Kutatóközpont Elemzések.

2013. 118.

2012/10. 1–26.

3 Out of the 200 seats in the new parliament, 120 were held

17 St John (2012), 221–224.

for independent candidates, and only 80 were voted as party

18 Libya’s Terrorist Descent: Causes and Solutions. House

lists. JCP with its 10% got 17 seats of the 80.

Hearing. Govinfo. 27 September 2016. <https://bit.ly/3buMbEw >

4 Adam Nossiter–Kareem Fahim: Revolution Won, Top Libyan

19 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant—Libya. United Nations

Official Vows a New and More Pious State. The New York Times.

Security Council. <https://bit.ly/2ZL76O0 > Accessed: 1

23 October 2011. <https://nyti.ms/3qLcjRW >

February 2021.

5 N. Rózsa Erzsébet: Líbia – a törzsiségtől a Líbiai Arab Népi

20 Ibid.

Szocialista Dzsamáhirijján át a bukott államiságig. In: N. Rózsa

21 Country Reports on Terrorism 2019. 208–209. U.S.

Erzsébet: Az államiság modelljei a Közel-Keleten. A vahhábita

Department of State, Bureau of Counterterrorism. <https://bit.

királyságtól az iszlám köztársaságig. Budapest, Dialóg Campus,

ly/3vXvquq >

2019. 143–160

22 On Libya’s oil sector under and after Qaddafi, see, e.g., St

6 Sara Obeidat: Muammar Qaddafi and Libya’s Legacy of

John (2013), 85–111.

Terrorism. FRONTLINE. 13 October 2015. <https://to.pbs.

23 Salma El-Wardany: Neglected infrastructure forces Libya to

org/3pO3zJz >

reduce oil output. World Oil. 27 January 2021. <https://bit.

7 Christian Lowe: Gaddafi issues warning to EU over African

ly/3shM06k >

trade. Reuters. 19 November 2010. <https://reut.rs/3aikn22 >

24 Ibid.

8 According to western reports, the Tuareg were paid

25 “Libya’s victorious rebels have already announced that

USD 10,000 to join the Libyan government forces and a further

western countries, particularly NATO nations, will have priority

USD 1,000 a day to fight. Also, up to 10,000 Africans were

when it comes to new oil contracts because of the alliance’s

recruited from countries including Sudan, Chad, Mali, and Niger.

support during the revolution.” Evlalia Samedova–Olga

Martin Plaut: Gaddafi’s African ‘mercenaries’ leaving Libya. BBC.

Sosnytska: Russian business interests are casualty of Libyan

27 August 2011 <https://bbc.in/2Mld99c >

conflict. DW. 31 August 2011. <https://bit.ly/3sk0G4L >

9 In spite of UN Security Council Resolution 1917, which put

26 Julian Borger–Terry Macalister: The race is on for Libya’s oil,

an arms embargo on Libya, more than 20 million weapons

with Britain and France both staking a claim. The Guardian. 1

circulated in the country of only 6 million people.

September 2011. <https://bit.ly/2OW4o6g >

10 Libya. UNHCR. Last updated 23 October 2017. <https://bit.

27 “British Petroleum has been slow to resume operations in

ly/37FkIid >

Libya, in part due to security concerns, and in May 2012, Royal

11 Libya. In: EU Neighbourhood Migration Report 2013, edited

Dutch Shell abandoned two exploration blocks due to harsh

by Philippe Fargues. European University Institute, Robert

contract terms, prevailing insecurity, and disappointing results.”

Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Migration Policy Centre,

St John (2013), 98.

San Domenico di Fiesole, 2013. 127–144. <https://bit.

28 Natural Gas Data. OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin. <https://

ly/3tZJd2T >

bit.ly/3aMDl5U > Accessed: 1 February 2021.

66

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CYPRUS IN THE EU: FROM INTEGRATION TO PRESENTDAY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Isabelle Ioannides The big-bang enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 is often presented as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is seen as a major challenge to EU integration, while, on the other, as the EU’s enrichment through diversity and added capabilities. The Republic of Cyprus (RoC), the most south-eastern EU member state, hostage to its geography, is a stark reminder of this reality. On the one hand, the RoC benefits from investment possibilities from and to its neighbouring regions, while, on the other, it is located near embroiled conflicts and faces its own decades-old frozen conflict.

Hence the path of Cyprus in the EU has been paved with as many challenges as opportunities.

This article aims to shed light on the centrality that the EU has played in Nicosia’s foreign policy, bolstering it to become more independent of the difficulties faced following the financial crisis and leading to a diversification of Nicosia’s partners. It also analyses the complexities of the geopolitical power games at play on the Eastern Mediterranean, following the discovery of natural gas deposits, and their impact on the continued intractability of the Cyprus problem.

CYPRUS’ FOREIGN POLICY SINCE ITS EU ACCESSION Since joining the EU in 2004, Nicosia has made its European membership a central feature in its efforts to strengthen its credibility and upgrade its international role. The RoC presents itself as a country that aims to resolve its conflict in a peaceful manner and as a credible and predictable partner that promotes stability and security in a region of instability. At the EU level, Nicosia follows the “European consensus” as long as EU positions do not jeopardise RoC interests on its national problem (the Cyprus question). This means that, in critical moments

of EU decision making, the RoC opts to be constructive rather than stand out alone and block decisions on its own. Taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July 2012 was an important stepping stone towards the RoC’s “adulthood.” Under difficult circumstances, the country used this role to reconfirm its sovereignty and status, aiming not to let the Cyprus problem interfere in the execution of the presidency and to handle dossiers pertaining to Turkey with objectivity.

A strong defender of multilateralism, Nicosia also seeks to win broad international support for a Cyprus settlement. It has, therefore, reached out to as many states as possible through different international fora—the Non-Aligned Movement (until 2004), the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations (UN).

Due to its small size and to ensure that allies on the Cyprus problem are not alienated, Nicosia takes a pragmatic approach when dealing with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. Relations with these two major global players are important to Cyprus partly because of their stance in the UN Security Council. In addition, Moscow provided a EUR 2.5 billion loan to support the troubled Cypriot banking sector during the financial crisis, and it supports Cyprus’ exclusive right to produce gas offshore despite Turkey’s objections, while Cyprus is the single largest channel for foreign direct investment in Russia.

Following the 2008–2010 global financial crisis and the catastrophic consequences it had on the Cypriot banking sector, Nicosia decided to diversify its foreign policy, treading a tight rope between reaching out to the West (the United States) and not estranging long-standing friends in the East (Russia and China).1 EU COUNTRY STUDIES

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The gas situation in the Eastern Mediterranean around Cyprus Greece’s proposed boundary with Turkey

Aegean Sea Sea of Crete GREECE

TURKEY

SYRIA Proposed EastMed pipeline

Nicosia CYPRUS Vasilikos LEBANON

Yavuz

Disputed maritime boundary

Calypso Aphrodite Glaucus

Zohr

Mediterranean Sea

Tamar Leviathan

ISRAEL

Idku Proposed gas pipelines

Damietta

EGYPT

Maritime boundary Boundary of Turkish continental shelf, according to Turkey Claimed by both Cyprus and Turkey Claimed by both the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Unlicensed Cyprus block Gas discovery Drillship

Licensed Cyprus block

LNG terminal

membership has created a more pro-Western orientation in the RoC. In particular, since the election of President Nicos Anastasiades in February 2013, Nicosia has increasingly seen the firmer anchoring of the RoC within Western political structures as a way to strengthen its impact on an EU level. In that light, Cyprus’s foreign policy appeared to make a U-turn on its approach to NATO. Nicosia set a goal to join the Partnership for Peace programme and has strengthened relations with the United States.

This culminated in a more proactive stance on 68

Gas fields

Turkish drilling location

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the Cyprus problem by the United States with Vice President Joe Biden visiting the island in May 2014, and the United States lifting a thirty-three-year arms embargo on Cyprus and deepening its security cooperation with Nicosia in September 2020. The United States had initially conditioned the lifting of the US arms embargo on Cyprus closing its port to Russia’s naval forces, which Nicosia refused to do.

The RoC has also developed and expanded its relations with the Gulf countries in an effort to diversify its allies. For the Gulf monarchies,

Cyprus represents the south-eastern gate to the EU and a viable channel of communication with the European institutions.2 One of the major intra-Gulf fault lines in the region impacting on wider geopolitics is the role of Islamist movements, which are supported by Qatar and Turkey but opposed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The RoC and the UAE established official diplomatic relations by opening embassies in each other’s capitals in 2007. As Turkey–Greece relations increasingly soured, relations between Nicosia and Abu Dhabi gained momentum as of 2014. It led to respective visits by the RoC leader and the sheikh of the UAE. As a consequence of this diplomatic breakthrough, the UAE has become an important economic partner for the RoC: the total general trade volume in 2015 amounted to USD 102 million, there are over one hundred Cypriot-owned companies present in the UAE, and Nicosia has awarded two concession agreements to the UAE’s marine terminals operator (DP World) on Cyprus’s Limassol port.3 Since 2017, the UAE has also participated in the Greek-led annual military exercise, Iniochos, which also includes the United States, Israel, and, since 2018, the RoC and Italy, and Egypt as an observer. Similarly, relations with Saudi Arabia have developed on gas, investments, tourism, and maritime security. They have led to highlevel visits between Nicosia and Riyadh and intensified in September 2019, when the first resident Saudi Arabian ambassador to Cyprus, Khaled bin Mohammed Al-Sharif, presented his credentials to President Anastasiades.

Although Nicosia has traditionally prioritised its relations with the Arab states in the Near East and was wary of Israel’s long-standing defence cooperation with Turkey, the discovery of the Aphrodite gas field in 2011 and the acrimonious Israeli–Turkish relations provided an incentive for Nicosia to reconsider its relations with Israel.

The RoC sees the natural gas discoveries in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as vital potential leverage. Building cooperation with regional partners on gas is a way to improve Nicosia’s position when negotiating with Turkey and the

Turkish Cypriots. The challenge for Nicosia remains to find the appropriate mix of incentives for the Turkish Cypriots to generate an impetus for compromise without endangering the RoC’s sovereignty, legally recognising the selfproclaimed ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC),’ or without freezing its hydrocarbon development in case a compromise proves difficult.4 In that light, in November 2012, Cyprus and Greece signed an agreement with Israel to discuss the creation of an Eastern Mediterranean Energy Corridor enabling gas exports. This move was already then seen as a potentially destabilising element in the region and a new source of tension with Turkey.5 The 2015 discovery of Egypt’s Zohr natural gas field resulted in deepening cooperation between Cairo and Nicosia. In the context of the Cyprus– Egypt–Israel cooperation, plans were outlined for a pipeline connecting Aphrodite (Cyprus) and/or Leviathan (Israel) gas deposits with Egypt’s idle liquefaction plants.

THE EUROPEAN FACTOR IN THE NEGOTIATIONS OF THE CYPRUS PROBLEM The 2004 collapse of the UN-backed Annan Plan for the reunification of Cyprus was a turning point in the negotiations on the stalemate on the island. The RoC’s accession to the EU has undoubtedly given the Greek Cypriots a degree of political security as long as they are seen as working towards a solution to the Cyprus problem. The RoC’s accession to the EU also made it more difficult for the TRNC (only recognised by Turkey) to gain international recognition. That is because a country’s decision to recognise the TRNC would undoubtedly have an impact on that country’s relations with the EU, since the EU regards the whole island as a member.6 At the same time, however, Cyprus’s accession to the EU without a settlement on the stalemate meant that the Turkish Cypriots, the majority of whom had voted in favour of the UNproposed peace deal, were left outside the EU. As a result, the TRNC has since 2004 perceived the RoC’s posturing in the EU as obstructionism and “exploit[ing] its EU membership to cloak its underlying objective of not sharing power with COUNTRY STUDIES

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The division of Cyprus

KYRENIA Kyrenia Nicosia

FAMAGUSTA Famagusta

NICOSIA Larnaca

PAPHOS

LARNACA

Paphos

LIMASSOL

The area administered by Greek Cypriots

Limassol

The area administered by Turkish Cypriots

Akrotiri (UK)

the Turkish Cypriots.”7 Despite Turkish Cypriots’ hopes that the EU would bolster their role and support them because they had been left out of the EU despite their favourable vote in the referendum, the EU’s determination to put an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community did not bear fruit. Expectations that the EU would open direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots and provide USD 259 million in funds to help them upgrade their infrastructure were faced with the RoC’s intransigence. Greek Cypriots elected what was considered a more moderate leadership in 2008, in the person of Dimitris Christofias. While that led to renewed intercommunal negotiations on the future of the island, it ultimately did not seem to actively support EU-induced change.

In that context, the EU’s engagement with the TRNC has been regarded as taking the form of “state avoidance,” whereby the EU has aimed to engage with the Turkish Cypriot community through the management of unrecognised borders on a sui generis basis and by working informally with officials of the unrecognised state, replacing public authorities with non-state actors and supporting extensively civil society.8 By depoliticising its relations with the Turkish 70

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Dhekelia (UK)

United Kingdom Sovereign Base Areas United Nations-administered buffer zone

Cypriots, the EU has privileged low politics— creating the conditions on the ground that would push for reunification—rather than high politics.

Moving, at the request of the RoC, the aid offered to the Turkish Cypriot community from the European Commission’s directorate-general responsible for enlargement to the directorategeneral responsible for regional policy in 2015 also symbolised a change in the way the Cyprus problem would be tackled, from a foreign policy issue to an internal EU file. Hence, rather than playing an active diplomatic role in the Cyprus negotiations, the EU has become a bystander (an observer) concentrating on technical issues on two fronts. Firstly, it aims to ensure that the negotiated solution to the Cyprus problem is compatible with the acquis communautaire.

Secondly, it seeks to prepare the implementation of the acquis communautaire north of the dividing Green Line.

At a regional level, some have criticised the EU’s mismanagement of the Cyprus issue as leading to coordinated action by Greece and Cyprus that has hindered the possibility that Turkey could deepen its relations with the EU.9 The discovery and management of the natural gas resources in the RoC’s EZZ as of 2011 is seen as a case

in point. The natural gas exploration missions of the seismic research vessel Barbaros off the coast of Cyprus in October 2014 prompted the RoC to break off the peace talks, held under the UN’s auspices. In April 2015, Mustafa Akıncı, a left-leaning moderate known for his cooperation with the Greek Cypriot side during his tenure as mayor of the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality in the 1990s, was elected president of the TRNC. By May 2015, talks between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders resumed following a seven-month hiatus. Akıncı’s election created the expectation for a pause in the high-paced energy developments while the negotiations continued in Mont Pelerin and Crans Montana, in 2017.

As the successive rounds of talks held in 2017 and 2018 between the two sides, Turkey and Greece, and the UK, the guarantor powers of the RoC, ended in deadlock, Akıncı began indicating that he and Anastasiades no longer shared the same vision of what constituted a bizonal, bicommunal federation. Moreover, the Turkish Cypriot leadership increasingly felt that the Greek Cypriots were not prepared to give Turkish Cypriots the political equality they sought. On the Greek Cypriot side, when the Crans Montana Cyprus conference turned out to be yet another failed attempt to resolve the

Cyprus problem, Nicosia directed its attention to the EastMed pipeline project that aspires to transport Eastern Mediterranean natural gas to Crete and mainland Greece—a project designed to bring together Cyprus, Greece, and Israel while excluding Turkey. The latest impasse in the UN’s attempt to facilitate talks between the two sides in Berlin in 2019 demonstrates the ongoing estrangement between the two communities.

The new EU High Representative Josep Borrell has repeatedly called for the resumption of stalled negotiations in Cyprus. In that spirit and in view of the informal “1 + 5” talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and the three guarantor powers under the auspices of the United Nations in late April 2021, Borrell met the leaders of both sides in Cyprus last March. In parallel, Borrell has encouraged talks with Turkey over the stalled visa liberalisation process and an updated EU–Turkey customs union. Backed by Italy, Spain, and Malta, which maintain close trade and economic relations with Turkey, these efforts are driven by a conviction that inducements and win-win scenarios, rather than punitive measures, hold out the best chance to de-escalate tensions and create room for diplomacy. There is a shared understanding among these states

Chart 1: Number of Russian tourists in Cyprus between 2007 and 2019 900

825 782

800 700 609

784

782

2018

2019

637

600 500

525

474

400 334 300 200

181

224

146 149

100 100 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

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and Germany that sanctions would be likely to escalate tensions, resulting in a further loss of leverage on Turkey and a diminishing willingness for compromise on the part of Greece and the RoC. GUNBOAT GEOPOLITICS AMID GAS RESOURCES Unlike Greece, the RoC had signed maritime delimitation agreements with its neighbours well before Eastern Mediterranean natural gas reserves became a hotly contested issue: with Egypt, in 2003; Lebanon, in 2007; and, Israel, in 2010. However, given that Turkey does not recognise the RoC, there is no maritime delimitation agreement between Ankara and Nicosia. Moreover, Turkey holds that islands under international law have no automatic right to a full EEZ—their influence might be reduced, even to zero—which would translate into a much smaller delimitation of the Cypriot EEZ.10 Thus, the recent escalation of tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean on the rights for the use of natural gas reserves touches on more profound unresolved problems regarding contested sovereignty. This escalation has put the Cyprus problem back in the limelight. Arguably, it has alienated the Turkish Cypriot community and facilitated the election of Turkey’s preferred

candidate, the right-wing nationalist Ersin Tatar in October 2020. He has questioned the longstanding premises underpinning the resolution of the Cyprus problem along the lines of a bizonal, bicommunal federation—a factor that could further undermine the resolution to the Cyprus problem.

The discovery of what was thought to be substantial natural gas reserves in the Aphrodite natural gas field in the Cypriot EZZ, in December 2011, drew international attention to the prospect of the Eastern Mediterranean becoming an energy exporter. Along with Egypt’s Zohr and Israel’s Leviathan natural gas fields, these discoveries have attracted investments by major energy companies and the interest of great powers.11 Meanwhile, natural gas was perceived as an opportunity for promoting regional cooperation and providing much-needed impetus for the resolution to the decades-old Cyprus dispute, even possibly contributing financially to the cost of the resolution to the Cyprus problem.12 When Nicosia decided to resume energy exploration by issuing licenses to companies such as Eni, Total, and Exxon Mobil, in August 2017, studies had already demonstrated that successful monetisation required additional discoveries and a regional political consensus.13 The decision

Chart 2: Russian FDI in Cyprus between 2014 and 2020 (million USD, total direct outward investment) 250,000

203,080

200,000 175,217

166,397

166,316

141,508

150,000 116,715

104,419

100,000

50,000

0 2014 72

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2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

of Italy’s Eni in February 2018 to withdraw its drill ship from the Cypriot EEZ because of the presence of Turkish military vessels in its vicinity demonstrated that energy corporations were not willing to ignore the political risk of energy monetisation in the Eastern Mediterranean.14 The RoC’s decision to carry out exploration and drilling operations in its EEZ quickly came to heads with the perennially frozen Cyprus problem. Nicosia’s signature of the first gas exploration license to the US-based firm Noble Energy for the Aphrodite gas field in October 2008 opened the dispute between the RoC and the TRNC over energy resources. Although Turkey has not specifically contested the ownership of the Aphrodite field, it strongly opposes the development of Cypriot natural gas resources unless Turkish Cypriots can share in the financial benefits or until a resolution of the Cyprus problem is found. In principle, Nicosia agrees that Turkish Cypriots should benefit from hydrocarbons. President Anastasiades even offered Turkish Cypriots a share in the gas revenues on condition that Ankara recognised Nicosia’s energy exploration rights.15 Nevertheless, agreeing on the modalities and the timing of Turkish Cypriot participation has been a point of contention. For Nicosia, the question of jurisdiction—i.e., who has access to the blocks—is the key unresolved question. Working on the assumption that it has as much a right as the RoC to issue licenses, the TRNC has issued licenses not just in waters off its coasts, but also to the south, in areas that overlap with licenses granted by the Republic of Cyprus. These licenses given to Turkish Petroleum marked the deployment of the seismic survey vessel Barbaros in October 2014 and two drill ships, the Yavuz in July 2019 and the Fatih in November 2019, that have since gradually moved to the southern waters of Cyprus.

The tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean have attracted the interest of an unprecedented number of international actors. In January 2020, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum emerged as a place for everyone in the region—but Turkey—to meet and talk about

The proposed router of the EastMed pipeline GREECE CYPRUS ISRAEL

EGYPT

gas. Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and the United States established the “3 + 1” structure to discuss areas of possible cooperation. The United States, Germany, and NATO each tried to mediate between Greece and Turkey while the RoC worried that its problems would be sidelined. The US’s renewed emphasis on the Eastern Mediterranean coincided with worsening relations with Turkey over a number of issues, including defence and Syria. In December 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on Turkey over its multibillion-dollar acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile system. Moreover, controversial military exercises have taken place with forces from the United States, Russia, and France. In May 2020, Egypt announced an international alliance encompassing Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, and France to counter Turkey’s maritime deal with Libya and its moves in the Mediterranean.

The EU institutions have also supported the development of the Cyprus–Israel–Greece energy triangle. For example, the EastMed pipeline project and the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum have benefitted from financial support from the EU institutions and political backing from Italy and France. Furthermore, the European Council and individual member states have condemned Turkish drilling activities, particularly following Turkey’s maritime agreement with Libya. These statements were based on legal grounds: the EU’s nonrecognition of the TRNC and the nullification of the Turkey–Libya agreement, based on the COUNTRY STUDIES

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UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In June 2019, the European Council, “in response to Turkey’s unauthorised drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean,” decided to reduce the EU’s financial assistance to Turkey, to suspend negotiations on an aviation agreement, and to halt all high-level bilateral talks. In February 2020, the Council imposed travel sanctions and froze assets within the framework of restrictive measures that it adopted in November 2019, in response to Turkey’s unauthorised drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.16 Yet the European Council fell short of using actual sanctions as tensions in the region escalated in December 2020 and softened the tone in March 2021. On that occasion, the European Council noted, “Union is ready to engage with Turkey in a phased, proportionate and reversible manner to enhance cooperation in a number of areas of common interest and take further decisions at the European Council meeting in June.”17 This lack of clarity in the EU’s posture is indicative of the divisions among EU member states—particularly France, Italy, and Germany, which are directly involved in the region.

They have called for dialogue, diplomacy, deescalation, and the use of sanctions against Turkey at an EU Council level, all at once.

France dispatched its flagship Charles de Gaulle nuclear aircraft carrier to the area, accompanied by an unknown number of ships and submarines of the French Navy. The Mediterranean EU member states (also known as the “MED7”) reiterated at their summit hosted by France in September 2020 their “full support and solidarity with Cyprus and Greece in the face of the repeated infringements on their sovereignty and sovereign rights, as well as confrontational actions by Turkey.”18 The EU stronghold Germany has been much more conciliatory towards Turkey, while Italy has been wavering between Greece and Turkey as tensions evolve. Russia has offered its assistance to reduce tensions, and Greece announced a massive weapons procurement programme. Although Greece and Turkey have started to talk again, the prospects for a deal are low with tensions left to linger.

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WHAT NOW? Plunging prices of oil, the persistent COVID-19 pandemic, and Turkey’s gunboat diplomacy have contributed to an unfavourable investment environment in gas exploration and production in the Cypriot EEZ. While oil and gas production has fallen by about 70% since the mid-2000s, renewable energy has steadily increased to represent 32% of primary energy, a shift that is likely to reinforce the EU Green Deal, especially after Denmark—the largest producer in the EU— announced to end all new gas explorations by 2050.19 ExxonMobil, Total, and Eni have delayed further drilling off Cyprus, as the companies slash spending and struggle to deploy crew in the pandemic.20 In addition, attempts to isolate Turkey through either Nicosia’s promotion of the EastMed pipeline or European or international regional efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean have inadvertently reinforced Ankara’s more unilateralist and assertive stance.

Energy discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean have thus far reinforced the non-resolution of the Cyprus conflict and have even spilled over into Greek–Turkish relations.

The way forward is to defuse these tensions and to look for win-win solutions that meet the fundamental concerns of all sides. Taking the Cyprus question off the table by concluding the peace negotiations would pave the ground for regional cooperation and an inclusive vision for the Eastern Mediterranean. This would not only alleviate political risks tied to such an investment but also reduce extraction and transport costs. While constructing an undersea pipeline to transport natural gas to Turkey

The ghost town in Varosha

remains the most commercially viable solution, it is just as unlikely of an option as the EastMed pipeline, which has always been considered too expensive. Confidence in the Cyprus negotiations is primordial. Turkish Cypriots must feel assured that the Greek Cypriot side is amenable to more parity in and revenue sharing on the Cyprus natural gas resources and that the negotiated solution to the Cyprus problem will ensure political parity in governance. Greek Cypriots need to trust that the Turkish side is committed to a bizonal, bicommunal federation where the governance structures will ensure finding consensus, to security from Turkey and a settlement on property rights.

Equally, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum cannot be a productive regional body without Turkey. However, it is unlikely that Turkey will be invited if the forum’s members feel it is unwilling to be constructive. Apart from supporting the election of Turkish Cypriot candidate Tatar, who advocates for a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem, Turkey reopened the beachfront of the fenced-off Varosha, as an act of provocation, in September 2020. The so-called “ghost town,” from where its rightful Greek–Cypriot owners fled in August 1974, was abandoned and left to decay for forty-six years as the ultimate bargaining chip in the Cyprus negotiations.

Although the status quo in Cyprus may look innocuous to some, it risks distancing the two communities further, widening the gulf between the EU (more generally, the West) and Turkey, and, by extension, deepening the rift between Greece and Turkey. Never before has openness to compromise by all parties—directly or indirectly—concerned been as paramount as it is today. However, while time is of the essence, the time is not ripe. At the time of writing, most experts and policy makers are not hopeful that the upcoming Cyprus talks in Geneva at the end of April will unblock the stalemate. Besides a Turkish Cypriot leader pushing for a two-state solution, President Anastasiades, on the Greek Cypriot side, is facing much internal criticism.

This follows the “golden passports” scandal, which was uncovered by the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera network21 and led the European

Commission to launch an infringement procedure against the RoC last October.

In this climate of political stagnation, UNfacilitated confidence-building measures in Cyprus could be a way to promote incremental steps for cooperation on the ground. Such a move is particularly crucial following a year during which the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences—the closure of the crossing points on the Green Line—seriously hindered bicommunal cooperation. The use of UNfacilitated confidence-building measures is not a new idea. They have already been used in the past (for example, through the progressive opening of crossing points along the Green Line) without compromising the agreed premise of a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus issue. The recent tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean should also be a warning call to the EU indicating that the non-resolution of the Cypriot conflict is no longer an option.

ENDNOTES 1 Isabelle Ioannides: Cyprus and EU enlargement to the Western Balkans: a balancing act. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 2017/4. 634–636.

2 Eleonora Ardemagni: Why the Gulf Monarchies Have Laid Eyes on Cyprus. Italian Institute for International Political Studies. 29 September 2019. <https://bit.ly/3bbMt35 > 3 Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Abu Dhabi, 30 November 2020; Ercan Çitlioğlu: Introduction. In: Eastern Mediterranean in Uncharted Waters. Perspectives on Emerging Geopolitical Realities, edited by Michaël Tanchump.

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği, Ankara, 2000. 10. <https://bit.ly/3rWXXhz > 4 Theodoros Tsakiris–Sinan Ulgen–Ahmet K. Han: Gas Developments in the Eastern Mediterranean: Trigger or Obstacle for EU–Turkey Cooperation? FEUTURE Online Paper No. 22. 12 May 2018. 13. <https://bit.ly/2ZiyRNR > 5 Simone Tagliapietra: Towards a New Eastern Mediterranean Energy Corridor? Natural Gas Developments Between Market Opportunities and Geopolitical Risks.

Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei, Nota di Lavoro 12.2013. <https://bit.ly/3akBDs8 > 6 James Ker-Lindsay: Shifting Alignments: The External Orientations of Cyprus since Independence. The Cyprus Review. 2010/2. 72.

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7 Mustafa Çirakli: TRNC–RoC Cooperation: A Critical

20 A row between Turkey and Greece over gas is raising

Missing Piece for Eastern Mediterranean Stability. In: Eastern

tension in the eastern Mediterranean. The Economist. 20

Mediterranean in Uncharted Waters. Perspectives on

August 2020. <https://econ.st/3jVhrjN >

Emerging Geopolitical Realities, edited by Michaël Tanchump.

21 Al Jazeera: The Cyprus Papers Undercover | Al Jazeera

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği,

Investigations. YouTube, uploaded by Al Jazeera English. 12

Ankara, 2000. 22. <https://bit.ly/3rWXXhz >

October 2020. <https://youtu.be/Oj18cya_gvw >

8 George Kyris: The European Union in Northern Cyprus: Conceptualising the Avoidance of Contested States.

Geopolitics. 2020/2. 346–361.

9 Rainer Mayer Zum Felde: The Eastern Mediterranean Military Environment from a NATO Perspective. In: Eastern Mediterranean in Uncharted Waters. Perspectives on Emerging Geopolitical Realities, edited by Michaël Tanchump.

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği, Ankara, 2000. 63. <https://bit.ly/3rWXXhz > 10 Nikos Tsafos: Getting East Med Energy Right. Center for Strategic and International Studies. 26 October 2020. <https://bit.ly/3baqkSC > 11 Tsakiris [et al.], 1–16.

12 Tagliapietra, 24–27; Ioannis N. Grigoriadis: Energy Discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean: Conflict or Cooperation? Middle East Policy. 2014/3. 126.

13 John Roberts: Gas in the Eastern Mediterranean: Great Promise but No Early Answers. European Energy Journal.

2014. 76.

14 Ioannis N. Grigoriadis: The Eastern Mediterranean as an Emerging Crisis Zone: Greece and Cyprus in a Volatile Regional Environment. In: Eastern Mediterranean in Uncharted Waters. Perspectives on Emerging Geopolitical Realities, edited by Michaël Tanchump. Konrad-AdenauerStiftung, Derneği Türkiye Temsilciliği, Ankara, 2000. 26. <https://bit.ly/3rWXXhz > 15 Peter Michael: Anastasiades: if Akinci re-elected, talks can ‘definitely’ resume. Cyprus Mail. 6 June 2020. <https:// bit.ly/3qpLeU7 > 16 Turkey’s illegal drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean: Council adopts framework for sanctions.

European Council, Council of the European Union.

11 November 2019. <https://bit.ly/3poL7H6 > 17 Statement of the Members of the European Council, Brussels, 25 March 2021. European Council, Council of the European Union. 6. <https://bit.ly/3nh4OBv> 18 Ajaccio declaration after the 7th Summit of the Southern EU countries (MED7) (10 Sept. 20). Ministère de L’Europe et des Affaires étrangères. <https://bit.ly/3piYR6d > 19 Anjli Raval: Denmark to end all new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Financial Times. 3 December 2020. <https:// on.ft.com/3u16xOd > 76

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GREECE: RETURN TO THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Péter Kacziba Greece experienced significant political transformations in the past decade. The financial crisis, which has been defining the country’s domestic conditions since 2010, also had an impact on Greek foreign policy and revealed the need for diversifying the traditional framework of its Euro-Atlantic orientation. The reorientation process has become a calculated foreign policy agenda since the inauguration of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government in July 2019. The new cabinet has attempted to set up a foreign policy programme of strategic flexibility that takes advantage of Western-based alliances but addresses their weak points by new partnerships.

In addition to the global powers, the strategy is concentrating on the wider region of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is not only Greece’s direct neighbourhood but also an area of significant risks and opportunities. This short article explores these risks as well as opportunities and seeks to discover why and how Athens is (re)activating itself in the Eastern Mediterranean.

THE FOREIGN POLICY BACKGROUND The traditionally NATO-oriented Greek foreign policy began its long journey to Europeanisation with its accession to the European Communities in 1981. The literature interprets the progress and success of this Europeanisation process differently, yet it was not only Greece which was unable to adopt some of the European standards, but the European Union (EU) itself also failed to “Hellenise” its foreign policy and defence strategy. Since 1981, the European core has considered Greece as an isolated member of the community, a peripheral country with a problematic geopolitical position and environment. Although the EU has publicly adopted Greek rhetoric, in practice, it has not developed meaningful strategies to support

Athens in its disputes. Instead, it acted as either a bystander or a mediator and seemed to consider Greece’s security concerns as national agendas and not as common challenges.

The considerable amount of European financial assistance to Greece had neutralised these foreign policy contradictions until the economic crisis emerged. Austerity measures, however, have revealed the fundamental differences between Greece and the core members of the EU and significantly reduced societal trust in European institutions. Annual Eurobarometer surveys have perfectly demonstrated these attitude changes and showed critically low approval ratings for the EU among Greek citizens.1 Recent governments in Athens, regardless of party affiliation, have reinforced these tendencies with their populist rhetoric, while the colonial attitudes of the EU confirmed populist remarks and showed the absence of European solidarity.

Although Greece had overcome the most pressing issues of the financial crisis by 2018– 2019, economic disputes between the country and the EU were replaced with political and security debates. These arguments took place over the growing migration pressure on Greece, the Turkish demands on the Aegean and the Mediterranean Sea, and multilateral energy issues. Athens, once again, perceived these challenges as matters of common European interest; therefore, it expected full solidarity from its EU partners. However, its expectations were not met. Though the EU took a more proGreek stand at this time, impotent responses to migration influxes and German appeasement policies towards Turkey did not fulfil Athens’s expectations and provided no solutions.

These episodes navigated Greece towards a more independent and more active foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. By 2018–2019, COUNTRY STUDIES

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FINLAND

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO GREECE BETWEEN 2010 AND 2018

ESTONIA

€256.6 billion lent to Greece about 0.29% of euro area GDP

LATVIA LITHUANIA

NETHERLANDS

IRELAND

BELGIUM

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG SLOVAKIA AUSTRIA FRANCE SLOVENIA

ITALY

PORTUGAL

SPAIN GREECE

Euro area

Greece (also uses the Euro)

CYPRUS

MALTA

THE FIRST PROGRAMME

THE SECOND PROGRAMME

THE THIRD PROGRAMME

• started in May 2010 • ended in March 2012

• started in March 2012 • ended in June 2015

• started in August 2015 • ended in August 2018

Bilateral loans from EU member states

Loans by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF)

Loans by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)

€144.7 billion

€80 billion

€86 billion €52.9 billion

committed

disbursed

€141.8 billion

€61.9 billion

Athens had abandoned its previous standards of non-involvement and began to formulate new strategic relations. It has developed close ties with new partners such as Israel, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and reinforced cooperation with allies such as Cyprus, France, Italy, and the United States. These partnerships sought to diversify the Greek foreign policy and to overcome weaknesses caused by the lack of European solidarity.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS In addition to foreign policy, the defence sector has also undergone significant transformations over the past decade. By the early 2010s, Athens had realised that its traditionally north- and, partly, east-oriented defence focus needed a serious revision. While the Cold War and the postYugoslav wars required mainly northern defence, the security risks of the 2010s demanded more attention at the eastern frontiers and the introduction of an entirely new southern focus.

This geographic shift in Greek defence orientation was caused and characterised by two interrelated trends. The first could be attributed to Turkey’s geopolitical advance, while the second was connected to the Arab Spring and the destabilisation of Greece’s southern and south-eastern neighbourhood.

Turkish foreign policy towards Greece became more intense and more hazardous in the 2010s. Although the Greek–Turkish dispute and the consequent security environment could not be labelled as new developments, the previous decade presented new challenges.

An obvious shift occurred in the geographic expansion of the dispute: the traditionally Aegean-oriented Greek–Turkish dispute has extended to other regions and involved large territories surrounding the southern and eastern areas of the Dodecanese islands and Crete.

There was an equally important change to be faced, namely, the Turkish hard power also strengthened in the meantime. Turkey developed greater naval and air force capacity, adopted new surveillance technologies based on its national drone industry, and used controlled migration flow as a tool of hybrid warfare. These

alterations in the “Aegean Cold War” naturally required the revision of the Greek containment and deterrence policies. Revisions, however, would have been essential even without the Turkish threat. The Arab Spring and the new regional security environment alone presented major security risks including new geopolitical rivalries, struggles against jihadism, and large influxes of migration. Being Europe’s gateway to the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece found itself at the forefront of these regional struggles and needed to develop effective responses.

Increasing military spending was one of these responses. Greece’s defence spending has steadily been rising since 2014, exceeding the NATO-set 2%-of-GDP target by 0.5% in 2019 and the EU average 1.2% by 1.3%. The Mitsotakis government is reported to have spent around EUR 1.5 billion on arms and equipment in 2020 and is expected to raise military spending by EUR 10 billion over the next ten years.2 Current and expected orders include purchasing eighteen Rafale fighter jets, four multirole frigates, four MH-60R naval helicopters, and modernising and upgrading existing planes and vessels.3 The government has also announced the re-evaluation of its national military service and promised to recruit additional 15,000 military personnel.

These buys will certainly increase the Greek defence forces’ reactivity but will place a significant burden on public finances. Athens, therefore, intends to complement military modernisation with active defence diplomacy.

Besides “Europeanising” Greece’s regional disputes, the Mitsotakis government focusses on finding partners in the Eastern Mediterranean and on establishing common deterrence against common threats. This policy also means that Greece places special emphasis on its partnerships with France and the US, while also establishing military cooperation and/or defence pacts with Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, and the UAE. GEOECONOMIC MOTIVATIONS The catastrophic financial situation in Greece has diverted attention to the Eastern Mediterranean economy-wise. The Mitsotakis government’s COUNTRY STUDIES

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The approximate extent of Greece’s and Turkey’s territorial waters

100 km

Greece

Turkey

International waters

n.m. = nautical mile

50 n.m.

The first picture shows a six-nautical-mile extension, currently claimed by both sides, while the second picture shows a twelve-nautical-mile extension, enshrined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which concerns Turkey because of a disproportionate increase in waters controlled by Greece.

economic experts have seen much potential in this new orientation that includes establishing regional partnerships in the tourism sector, cooperating with Israeli start-up companies, and increasing shipping capacity and investing in post-war Libya. In the eyes of the Greek public, however, these regional opportunities are overshadowed by the country’s offshore energy potentials, which are often seen as a magical solution to the country’s economic problems.

Opportunities are indeed significant, albeit overestimated. Their significance was indicated by licencing the Ionian, Western, and Southern Crete offshore blocks in July 2019, when major national and international energy companies gained concessions for exploration and drilling.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the efficiency of exploration works, the consortium between Exxon Mobil, Hellenic Petroleum, and Total has already announced the discovery of a promising gas field. According to their report, the Talos gas field is estimated to contain about 280 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which, if proved, may even be larger than the amount discovered in the Aphrodite field in Cyprus that contains about 141-226 bcm.4 80

COUNTRY STUDIES

Although these figures are only rough estimates, the investment potential of the Greek energy sector is calculated to be peaking around EUR 45 billion in the period between 2020 and 2030.5 While such calculations promise significant economic benefits, geopolitical conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean may hinder or even block eventual exploitations.

In this regard, the maritime claims of Turkey and (Western) Libya may present serious challenges, as their activities have already created tensions in disputed areas and may potentially paralyse further drilling efforts. This possible outcome develops common geoeconomic interests between Greece and its Eastern Mediterranean partners with whom Athens has already concluded several energy agreements. These multilateral partnerships, such as the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum or the EastMed pipeline deal, not only serve the interests of involved regional actors but also enjoy political and financial support from the EU and the US. Thus, Greek energy strategies seem to gain more benefit from external assistance than foreign and defence policies. The faith in multilateral collaboration,

however, depends on whether the EU and the US take (meaningful) actions against those who disregard international regulations.

DEVELOPING TIES WITH REGIONAL ACTORS According to Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, “Greek diplomacy is returning to the Mediterranean.”6 Changes in foreign, defence, and economic policies explain why Greece reactivates itself in the region and justify intensified diplomatic efforts for developing closer ties with Eastern Mediterranean actors.

Among these actors, Greece pays special attention to Israel. Athens and Jerusalem began to develop stronger ties already in 2010–2011, though the Greek crisis diverted attention and resources from active cooperation. Therefore, the effective elaboration of Israeli and Greek partnership mechanisms began only in the late 2010s, when the two sides, with the participation of the Republic of Cyprus, have organised frequent trilateral summits and signed several agreements. Although most of these agreements were dedicated to energy, such as the accords signed in January 2020 for constructing the EastMed gas pipeline, trilateral

cooperation also covers security matters and diplomatic engagements. In short, the Israeli–Greek partnership is a strong emerging strategic alliance encouraged by the behaviour of Turkey in the region, and it is considered to be one of the most influential bedrocks of contemporary Eastern Mediterranean affairs.7 The potential threat posed by Turkey has also presented new opportunities for cooperation with Arab countries. First of all, Greece and Egypt have in recent years found an increasingly high number of common interests.

Cairo and Athens ended up in the same bloc that supports the House of Representatives in Libya, the UN-mandated delimitation zones in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the rapid development of a thriving regional gas business.

These similar interests led to frequent high- and top-level meetings, joint naval exercises, and an agreement on the borders of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the previous years.8 Besides Egypt, Libya is another state in the North African neighbourhood important to Greece: it sees it vital that the Turkishbacked Government of National Accord does not emerge victorious from the Second Libyan Civil War. Thus, Athens provides limited yet

Map of the Eastern Mediterranean with conflicting delimitations of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf areas between Greece, Turkey, Cyprus TURKEY GREECE

Rhodes

Kastellorizo

Carpathos Crete

CYPRUS A

B

D

LEBANON

c

ISRAEL

LIBYA Areas claimed by Greece and the Republic of Cyprus Areas claimed by Turkey Section labelled “A-B”: Claimed delimitation between Turkey and Libya, as per November 2019 agreement

EGYPT 100 km 60 n.m.

COUNTRY STUDIES

81

NORTH MACEDONIA

THE MIGRATION CRISIS IN GREECE

BULGARIA

EAST MACEDONIA AND THRACE

CENTRAL MACEDONIA

Thessaloniki

WEST MACEDONIA

ALBANIA

Komotini

Thracian Sea MOUNT ATHOS (A.T.) Karyes

Kozani

Limnos Ioannina

Corfu

NORTH AEGAEN

Larissa THESSALY

EPIRUS

Aegean Sea

Lesbos

Ionian Sea Lamia Lefkada

CENTRAL GREECE

IONIAN ISLANDS

Chios Kefalonia Patras Athens

WEST GREECE Zakynthos

ATTICA Tripoli

Ermoupoli

PELOPONNESE

CYCLADES SOUTH AEGEAN

Number of refugees per region, as of 21 September 2020 No refugees 289–1,000 Kithira

1,001–2,000

Sea of Crete

4,510 11,720 Entry points Transit points

Mediterranean Sea

Crete

Informal crossing area Schengen border A.T. Autonomous territory 82 COUNTRY STUDIES

Heraklion

Black Sea

Bosporus

Sea of Marmara Sea of Marmara

4,337

Arrivals by sea/land (1 January – 20 September 2020)

3,451

Ankara

Total: 12,577 1,441 1,025

772

er

is

la

nd

te re C

194

s

117

O

th

o

el st Ka

&

173

riz

es

i m Rh

Sy

s Ko

s

Ka

lym

no

s ro Le

221

61

Ea

st

M

ac

e Th don ra ia ce Le sb os C hi os Sa m os

135

lo

560

od

Mytilene

TURKEY

Samos

Ikaria

Leros Kalmynos Kos

DODECANESE

Symi Rhodes

Kastellorizo

Karpathos

COUNTRY STUDIES

83

crucial political support for the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, participates in efforts seeking to enforce UN sanctions, and, in return, receives some considerable investment opportunities in (East) Libya. Nevertheless, one of the main drivers of Greek–Libyan relations is once again linked to maritime borders. While the Turkish-backed and Tripolibased Fayez al-Sarraj government recognises Ankara’s territorial claims and has signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey on the delimitation of the EEZ, Eastern Libyan policymakers support the Greek position and consider the Erdoğan–Sarraj maritime deal illegal. For Athens, working towards the nonlegality of the Turkish–Libyan agreement signed in November 2020 is important for preserving maritime sovereignty, as it would cut about 80,000–100,000 square kilometres from areas allocated to Greece under UN regulations. In order to annul the agreement, the Mitsotakis government also intends to develop relations with other Eastern Mediterranean states.

For instance, Greece was one of the first EU countries to reopen its embassy in Damascus, and it also offered support for Lebanon after the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut. 9 Besides states residing in the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece also develops its

ties with those outside actors who influence regional matters. First and foremost, Greece has strengthened its relations with European countries active in the Mediterranean. Among the EU’s core states, France is almost the only one that openly supports the maximum of Athens’s regional claims. Paris considers Greece a potential partner for its regional expansion and, thus, not only recognises the Greek claims in the region but has also reinforced its bilateral defence cooperation with the Hellenic Armed Forces.10 Other than France, Italian–Greek collaboration is also essential for Athens, especially in challenges such as migration, delimitation of maritime zones, and security concerns related to Libya. Their already close bilateral and EU-related partnership became tighter in 2020, when Rome and Athens signed an EEZ delineation agreement, and the two sides committed themselves to enforcing the UN arms embargo on Libya and began to cooperate in Operation Irini.

Beyond European partners, Greece’s other traditional and now re-emerging ally is the US. Although Washington still looks for a balance between Athens and Ankara in the Greek– Turkish disputes, it has definitely begun to see Greece as a more reliable partner. While the independent Turkish foreign policy often confronted regional US interests, Donald

Chart 1: The ratio of military spending in Greece between 2009 and 2019 3.22 2.73

2009

84

2010

2.48

2.41

2.36

2.33

2011

2012

2013

2014

COUNTRY STUDIES

2.45

2015

2.54

2.52

2016

2017

2.61

2.57

2018

2019

Chart 2: General government total expenditure on defence in the EU member states in 2019 (% of GDP)

* provisional

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

Iceland

Norway

Switzerland

Ireland

Luxembourg

Malta

Austria

Spain*

Portugal*

Belgium

Slovenia

Czech Republic

Croatia

Hungary

Slovakia

Denmark

Trump’s transactional foreign policy developed smooth ties with Greek governments and found profitable opportunities in the energy and defence sectors. Several examples might be cited to demonstrate the US state and nonstate actors’ involvement in these sectors. The US legislation and financial assistance helped the EastMed pipeline deal, US companies competed for drilling licences in the Greek EEZ, and Washington expressed a strategic interest in the development of the LNG infrastructure in the port of Alexandroupoli. In addition to energy, the defence sector also presented important developments. Updates to the US– Greek defence pact, originally signed in 1990, were ratified by the Greek parliament in January 2020 and introduced several development projects that include installing US drones in Larissa Air Base as well as expanding the capacity of the US military base at Souda Bay. Last but not least, ties with the UAE should also be mentioned. Intensified relations between Greece and the UAE are the by-product of recent Israeli–Arab peace agreements which allowed Athens to open towards the Gulf states without risking its partnership with Jerusalem. Signs of closer cooperation have appeared several times in recent years, for example, in the form of joint

Germany

Finland

Sweden

Bulgaria

Italy

Netherlands

EU-28

Poland

Lithuania

France*

Romania

Latvia

Cyprus

Greece

United Kingdom

0.0

Estonia

0.5

military exercises or in August 2020, when the UAE dispatched four of its F-16s to the island of Crete. Improving relations have eventually gained strategic significance in November 2020 by signing a bilateral defence pact. In addition to military and intelligence cooperation, the agreement also includes clauses of mutual defence assistance, which may be activated if the territorial integrity of signatories is threatened.

Even though the agreement explicitly states that it does not concern specific third states, it is clear that the pact was signed to counteract the Turkish geopolitical expansion.11 GREEK–TURKISH RELATIONS WITHIN THE EU FRAMEWORK While the deterioration of Greek–Turkish relations seems to show the escalation of longstanding bilateral tensions, current debates also stem from broader geopolitical shifts. Turkey’s strategic rebalancing in its wider neighbourhood, the consequent strain between Ankara and the West in general, the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on international affairs, or the US presidential election in November 2020 were all examples of those systemic patterns that allowed and intensified the deterioration of Greek–Turkish relations. Slightly narrowing COUNTRY STUDIES

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the focus, current tensions in the Aegean are also caused by debates between the EU and Turkey. These tensions have been unfolded by several interrelated disagreements, including the collapse of Turkey’s European dreams, authoritarian and populist techniques applied by the Turkish government, and the failure of Brussel’s migration policies.

At the same time, Greece is not only the victim but also the cause of the deteriorating EU–Turkish relations. In this context, the classic elements of the Greek–Turkish conflict can be cited: the Aegean dispute, the Cyprus conflict, and the Greek veto over Turkey’s EU accession have long undermined the relations between Brussels and Ankara. Bilateral disputes between Greece and Turkey, however, hit new lows in the last two years and escalated tensions not only in a geographical scope but also in terms of intensity. Accordingly, military exercises, illegal drilling activities, and naval and aerial dogfights over disputed territories have become regular features at the Greek–Turkish frontiers. These conditions significantly increase the possibility of an incident, as occurred, for instance, in August 2020, when Greek and Turkish warships collided near the island of Kastellorizo.12 Although emotional reactions and quick escalation have been avoided in this particular case, the Greek–Turkish security dilemma continues to entail serious risks until its meaningful and sustainable resolution.

ENDNOTES 1 Public Opinion. European Commission. October 2020. <https://bit.ly/34Y3VpA > 2 Nektaria Stamouli: Greece goes arms shopping as Turkey tension rises. Politico. 11 September 2020. <http://politi. co/38RS25l > 3 Greece Announces Major Arms Purchase. New Defence Order Strategy. 17 September 2020. <http://bit.ly/383zlwu > 4 Alex Kassidiaris: The Political Curse and Blessing of Greek Energy Reserves. Insideover. 17 November 2019. <http://bit. ly/3rSq96a > 5 Dimitris Mezartasoglou [et al.]: The Greek Energy Sector.

Annual Report 2020. Institute of Energy for South-East Europe.

October 2020. <https://bit.ly/38VpisO > 6 Paul Antonopoulos: Dendias: Greek embassy opening in Damascus when conditions allow, Albania must respect Greek minority. Greek City Times. 7 June 2020.

7 George N. Tzogopoulos: DEBATE: What Is the Future of the Israel–Greece–Cyprus Partnership? The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. 29 July 2019. <http://bit. ly/2WYnSbd > 8 Vassilis Nedos: Greece–Egypt deal on exclusive economic zone posted on UN. Kathimerini English Edition. 24 December 2020. <http://bit.ly/383Cyw2 > 9 PM Mitsotakis Expresses His Support for the People of Lebanon. The National Herald. 8 May 2020. <http://bit. ly/2LaijDO > 10 Greece and France to ‘reinforce’ bilateral defense cooperation agreement. The Defence Post. 24 February 2020. <http://bit.ly/3rHjLhV > 11 Antonia Dimou: Greece and UAE’s Strategic Cooperation: A New Regional Equilibrium in the Making. Modern Diplomacy.

1 December 2020. <http://bit.ly/3n72Y49 >

CONCLUDING REMARKS This short study revealed that Greece’s diplomatic return to the Eastern Mediterranean is not only the result of independent choices but also, more importantly, the consequence of external and domestic necessities. In the changing geopolitical environment, Athens has expected meaningful support from its allies, and, in the absence of solidarity, it decided to diversify its foreign policy orientation. Greece’s emerging strategic flexibility in the Eastern Mediterranean, however, may not only improve Athens’s regional positions but also involve the EU, with all possible advantages and disadvantages of this regional engagement.

86

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12 Michele Kambas–Tuvan Gumrukcu: Greek, Turkish warships in ‘mini collision.’ Ankara calls provocative. Reuters. 14 August 2020. <http://reut.rs/380G5ep >

CRISES AND A SEARCH FOR REFORMS IN LEBANON Ádám Éva At the end of 2019, it was rightly suggested by several analysts that the simultaneous outbursts of society-wide protests in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and other Arab countries brought about the second chapter of the Arab Spring.

In all the above states, societies seemed to demand the abolition of the previous system and the introduction of a new social contract.

While it was timely for Algeria and Sudan to end the rule of their decades-old authoritarian regimes, there was a functioning democracy in Lebanon, so the “limited” goal of the protests was to replace old political elites. Thus, Lebanon did not follow the examples of Tunisia, Libya, or Egypt for several reasons, the most important being a social system that protects the rights of ethnic and religious minorities but, at the same time, makes the fractured Lebanese society unsuitable for collective action.1 While each ethnic group and religious denomination in the country can have their slice of cake, they are not motivated to respond in kind to society.

In August 2020, an explosion of unprecedented magnitude shook Beirut, exacerbating the economic crisis and creating social tensions.

However, even this new situation was not enough for the political elite to set aside its interests and to face the worrying trends and a sharp increase in popular discontent. The big question that most analysts will ask in early 2021 is whether faith and confidence in the above-mentioned social system, the so-called Taif system, will be enough to keep a country sinking into an unprecedently deep economic recession alive. We can rightly suggest now that Lebanon will face another tragedy in the absence of a sustainable solution. The collapse may not happen in 2021, but it will certainly come in our lives.

FRAGILE SOCIAL ORDER As a result of the Taif Agreement—which was signed and ratified in 1989, at the end of the bloody 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War— altogether eighteen Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and other denominations were ensured representation in Lebanese domestic politics according to their proportion in the society. This agreement is the backbone of the current social contract. However, during the Arab Spring, the country not only remembered the civil war but also its 2005 struggle for independence from Syria and the 2006 Hezbollah–Israel War; therefore, both the political leaders and society focussed on the preservation of Lebanon’s stability during the turmoil. The need for stability also prevailed during the Syrian Civil War: Lebanon officially remained neutral, as support for Sunni insurgents would have caused domestic political tensions with the Hezbollah movement, which provided armed support to Bashar al-Assad’s government. In addition to the fair and equal distribution of presidential, prime ministerial, and parliamentary leadership positions among the largest religious denominations, Lebanese society itself is doing much to prevent political and economic crises from escalating into ethnic conflicts. During the economic and coronavirus crises of 2019–2020, ethnic groups showed restraint, and street protests did not escalate into sectarian conflict.

Due to the sectarian nature of the Lebanese society and its structural weaknesses, the country has always been extremely exposed to the influences of external (regional and extra-regional) powers. The modern history of Lebanon was first shaped by Ottoman and, then, by French influence, and, after the civil war, the stability and the internal functioning of

COUNTRY STUDIES

87

The administrative and political map of Lebanon AKKAR Tripoli

Halba

Miniyeh Zgharta

NORTH

Koura Amioun Zgharta Bsharri

Batrun

MiniyehDanniyeh

Hermel Hermel

Bsharri

Batroun

Byblos

Jbeil

KESROUANE-

Baalbek

JBEIL Kesrouane Jounieh

BAALBEK-

BEIRUT

Jdeideh

Matn

LEBANON

Beit ed-Dine Chouf

Zahlé

Sidon Jezzine Sidon Nabatieh Nabatieh

Zahlé

BEQAA

Joub Jannine Western Beqaa

Jezzine

SOUTH

HERMEL

Baabda Baabda Aley Aley

MOUNT

Mediterranean Sea

Baalbek

SYRIA Rachaiya Rachaiya

Hasbaiyya

Marjaayoun Hasbaiyya Tyre Tyre

Marjaayoun Bint Jbeil

ISRAEL

GOLAN HEIGHTS (OCCUPIED

BY ISRAEL)

Bint Jbeil NABATIEH

Lebanon were supported by other states. Syria was supposed to be responsible for Lebanon’s stability for only a few years as per the Taif Agreement, but its influence has not ceased with the Syrian army’s withdrawal from the country in 2005. The Syrian regime’s influence is prevalent even today through the March 8 88

COUNTRY STUDIES

Capital of Lebanon Capital of governorates and districts Capital of districts

Alliance political coalition, against which the March 14 Alliance has been built.2 During the Arab Spring, the ethnic and fractional division of power was compounded by strong Sunni–Shiite polarisation, which intensified during the Syrian Civil War. The Taif Agreement made it possible for the Hezbollah movement, which emerged

during the Lebanon–Israel war in 1982 and, then, was formally founded in 1985, to be never disarmed. With significant territorial dominance and military capability which surpasses that of the Lebanese army, Hezbollah has become a significant tool in the hands of Syria and Iran to influence Lebanese domestic politics.3 The Sunni political elite was only able to maintain Lebanon’s apparent neutrality in the Syrian post–Arab Spring conflict but proved unable to prevent Hezbollah from appearing to be a fighting party protecting the Syrian president in the neighbouring country. However, a serious internal conflict over the organisation’s behaviour was averted by the development of a political discourse according to which the Syrian Civil War threatens Lebanon’s stability, on which the country’s limited involvement is justified. By today, the political power of the Shiite bloc has exceeded the level originally allocated to them in the Taif Agreement, which feeds a constant political struggle and government crises. In 2017, the Saudi crown prince directly triggered a government crisis by forcing Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the leader of the March 14 Alliance, to resign. The quitting PM, in turn, justified his decision by Iran’s excessive influence on Lebanese domestic politics.4 The democratic nature of the Taif system is shown by the fact that, in the absence of a compromise between the Sunni and Shiite factions, the country could easily become inoperable. Therefore, fearing a deeper governmental crisis, other political blocs quickly pressured Hariri to withdraw his resignation, which he promptly did.5 The Lebanese political system is often criticised for being outdated, as it was adapted to the actual demands of the warring parties during the Lebanese Civil War. The Taif Agreement aimed to achieve an immediate satisfactory result, only referring to the further need for more substantial and sustainable solutions. However, as the Taif system has remained and been frozen in time, Lebanon has become a state of many small principalities, lacking national cohesion. The most important consequence of the ethnic-sectarian division of power is that all denominations have become self-serving, and do not look after their

nation’s interests. Therefore, the system is not based on the principle of equal opportunities, but it is a sort of every man for himself. Lebanon is consistently ranked among the worst performers in global corruption surveys, and the majority of its society is convinced that most of the government officials are corrupt.6 As the denominational distribution of Lebanon also has a geographical dimension, serious fault lines have developed in the country’s infrastructural development and living standards among its regions as well as between the centre and the periphery. In the northern and southern ends of the country, public utilities and drinking water supply are available for a fraction of the population, while Beirut and other major cities are almost fully covered.7 As politically stronger groups receive a larger share of the public good, areas dominated by an influential family typically receive significantly more development support even if it is clear that there is a greater need for development elsewhere.

By the summer of 2015, the raison d’être of the sectarian social system had already been questioned during a tangible crisis. Waste transport across Greater Beirut stalled, as the government had been unable to reach an

The distribution of religious groups in Lebanon Tripoli

Miniyeh

Hermel

Zgharta Mediterranean Sea Baalbek

Jounieh Beirut Zahlé

Shia Sunni

Sidon

Druze

Nabatieh

Alawi (Shia sect) Maronite (Christian group)

Tyre

Greek Catholic

Bint Jbeil

Greek Orthodox Armenian Orthodox and Catholic

COUNTRY STUDIES

89

Parliament of Lebanon Seat Allocation Confession

Before Taif

After Taif

Maronite Catholic

30

34

Eastern Orthodox

11

14

Melkite Catholic

6

8

Armenian Orthodox

4

5

Armenian Catholic

1

1

Protestant

1

1

Other Christian Minorities

1

1

Total Christians

54

64

Sunni

20

27

Shiite

19

27

Alawite

0

2

Druze

6

8

Total Muslims + Druze

45

64

Total

99

128

The confessional allocation of the Parliament of Lebanon before and after the Taif Agreement

agreement with either the landfill operators or the waste transport companies and extend their contract.8 Thus, a health catastrophe threatened the whole society, leading to protests against the corrupt political system. The protesters took to the streets with the slogan “Talaat Rihatkum,” i.e., #YouStink, alluding to how the political elite functions. However, the inclusive nature of the movement did not lead to greater success for several reasons. The primary problem was that the issue of waste management, which underlay the whole case, quickly got out of focus, so it was not even solved by the government.

The second important problem was that the movement wanted to achieve all major social changes at once and as soon as possible without creating a team of experts who could have developed a strategy, mapping out the steps of implementation. The ability to take collective action, thus, quickly halted, and a rivalry among different social groups grew instead of cooperation based on common interests. This turn accurately reflected the social and political conditions that led to a dysfunctional state.9 The 90

COUNTRY STUDIES

only intelligible goal of the 2015 movement was to make changes in the status quo; however, no organisation or party emerged that could have challenged the dominant political parties.

An interesting result of the #YouStink movement was a coalition of technocrats formed for the 2016 Beirut municipal elections. In their campaign, they did not put emphasis on the elite’s corruption but on the failure of the municipalities to solve ordinary tasks like waste management. Although the engineers, artists, and other intellectuals who joined the “Beirut Madinati,” i.e., “Beirut Is My City” coalition did not win the election, their attempt proved to be a serious challenge to the coalition of old leaders competing on Saad Hariri’s side. Despite its failure, the significant 30% achieved by the “Beirut Madinati” coalition illustrated the point that old power structures could be dismantled by bottom-up initiatives instead of those that identify the revision of the social contract as the only acceptable goal.10 THE “OCTOBER REVOLUTION” Lebanon’s economic and coronavirus crises in late 2019 and during 2020 led to societywide cohesion and peaceful collective mass movements. The protests began in autumn 2019, when the government announced a new tax on the services of the messaging app called WhatsApp, which is free and only requires a phone and an internet connection to function.11 This is a pointless extra burden for most of the society who lives below the poverty line and a measure that also seems unfair to a significant number of young users. However, this issue

The 2015 protest in Beirut

was only a symptom of a much more significant economic crisis. The high level of societal solidarity shows that the protest movement was, yet again, not an instant answer to a single event (as the introduction of a social media tax did not put a heavy burden on the middle class and wealthy people) but that the society reaffirmed its repugnance for the old political elites.

In October 2019, the Banque du Liban, the country’s central bank, announced that it would stop providing US dollars to importers except when a few basic and vital commodities are bought.12 The Lebanese pound had been pegged to the dollar for decades to maintain the illusion of economic stability, but this practice became unsustainable at that point. The Lebanese pound immediately depreciated and the price of basic foodstuff and other products in the country multiplied. Unfortunately, Lebanon’s economy is almost entirely (at least 85%) based on imports.

In March 2019, Lebanon became insolvent for the first time in the country’s history, declaring financial bankruptcy.13 For decades, the country’s fiscal stability was built on a pyramid scheme set up by the Banque du Liban, as the bank had borrowed a significant sum of US dollars from commercial banks to sustain the currency peg and cover big fiscal and current-account deficits.14 At the same time, the country operated as a rentier economy, as it was mainly kept alive by cash remittances from the Lebanese diaspora, which is much larger than the population living in Lebanon. However, in the absence of local capital, none of the above has been sustainable since spring 2020.

Essentially, dropping revenues compelled the Lebanese government to formally seek help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April, hoping for a loan of approximately USD 10 billion, but the negotiations stalled in 2020 due to the collapse of the government formation process.

However, an IMF load would not lead to major structural reforms, which would ideally mean taxing the capital of the richest and introducing progressive taxation, and therefore, successful negotiation with the organisation would only result in sustaining the false structures and further impoverishing the poor.15

AKKAR

Hezbollah-controlled territories in the first decade of 2000 Tripoli

Zgharta

Koura Amioun Zgharta

NORTH

Halba

Miniyeh

Bsharri

Batrun

MiniyehDanniyeh

Hermel Hermel

Bsharri

Batroun

Jbeil

Byblos KESROUANE-

Baalbek

JBEIL Kesrouane

Baalbek

Jounieh

BAALBEK-

BEIRUT

Jdeideh

MOUNT LEBANON

Mediterranean Sea

Matn

Beit ed-Dine Chouf

Nabatieh

Tyre

Marjaayoun

BEQAA

Rachaiya Rachaiya

Hasbaiyya

Marjaayoun Hasbaiyya Tyre

Zahlé

Joub Jannine Western Beqaa

Jezzine Sidon Jezzine Sidon Nabatieh

SOUTH

HERMEL Zahlé

Baabda Baabda Aley Aley

Controlled by Hezbollah (Shia majority areas) Controlled by Lebanese

Bint Jbeil Bint Jbeil NABATIEH

government

In the meantime, the new coronavirus crisis has pushed the Lebanese society even deeper into poverty as the unemployment rate also rose significantly. As a one-time response, the government decided to disburse immediate cash assistance to some 187,000 Lebanese families in April 2020.16 In the same month, the World Bank awarded Lebanon about USD 40 million in immediate emergency aid, which the country could use in areas of anti-coronavirus health action.17 As a next step, the country announced the implementation of structural fiscal reforms.

However, their results have not yet been visible, and the country’s economy will not be viable for a long time without an IMF loan. The World Bank’s decision in January 2021 to lend USD 246 million as an emergency cash assistance to nearly 800,000 Lebanese citizens18 might be a relief for many, but it does not help with the deepening economic crisis.

Exacerbating the country’s misfortune, Lebanon was in August 2020 shaken by the biggest explosion in its history when a consignment of ammonium nitrate, stored for years without further action in the port of Beirut, exploded. The devastation in foodstuff and other basic commodities caused by the explosion COUNTRY STUDIES

91

created a food crisis, but a significant segment of the society felt that this state of emergency could at least finally lead to the re-examination and elimination of a corrupt system. Months later, however, there was still no political leader taking responsibility for the event that killed two hundred people, and all Lebanese politicians refused to submit themselves to domestic or international investigations.19 The country’s legislative and judicial system provides a number of loopholes for leading politicians, even though, according to the alleged evidence, many of them are responsible for the explosion, which could have been easily prevented in a well-functioning country.

In October 2020, on the one-year anniversary of the protest against the WhatsApp tax, a mass demonstration erupted again in Beirut, and protesters marched along the stages of the previous year’s events. They went to the central bank, then the parliament and arrived at the port, where they commemorated the victims of the tragic blast in August.20 The protest found the Lebanese government in a much worse condition than a year earlier, as it had no leader, which was not promising for either potential political or economic reforms. The protests remained completely decentralised and lacked any strategy that could have shaken the foundations of the system. The hopelessness of the country’s political system is also shown by the fact that, at

A satellite map showing the likely damage after the 2020 Beirut blast (dark red: severly damaged, orange: moderately damaged, yellow: less damaged) 92

COUNTRY STUDIES

the end of October, Saad Hariri, who resigned a year earlier due to the protests, was finally given a mandate again to form a government.21 IS THERE A WAY OUT? The sectarian power relations that were solidified by the Taif Agreement in 1989 have contributed significantly to the inefficiency of the Lebanese political system. The frictions have been reinforced over the past decade by Hezbollah’s growing influence, rendering any consensual decision making even more difficult. Domestic political crises and mass demonstrations alternate regularly and spectacularly in the country, but, each time, a solution to and/or a resolution of tensions have not been provided yet.

However, the collective demonstrations following the Arab Spring have highlighted two important things: first, the well-being of the society as a whole, regardless of the financial situation and the denomination of its parts, is now suffering and, second, local grassroots and professional initiatives can deliver significant results.

In the midst of the recent economic and coronavirus crises, there are also unexpected rays of hope, promising improvement in the country’s economic situation. With US and UN support and mediation and with the blessing of Hezbollah, in October 2020, low-level talks began between Lebanon and Israel on the demarcation of maritime borders.22The Shiite movement has recognised that it would be a huge opportunity for Lebanon to start exploiting the significant gas and oil fields in the country’s maritime areas after the borders were settled, bringing the country billions of dollars in revenue. As the Israeli annexation of the areas in question is not possible due to strict and clear international regulation, and a peaceful agreement would benefit all parties, the outcome of the negotiations depends on Hezbollah’s leniency and the political elite’s ability to reach a consensus on the matter.23 However, in a serious crisis like the one the country is suffering from today, a decision made by the Shiite movement countering the country’s interests would cast a negative shadow on Hezbollah. Nevertheless, to maintain the credibility of Hezbollah, it would be enough for the Shiite movement to adhere to its

Transparency International. 20 August 2020. <http://bitly.ws/ bTkI > 7 Yahya, 9.

8 Vivian Yee–Hwaida Saad: To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage. The New York Times. 3 December 2019. <http://bitly.ws/bTkT > 9 Youmna Cham: How to lose momentum in five steps: why did Lebanon’s You Stink movement fail? The London School of Economics and Political Science. 30 November 2018. <http://bitly.ws/bTkV > 10 Yahya, 16-19.

11 Patricia Karam: Can Lebanon Rebuild Not Just Beirut, but Protest in Lebanon after the 4 August explosion

Its Broken Political System? World Politics Review. 28 August 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTkY >

strict claims on the Lebanon–Israel land border (the so-called Blue Line).

Despite these positive developments, the fact is that the country’s economy is on the brink of collapse accelerated by the lack of fiscal reforms and that the IMF intervention would have catastrophic consequences for those living in poverty, which makes up 70% of the population.24 Thus, the only way out of the ongoing crisis now is to implement reforms that take into account the interests of the majority of society. Otherwise, the collapse of the system will not remain a nightmare but become a reality that stems from the many challenges of the country.

12 Dana Khraiche: Currency Peg’s Implosion Takes Down Lebanon’s Economy. Bloomberg. 8 June 2020. <http://bitly. ws/bTm5 > 13 For the first time, Lebanon defaults on its debts. The Economist. 12 March 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTm8 > 14 Ibid.

15 Zahra Bazzi–Nizar Hassan: An IMF bailout for Lebanon can make things worse. Bretton Woods Project. 6 October 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTmd > 16 Timour Azhari: Lebanon launches coronavirus aid measures with cash payments. Al Jazeera. 8 April 2020. <http://bitly.ws/ bTmi > 17 World Bank Deploys US$40 Million in Emergency Response to Help Lebanon Face The Coronavirus Outbreak. The World Bank. 2 April 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTmk > 18 Sarah El Deeb: World Bank approves cash assistance to

ENDNOTES

crisis-struck Lebanon. The Associated Press. 13 January

1 Tamirace Fakhoury: Do Power-Sharing Systems Behave

2021. <https://bit.ly/3tnCDmF >

Differently amid Regional Uprisings? Lebanon in the Arab

19 Ben Hubbard: Lebanese Officials Try to Limit Inquiry Into

Protest Wave. Middle East Journal. 2014/4. 512.

Deadly Beirut Blast. The New York Times. 19 December 2020.

2 Tamirace Fakhoury: Power-sharing after the Arab Spring?

<http://bitly.ws/bTmp >

Insights from Lebanon’s Political Transition. Nationalism and

20 Hundreds march in Lebanon to mark year of anti-gov’t

Ethnic Politics. 2019/1. 15.

protests. Al Jazeera. 17 October 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTmr >

3 Maha Yahya: The Summer of Our Discontent: Sects and

21 Tamara Qiblawi: Protesters wanted change but Lebanon’s

Citizens in Lebanon and Iraq. Carnegie Endowment for

elite picks veteran Saad Hariri to lead crisis-wracked country.

International Peace. June 2017. 6. <https://bit.ly/3er8Pko >

CNN. 22 October 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTmu >

4 Anne Barnard: Saad Hariri Quits as Lebanon Prime

22 Udi Evental: Stormy waters: Israel and Lebanon negotiate

Minister, Blaming Iran. The New York Times. 4 November 2017.

their maritime border. Atlantic Council. 20 November 2020.

<http://bitly.ws/bTkF >

<http://bitly.ws/bTmv >

5 Anne Barnard: It’s Official: Lebanese Prime Minister Not

23 Matthew Joaquin: Israel–Lebanon maritime dispute

Resigning After All. The New York Times. 5 December 2017.

explained. Al Jazeera. 31 March 2017. <http://bitly.ws/bTmw >

<http://bitly.ws/bTkH >

24 Nizar Hassan: Lebanon’s oligarchs crashed the economy,

6 Julien Courson: Corruption is Endemic in Lebanon’s

now they’re making the people pay. The New Arab. 28 July

Political System, and the IMF Can Help Change That.

2020. <http://bitly.ws/bTmy > COUNTRY STUDIES

93

4

HORIZONTAL TOPICS

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN FOR THE GAS SUPPLY SECURITY ENDEAVOURS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 1 Tamás Kozma INTRODUCTION During the past decade, the Eastern Mediterranean caught the headlines with increasing frequency. To a large extent, this can be explained by the fact that the region has gained greater significance in energy politics and energy security. Natural gas–related issues have undoubtedly come to the fore and become an integral part of any analysis of this highly complex region. In line with this, the present article aims to shed light on the European Union’s (EU) interests and engagement in the Eastern Mediterranean from the perspective of its natural gas supply security endeavours.

NATURAL GAS REALITIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION In terms of its natural gas needs, the European Union lacks self-sufficiency, and, accordingly, it depends on imports, which inevitably establishes a strong linkage between its energy security endeavours and its foreign policy focus.

Natural gas has become a highly politicised commodity in the EU, which is often viewed through the lens of Brussels’s determination to diversify the EU’s gas supply portfolio. Russian gas is unquestionably at the centre of this matter. The EU seeks to gain access to natural gas from alternative sources—and, possibly, via alternative supply channels—in order to lessen its dependence on gas import from Russia.

As it was published in a data set released by Eurostat in September 2020, the EU’s natural gas production continues to decline; in comparison with the preceding year, it fell by 11% in 2019, which implies a growing dependence on gas imports from outside the EU.2 In accordance with this, it should be highlighted that the EU’s 96

HORIZONTAL TOPICS

energy import dependency has been showing a significantly growing tendency for two decades.

The union’s import dependency on natural gas was 65.7% in 2000, 69% in 2005, 67.8% in 2010, 74.5% in 2015, 80.2% in 2017, and 83.2 in 2018,3 while, in 2019, it reached an all-time high level of 89.5%.4 In 2019, the top three gas suppliers to the EU were Russia with a 44.7%, Norway with a 21.3%, and Algeria with a 12.1% share in the EU’s total gas import.5 At the same time, the EU’s gas demand is expected to decrease to 386 bcm by 2040 according to the International Energy Agency’s forecast,6 which is a significant drop from the demand level of 482 bcm in 2019.7 In short, two key tendencies running parallel can be identified in Europe: an expected decline in the EU’s gas demand and an ever-growing dependence on gas imports from outside the EU. These trends do not indicate that natural gas would lose its strategic importance for the EU, which reinforces the narrative about the EU’s determination to diversify its supplies by potentially introducing new gas volumes from alternative sources into them. Moreover, it should also be added that around 100 bcm of the EU’s long-term gas purchase contracts will expire by 2025, which implies that a new gas supply structure might emerge in the near future. Of course, this eventuality depends on a complex set of political and economic factors.8 THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN GAS IN THE EYES OF THE EU The Eastern Mediterranean is, without a doubt, of specific importance for the European Union: not only for the fact that two of its member states—Greece and Cyprus—are located

there but also due to its increased geopolitical significance, which is strongly interlinked with its energy security potential, especially its untapped natural gas assets. When it comes to the highly diverse and often turbulent Eastern Mediterranean, it is probably not an exaggeration to say that the past decade can be called the era of a great natural gas boom in the region, which raised the expectations of both the littoral state’s governments and further actors—such as the EU and its extra-regional member states—who hope to benefit from energy discoveries in the region.

During the previous decade, major offshore gas reserves—e.g., the Zohr gas field in Egypt’s, the Aphrodite gas field in Cyprus’s, or the Leviathan gas field in Israel’s exclusive economic zone— were discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean, which has profoundly redrawn the regional energy map. The gas wealth discovered in the past decade has given the perspective of becoming self-sufficient to many countries in the region and offered them the prospect of engaging in promising gas export businesses.9 Accordingly, the EU turned its attention to this region in the hope of potentially diversifying its gas import structure.

The idea of a partly offshore, partly onshore pipeline called EastMed has been regularly discussed in the EU since 2013. This planned pipeline is designed to annually transport 10 bcm of natural gas from Cyprus’s and Israel’s offshore production sites to Greece and beyond via interconnectors routed to European markets.10 In January 2020, Cyprus, Greece, and

Israel signed an agreement on the construction of the EastMed pipeline, which is considered a project of common interest of the EU’s energy infrastructure development.11 However, experts highlight that uncertainties about its funding and the project’s commercial viability could thwart its realisation. Moreover, given the objectives of the European Green Deal and the EU’s determination to shift away from fossil fuels, there is shrinking public support for natural gas–related projects in the EU, which casts a shadow over the future of any new pipeline projects, including EastMed.12 Besides the EastMed pipeline project, the East Mediterranean Gas Forum has also been established as a regional platform for effective cooperation in the field of natural gas, and three of its founding parties—Cyprus, Greece, and Italy—are also EU member states. However, the gas boom in the Eastern Mediterranean should not only be viewed through the lens of the EU’s prospective gas supply diversification, since a more tangible economic dimension of its interests can also be identified: European energy giants, such as the Italian ENI, or the French TOTAL, are widely involved in exploration work and gas production in the region.

Other important infrastructure projects involving the Eastern Mediterranean region are also of key importance from the EU’s perspective. One of them is the Southern Gas Corridor. The more than 3,500-kilometre pipeline would start in Azerbaijan and cross Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania, and Italy, transporting Caspian gas to Turkey and further on to EU member states.13 Given its route, this

Table 1: The most significant offshore natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas field

Country

Year of first gas discovery

Estimated gas reserves

Aphrodite

Cyprus

2011

129 bcm

Calypso

Cyprus

2018

170–230 bcm

Glaucus

Cyprus

2019

142–227 bcm

Zohr

Egypt

2015

850 bcm

Leviathan

Israel

2010

605 bcm

Tamar + Tamar SW

Israel

2009

318 bcm HORIZONTAL TOPICS

97

Chart 1: Energy dependency rate, EU-27 between 2008 and 2018 (% of net imports in gross available energy, based on tonnes of oil equivalent) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2008

2009

2010

All products

2011

2012

Solid fossil fuels

2013

2014

2015

2016

Oil and petroleum products

2017

2018

Natural gas

Chart 2: Russia’s share in the EU’s gas imports between 2010 and 2019 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

project strengthens both Turkey’s and Greece’s role in the Eastern Mediterranean region’s energy security architecture. After being put into operation, the gas Interconnector Greece– Bulgaria (IGB) pipeline will also increase Greece’s geopolitical weight: Greece will become a gas gateway towards the Balkans, and the new interconnector will also enable the country to export the gas volumes it might receive in the future through its second LNG terminal near Alexandroupolis, which is expected to become operational in 2023.14 With these projects, Greece will become an important junction of the North–South and the East–West energy transit corridors through the IGB and the Southern Gas 98

HORIZONTAL TOPICS

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

Corridor, respectively.15 The construction works that commenced in July 2020 on Cyprus’s firstever floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in Vasilikos Bay, a terminal used for LNG transfer, is another non-negligible step forward for not only Nicosia but also Brussels.16 The aforementioned cooperation formats demonstrate that there are many opportunities for cooperation between EU member states and non-EU countries along energy issues in the Eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, given the diverse interests of the regional actors, natural gas has become an asset that has further strengthened rivalry and widened the existing political fault lines among them. It means that

The Southern Gas Corridor and its parts

ALBANIA ITALY Brindisi San Foca

GEORGIA Tbilisi

BULGARIA

Akhalkalaki Ardahan

Edirne

Fier Thessaloniki GREECE

Baku

AZERBAIJAN

Ankara Biga

Ganja

Sivas Erzincan Erzurum TURKEY

Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP)

the natural gas wealth of this region is a basis for not only cooperation but also conflicts.

In recent years, natural gas–related tensions have come to the fore, especially in the Greece– Turkey–Cyprus triangle. Moreover, these tensions have become not only inseparable from present security and foreign policy discussions about the Eastern Mediterranean but are now frequently discussed topics on an EU level, too.

Given the lack of mutually agreed-on maritime boundaries between Turkey and Greece, as well as between Turkey and Cyprus, these countries contest each other’s claims over maritime territories and, thus, dispute each other’s rights to search for underwater energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.17 Albeit not for the first time in history, tensions rose to new levels in the summer of 2020, when Turkey- intensified its exploration for hydrocarbon resources in the contested waters.18 Turkey sent its seismic research vessel, named Oruç Reis, accompanied by navy ships, to the contested maritime territories between Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete.

As a response to this step, Greece sent out its military ships to block Turkey’s further moves in the area.19 This situation heightened tensions, and the region has become the scene of an intensifying show of force: naval presence increased in the region while the rhetoric also became harsher during these months. Alongside Cyprus and Greece, extra-regional EU member states, such as Italy and France, also took part

in the joint and combined naval and air drills in the Eastern Mediterranean in late August 2020.20 The EU, which has long been cautiously following this unfolding series of events, has many times condemned Turkey’s activities, and it even imposed sanctions on the country for its conduct in the Eastern Mediterranean.21 The EU also shows its support for its member states involved in the Eastern Mediterranean gas debate. However, one should not forget that, despite these tensions, Turkey remains an important partner for the EU in terms of energy security because of its involvement in other strategic projects, e.g., the Southern Gas Corridor.

CONCLUSION The European Union’s natural gas–related interests in the Eastern Mediterranean can be analysed along multiple vectors. This article aimed to provide insight into three of them. First, the EU and its member states are interested in diversifying their gas supplies with gas volumes from this region, and, thus, they are also interested in gas exploration, gas production, gas import, and in the implementation of different infrastructure projects in the Eastern Mediterranean. Second, to achieve its energy security goals, the EU is motivated to seek cooperation with actors in the region other than its member states. And, third, given the Eastern Mediterranean’s geopolitical and geo-economic significance, it has a potential for conflicts and HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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rivalry. The ongoing natural gas–related tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean are about not only energy security but also the involved parties’ attempts to gain greater influence in the region.

Accordingly, beyond their interest in natural gas, the EU and its member states are interested in shaping the regional balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean as much as they can.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline in the Spotlight. Antall József Knowledge Centre. June 2020. <https://bit.ly/3sp0TUA > 14 Bulgartransgaz Takes 20% Stake in Greece’s Gastrade.

Of fshore Engineer. 28 Januar y 2021. <ht tps://bit. ly/3snc0NB > 15 Tamás Kozma: Pipelines and Pipe Dreams: Key Natural Gas Infrastructure Issues in the EU. TRENDS Research & Advisory. 16 December 2020. <https://bit.ly/3sp11U4 > 16 Cyprus begins construction of new LNG terminal. Tank Storage Magazine. 10 July 2020. <https://bit.ly/3klvzmx > 17 Tamás Kozma: Turkey and Greece: overlapping claims

ENDNOTES

and growing tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

1 The article was submitted and accepted for publication

CEENERGYNE WS. 10 September 2020. <https://bit.

on 1 June 2021.

ly/3dUOiVd >

2 Natural Gas Supply Statistics. European Commission,

18 Ibid.

Eurostat. September 2020. <https://bit.ly/2Ml3grX >

19 Callum Paton: Greece moves in naval fleet to

3 European Commission: EU Energy in Figures. Statistical

Mediterranean over Turkish encroachment. The National. 11

Pocketbook 2020. Publications Office of the European

August 2020. <https://bit.ly/3bznFSD >

Union, Luxembourg, 2020. 77.

20 Xavier Vavasseur: Eunomia: Cyprus Greece France and

4 Natural Gas Supply Statistics.

Italy Conducting Combined Drills in Eastern Med. Navalnews.

5 EU imports of energy products – recent developments.

28 August 2020. <https://bit.ly/3uswqXp >

European Commission, Eurostat. October 2020. <https://bit.

21 Turkey’s illegal drilling activities in the Eastern

ly/3sloNA8 >

Mediterranean: Council adopts framework for sanctions.

6 Stuart Elliot: IEA cuts 2040 EU gas demand forecast by

European Council, Council of the European Union. 11

further 22 Bcm. S&P Global Platts. 13 November 2019.

November 2019. <https://bit.ly/2OZ5qOS >

<https://bit.ly/3pNzr0L > 7 European Commission: Quarterly Report on European Gas Markets with focus on the impact of Covid-19 on the global LNG market. 2020/3. 3. <https://bit.ly/3t76Buk > 8 Peter Zeniewski: A long-term view of natural gas security in the European Union. International Energy Agency. 13 March 2019. <https://bit.ly/3aNgze3 > 9 Tamás Kozma: Turkey and the Geopolitics of Natural Gas in the Eastern Mediterranean. TRENDS Research & Advisory.

13 April 2020. <https://bit.ly/37LinT3 > 10 Eastmed. IGI Poseidon. <https://bit.ly/2ZIxEQ6 > Accessed: 12 February 2021.

11 EastMed Gas pipeline agreement signed at trilateral summit between PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot Pres. Nicos Anastasiades. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2 January 2020. <https://bit. ly/2ZIyrR4 > 12 Simone Tagliapietra: Eastern Mediterranean Gas: What Prospects for the New Decade? Bruegel. 25 February 2020. <https://bit.ly/3qQY9Pm > 13 For more analysis on the Southern Gas Corridor, see Tamás Kozma: Southern Gas Corridor in the Home Stretch:

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MIGRATION IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN— KEY TRENDS AND CHALLENGES Bianka Restás MIGRATION ROUTES TO EUROPE—AN OVERVIEW International migration has gained increasing global attention in recent years. The unprecedentedly massive arrival of refugees and irregular immigrants in the EU, which peaked in 2015, has revealed a series of weaknesses and gaps in EU policies on asylum, external borders, and migration and has consequently generated various debates and deep divisions among the member states. Irregular immigration to Europe remained one of the central issues on the European political agenda in 2020.

Ongoing discussions mainly revolved around the New Pact on Migration and Asylum presented by the European Commission, which aims at establishing a new, comprehensive, and sustainable European approach to managing international migration in a more efficient and equal manner.

Individuals can enter European territory irregularly through four main migration routes: the Central Mediterranean route (from North and sub-Saharan Africa to Italy and Malta),1 the Western Mediterranean route (from Western and sub-Saharan Africa2 both via the Mediterranean Sea to mainland Spain and by land to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Northern Africa),3 and the Eastern Mediterranean route. The Western African route (where the main source countries are Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, and The Gambia) entails arrivals on the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.4 The Eastern Mediterranean migration route leads to Greece, Cyprus, and Bulgaria through Turkey and the Middle East.5 Since 2014, the Eastern Mediterranean migration route has been an important pathway for asylum seekers and migrants coming from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.6

According to data from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 15,533 people arrived in Greece (36% from Afghanistan, 23.3% from the Syrian Arab Republic, and 10.3% from the Democratic Republic of Congo),7 985 in Cyprus, and 54 in Bulgaria through the Eastern Mediterranean route in 2020.8 This number was noticeably lower compared to the other two routes: 41,861 arrivals were registered in Spain (39.5% from Algeria, 20.3% from Morocco, and 12.6% from Mali),9 34,154 in Italy (38.4% from Tunisia, 12.7% from Bangladesh, and 5.3% from Côte d’Ivoire),10 and 2,281 in Malta.11 There are numerous drivers (the literature refers to them as “push and pull factors”) that influence the dynamics of human movements and the changing patterns—decrease and increase in the number of arrivals—of the four migration routes. Without claim for completeness, I would mention some of them here. Political instability and insecurity in the countries of origin—induced by wars, conflicts, fragile governance, food and water insecurity, the scarce availability of resources, climate-related and environmental risks, and others—have an important role to play in forced migration. It is also well-known that economic factors could also greatly encourage people to move (regularly or irregularly), seeking better living conditions and opportunities in other countries. The availability of smuggling networks—that assist people in travelling to Europe in many cases— the conditions and migration-related measures in the receiving countries can also significantly contribute to decisions on migration and to choosing a destination country. Concerning migration decisions, international organisations call attention to the fact that information and awareness-raising campaigns12 could have a HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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The main migratory routes into the EU

11,606 234

4,828 3,167 11,602

Western Mediterranean route Central Mediterranean route Western Balkan route Circular route from Albania to Greece Eastern Mediterranean route 1

Number of illegal border crossings in 2021 (January–April)

crucial role in filling knowledge gaps about the risks of the journeys to Europe via the main migration routes, such as human smuggling, exploitation, and abuse. Furthermore, these campaigns can also serve as an important source of information on security conditions in transit and destination countries and on the realities migrants and asylum seekers will face in Europe, such as reception conditions in the receiving countries, relevant government measures, and political, economic, and social integration possibilities.

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REFUGEE “EMERGENCY” IN 2015 AND THE EU’S RESPONSES Following the outbreak of the Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region in 2011, an increasing number of people decided to move towards Europe. In 2015, numerous refugees arrived in the EU via the Eastern Mediterranean route, seeking shelter from the Syrian Civil War. In 2014, 41,038 arrivals were registered in Greece (and 225,455 in the three routes combined), while, in 2015, 856,72313 (with 1,032,408 in

all three routes, including sea arrivals in Italy, Cyprus, and Malta, and sea and land arrivals in Greece and Spain).14 In 2016, 173,450, in 2017, 29,718, in 2018, 32,494, and, in 2019, 59,726 arrivals were registered in Greece.15 The data clearly shows that the number of arrivals in 2015 was strikingly high and, as a consequence, posed a major challenge for the EU and its member states. A publication released by the UNHCR in July 2015 highlighted that more than 85% of those who arrived in Greece were from countries going through war and conflict, principally Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

As arrivals increased, reception capacity and conditions became seriously inadequate in Greece, and significant systemic flaws appeared in the country’s reception facilities.16 The unexpected rise in the number of migrants coming by sea highlighted the weaknesses of the European Union’s policies on migration and placed unprecedented pressure on the mechanisms that the EU had established in this field. As a consequence, the union initiated a reform process of its main tools—notably, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the Dublin Regulation. The crisis also revealed that any sustainable solution would need the EU to be involved, as none of the member states would be able to solve the problem by itself due to the highly complex and interconnected drivers of migration that no single state can tackle alone.17 However, the interests of destination states, transit states, and those member states who were unaffected diverged to such an extent that no clear, sustainable EU-wide solution was able to materialize.18 Therefore, the European Union decided to shift the management of migration and asylum towards an externalisation approach that was more visible than during previous years and adopted several measures and initiated different forms of collaboration with third countries (including transit and destination countries) to reduce the influx of people heading towards the continent before they reach European shores. This approach has also been referred to as “a system of off-shoring the migration process” and explained as “shifting the burdens

associated with migration, such as border controls and migration management outside the country’s jurisdiction”19 by Sarah Katz, and labelled as “outsourcing . . . responsibility” to third countries by Sergio Carrera and his colleagues.20 THE EU–TURKEY STATEMENT— PRACTICAL RESULTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS In the above vein, the implementation of the EU–Turkey Statement in March 2016 has played a key role in reducing irregular arrivals through Turkey. In 2019, the number of arrivals through this route was 90% lower than in 2015, and a further decline was observed in 2020.21 Certainly, this decrease can also be attributed to the limited migration possibilities resulting from travel restrictions and measures introduced during the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, increased border control, national legislative measures, and other restrictive steps could also significantly determine migration decisions, trends, and patterns. Therefore, decrease in numbers cannot be attributed to one factor only; other aspects should be taken into consideration, too. The EU–Turkey Statement laid down two main principles: all new irregular migrants arriving in the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey if they did not apply for asylum or their claim was rejected, and, for every Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian will be resettled to the EU.22 The statement (or agreement as it is referred to as by many, albeit not precisely) was agreed upon in a period when the number of migrants travelling through Turkey reached unprecedented heights. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) highlighted that it considerably “removed the incentive for migrants to take irregular migration routes to Greece and has undermined the business model of people-smuggling networks.”23 At the same time, it also clearly showed the shift towards prioritising the external or foreign policy dimension of migration policies.

Despite the practical results and advancements that the EU could achieve HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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Yearly irregular arrivals on the main migration routes between January 2015 and April 2021

Western Mediterranean route Central Mediterranean route Eastern Mediterranean route Total

1,100,000

825,000

550,000

275,000

0 2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Top nationalities per main migration routes in 2021 (January–April)

TURKEY 1,048

TUNISIA 2,665

AFGHANISTAN 429

SYRIA 857

MOROCCO 718

SYRIA 11

ALGERIA 2,059

BANGLADESH 1,073

UNKNOWN 391

MALI 7 GUINEA 828 IVORY COAST 1,237

SUDAN 780 UNSPECIFIED SUB-SAHARAN 103 CONGO (KINSHASA) 447

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Western Mediterranean route Central Mediterranean route Eastern Mediterranean route 1

Irregular arrivals

through the implementation of the EU–Turkey Statement, it is important to mention some of its sensitive elements and critical aspects.

The compatibility of the statement’s measures with international and European refugee law and human rights law standards was widely questioned and criticised by academia, civil society, and international organisations. Alberto Tagliapietra points out that the statement represented a crucial moment in the union’s response to the migration crisis, after which European leaders openly started to operate “abroad.”24 The document has certainly achieved its goal of reducing the entry of irregular migrants from Turkey into Greece and, thus, the European Union. However, it has not provided a structural solution to the migration crisis and has raised several concerns about “the conditions that refugees have to face in Turkey and the agreement’s compliance with EU and international law.”25 One of these questions is related to the principle of non-refoulement which constitutes the cornerstone of international refugee protection. Article 33(1) of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees asserts that “[n]o Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”26 The European Commission says that “[t]he principle of nonrefoulement is a part of customary international law and is therefore binding on all States, whether or not they are parties to the Geneva Refugee Convention Protocol.”27 This issue was discussed in the context of the EU–Turkey Statement in relation to its wording about returning “all new irregular migrants” to Turkey, which has raised doubts about its compliance with the principle of non-refoulement and about the perception of Turkey as a safe third country to which migrants are returned. Amnesty International stressed that “contrary to what is required under EU and international law . . .

Turkey does not provide effective protection

Aid distribution to Syrian refugees in Turkey in 2015

to the asylum-seekers and refugees on its territory.”28 Even the European Ombudsman criticised the EU–Turkey Statement calling on the European Commission “to include in its future progress reports on the implementation of the Agreement – agreed by the European Council – a separate section focusing on human rights risks and on measures to reduce them.”29 In February 2020, Turkey announced that it will no longer prevent Syrian refugees from entering Europe after authorities reported that thirtythree of its soldiers had been killed in Syria’s northern Idlib province.30 Greece responded to the decision by suspending all new asylum applications for a month and closing its borders.

As a result of the Greek border closure, violent clashes erupted at the frontier, and reports also stated that Greek security forces had used tear gas and smoke grenades to repel migrants trying to tear down a border fence.31 The events at the Greek–Turkish border reminded the EU and its policymakers of not only the fragility of the EU–Turkey Statement but also important human rights aspects and the possibility of potential disrespect for them.

Despite increasing Turkish hostility towards the EU in recent months, institutional cooperation seems to continue. It is worth noting, however, that humanitarian needs remain significant among refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers along the Eastern Mediterranean migration route. Many people spend long periods in overcrowded camps and reception centres in Greece and Turkey and are unable to continue their journey to other destinations in Europe.32 HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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MORIA—AN EXAMPLE OF SIGNIFICANT GAPS IN THE EUROPEAN MIGRATION AND RECEPTION SYSTEM The reception centre in Moria—Greece’s largest refugee camp until 2019—is an emblematic example of serious human rights and humanitarian concerns as well as weaknesses in the current European migration and reception system. For years, thousands of people who arrived at Lesbos were placed in the camp and stayed there for long periods until their asylum application had been processed on the mainland. The EU proposed to resettle migrants among different member states, but governments across the bloc have rejected those proposals.33 Many emphasised the inadequate medical, health, and sanitary conditions that people were facing in the overcrowded reception centre. In September 2018, the camp accepted more than 9,000 people—three times its intended capacity.

Florian Westphal, the general director of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) pointed out that the camp was essentially

An aerial view of the Moria refugee camp in 2019 106

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a lawless area at night, and violent attacks, rapes, and child abuse occurred there regularly.

He also warned that a quarter of the children in the centre were suicidal.34 A study conducted by the MSF and published last September found that 215 victims of sexual violence went to the MSF clinic on Lesbos to get help in the six months between September 2017 and January 2018. The study points out that sixty of them—i.e., three in ten victims—were male, half of the incidents (118) occurred in transit, mainly in Turkey, and seventy-six (35%) in the country of origin, while ten cases (5%) on Lesbos.35 In 2018, the UNHCR urged the Greek government to relocate asylum seekers away from Lesbos, describing conditions on the island as reaching a “boiling point.”36 In 2020, the camp sheltered 12,000 people— four times its capacity in abysmal conditions— many of whom were sleeping rough or in tents and had limited access to clean water and electricity.37 At the beginning of last September, thousands of refugees and migrants were forced to flee the overcrowded Moria camp

after multiple fires had erupted overnight and destroyed much of the site.38 The humanitarian emergency that evolved on the island is a clear sign that there are significant gaps in and, at present, insurmountable obstacles to the migrant reception system at a European level. Although there are ongoing debates in the EU on responsibility sharing and solidarity, and the standpoints of each state on how to contribute to the management of international migration are diverse, providing security and access to basic needs—such as clean water, sanitation facilities, and safe and dignified accommodation—for asylum seekers must remain a core principle of international protection. The MFS underlined in this context that “European states should take the fire in Moria refugee camp on 8 September as an opportunity for real change in European migration policies and start by evacuating all people on Lesbos and the other Greek islands.”39 Doctors have repeatedly said that the deterioration of the physical and mental health of the migrants in the camp was a serious concern and there was a mental health emergency.40 After the fire—that practically left the camp’s residents without shelter—media reports last October called attention to humanitarian concerns once again. According to these reports, thousands of people who had fled the fire that destroyed the camp lived in dire and unsanitary conditions in the Kara Tepe temporary settlement with little access to water or basic sanitation.41 The latter settlement has become known as “Moria 2.0” and, last December, 7,300 people stayed there temporarily.42 Last year, Greece announced that those migrants stuck in temporary accommodation would be moved to a “new, up-to-standard reception center” on Lesbos by September 2021 with the support of the European Commission.43 The inadequate reception system combined with the conditions in the Moria camp and their consequences (the locals’ decreasing tolerance, the consistent insecurity of migrants, and the unsolved problem of rubbish and sanitation, among others) have created tensions between the locals and migrants, as was highlighted by the

The new temporary refugee camp in Kara Tepe with UNHCR tents

UNHCR.44 The attitude of Greek people towards refugees in Greece has become less tolerant in general,45 and the insufficient management of refugee camps and reception facilities could further provoke hostility. Moreover, the described conditions and health risks coupled with the coronavirus pandemic could increase fear and insecurity and, as a consequence, fuel tensions between the locals and migrants. A 2018 Pew Research Centre study into public attitudes to migration in twenty-seven countries highlighted that the majority of the population in Greece (82%), Italy (71%), and Germany (58%) said fewer immigrants or no immigrants at all should be allowed to move to their countries.46 It is important to note that each country has served as an important transit or destination country in recent years, and they continue to contribute significantly to managing the question at a European level. As a consequence, the countries of first arrival have repeatedly pointed out that the Dublin system burdened their domestic asylum system with disproportionate responsibilities.

CONCLUSION The changes in migration patterns and the “popularity” of the three main migration routes depend on several factors. Social, political, environmental, and security aspects—just as relevant government measures and attitudes (e.g., border management, legal responses to migration, approaches towards reception and integration, bilateral cooperation with third HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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countries), and even the availability of human trafficking networks—could equally influence them. Developments in recent years have clearly shown that shifts in the political circumstances and security conditions in countries of origin (such as the Syrian Civil War or the Arab Spring) could rapidly change the routes along which migrants and refugees move from their country of origin via hubs in transit areas to their country of destination. For the above-presented and other reasons, developing a more sustainable, coherent, and effective approach in migration management should be an EU-level priority. The New Pact on Migration and Asylum presented by the European Commission last year has a clear intention to adopt such an approach, as it has several elements that propose a future system based on shared responsibility and more effective burden sharing. However, realising the goals of this ambitious plan will raise several questions and disputes in the upcoming period, as the member states are bound to play different roles in shaping the future asylum and migration policy as a result of the differences in their geography, history, cultural links with countries of origin and transit countries, economic sources, and diverse priorities in tackling migration. The cooperation between the EU and Turkey has a crucial role in migration management along the Eastern Mediterranean migration route, but, as it was discussed above, this collaboration has posed several questions, risks, and human rights concerns. As the multilevel determinants and drivers of migration are highly complex, the policy responses of the EU should be properly designed, detail oriented, and comprehensive, taking into account their potential short-, medium-, and long-term impacts.

4 EU migration policy.

5 Eastern Mediterranean route. European Council, Council of the European Union. Updated on 6 Januay 2021. <https:// bit.ly/2QfnViQ > 6 Over view. ACAPS. 6 Januar y 2021. <https://bit. ly/30Ts8us > 7 Mediterranean Situation—Greece. UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency. <https://bit.ly/3vzLfIg > Accessed: 13 January 2021.

8 Mediterranean Situation. UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency. <https://bit.ly/3tAoNNv > Accessed: 13 January 2021.

9 Mediterranean Situation—Spain. UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency. <https://bit.ly/3ttZD30 > Accessed: 13 January 2021.

10 Mediterranean Situation—Italy. UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency. <https://bit.ly/3r0kaKC > Accessed: 13 January 2021.

11 Eastern Mediterranean route. European Council, Council of the European Union. Updated: 6 January 2021. <https:// bit.ly/3rVuULD > 12 Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration. The 10-Point Plan in action. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, 2011. 261–284. <https://bit.ly/2P2Exd7 > 13 Mediterranean Situation—Greece.

14 Mediterranean Situation.

15 Mediterranean Situation—Greece.

Mediterranean Situation.

16 The sea route to Europe: The Mediterranean passage in the age of refugees. UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency.

1 July 2015. <https://bit.ly/3rYSabH > 17 Bianka Restás: Towards a more sustainable and effective migration management? (Ursula von der Leyen’s proposals to rethink migration and asylum policies in Europe). AJRCAnalyses, 2020E12. 19 May 2020. 7– 8. <https://bit. ly/3vz5KEN > 18 Roderick Parkes–Annelies Pauwels: Impact of the Migration Challenges on the EU Policy Framework. In: Erzsébet N. Rózsa [et al.]: Mapping the Migration Challenges in the EU Transit and Destination Countries.

EuroMeSCo Join Policy Study 6. March 2017. 7. <https://bit. ly/3lmlAhy >

ENDNOTES

19 Sarah Katz: A More Acceptable Solution: The Proposed

1 EU migration policy. European Council, Council of the

European Union Agency of Asylum and Refugees.

European Union. Updated on 6 Januay 2021. <https://bit.

Case Western Reser ve Journal of International Law.

ly/38RIIiZ >

2017/49. 310.

2 EU migration policy.

20 Sergio Carrera–Juan Santos Vara–Tineke Strik: The

3 Western Mediterranean and Western African routes.

external dimensions of EU migration and asylum policies in

European Council, Council of the European Union. Updated

times of crisis. In: Constitutionalising the E x ternal

on 6 Januay 2021. <https://bit.ly/3tv1kNq >

Dimensions of EU Migration Policies in Times of Crisis,

108

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edited by Sergio Carrera–Juan Santos Vara–Tineke Strik.

39 “Enough is enough”: Time to stop the cycle of suffering

Edward Elgar Publishing Limited–Edward Elgar Publishing,

for refugees on Greek islands. Médecins Sans Frontières. 17

Inc., Cheltenham–Northampton, 2019. 13.

September 2020. <https://bit.ly/3rYBZez>

21 Eastern Mediterranean route.

40 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

41 Katy Fallon: ‘Moria 2.0’: refugees who escaped fire now

23 Risk Analysis for 2017. Frontex, Warsaw, 2017. 8. <https://

living in ‘worse’ condition. The Guardian. 7 October 2020.

bit.ly/3cRfCRI >

<https://bit.ly/3qYJm4m >

24 Alberto Tagliapietra: The European Migration Crisis:

42 Benjamin Bathke: Toddler feared to have been raped in

A Pendulum between the Internal and External Dimensions.

Kara Tepe migrant camp on Lesbos. InfoMigrants. <https://

IAI Papers 19|12. 3 June 2019. 8. <https://bit.ly/30RjgFR >

bit.ly/38SiRHM >

25 Ibid.

43 Sertan Sanderson: EU to fund building of new migrant

26 Advisory Opinion on the Extraterritorial Application of

camp on Lesbos – amid great criticism. InfoMigrants. 4

Non-Refoulement Obligations under the 1951 Convention

December 2020. <https://bit.ly/3qYiG3C >

relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

44 Moria migrants: Fire destroys Greek camp leaving 13,000

UNHCR. The UN Refugee Agency. 26 January 2007. <https:

without shelter.

//bit.ly/3qRBcKV >

45 Ibid.

27 Non-refoulement. European Commission. <https://bit.

46 Phillip Connor–Jens Manuel Krogstad: Many worldwide

ly/30QxSFw > Accessed: 28 December 2020.

oppose more migration – both into and out of their countries.

28 No Safe Refuge. Asylum-seekers and refugees denied

Pew Research Center. 10 December 2018. <https://pewrsr.

ef fective protection in Turkey. Amnesty International,

ch/3cO4GEw >

London, 2016. <https://bit.ly/3lsG1tl > 29 Ombudsman: EU must continue to assess human rights impact of EU–Turkey deal. European Ombudsman. 19 January 2017. <https://bit.ly/3vFdpkY > 30 Zia Weis: Turkey says it will no longer stop refugees from entering Europe. Politico. 27 February 2020. <https://politi. co/3eOg4TC > 31 DW News: Greek police fire tear gas at migrants on the Turkish border | DW News. YouTube. 29 February 2020. <https: //youtu.be/NGqBSTZBkUo> 32 Overview. ACAPS. 33 Ibid.

34 Cathrin Hennicke: Children contemplating suicide in Greece’s Moria refugee camp. DW. 21 September 2018. <https://p.dw.com/p/35JwE > 35 Rea A. Belanteri [et al.]: Sexual violence against migrants and asylum seekers. The experience of the MSF clinic on Lesvos Island, Greece. PLoS ONE. 2020/9. <https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239187 > 36 Moria migrants: Fire destroys Greek camp leaving 13,000 without shelter. BBC. 9 September 2020. <https://bbc. in/3vw9mYe > 37 BBC News: Lesbos: Greek police move migrants to new camp after Moria fire. YouTube. 18 September 2020. <https: //youtu.be/83Es_Xp9rdo > 38 Nektaria Stamouli: Fires destroy Moria refugee camp on Lesvos. Politico. 9 September 2020. <https://politi. co/30R0dvo > HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

INFLUENCING THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: WHERE DO THE US, RUSSIAN, AND CHINESE INTERESTS COLLIDE? Simon Szilvási–Laura Szilágyi–Norbert Miklós

Events taking place in the Eastern Mediterranean do not only involve littoral states but are also of key interest for geographically distant powers.

Therefore, non-regional actors, including major powers, such as the United States, Russia, and China, turn towards this region with great ambitions. This article has a threefold aim: firstly, to shed light on the US involvement in the region; secondly, to examine Russian interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, mainly from geopolitical and military aspects; thirdly, to explore China’s growing influence in the Eastern Mediterranean through its bilateral relations with two of the most important regional countries.

Regarding the interests of the United States, this study limits its focus to two critically important countries: the State of Israel and the Republic of Turkey. The Russian Federation is primarily engaged in Syria and Libya, but it also maintains relations of specific importance with other Eastern Mediterranean states: Turkey, Egypt, and Israel. Therefore, the second part of the article aims to shed light on these ties. Finally, the third part will mainly discuss Egyptian– Chinese and Turkish–Chinese relations, since these countries have specific importance for Beijing’s foreign policy and its grandiose project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

THE US STRATEGY IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Some of the core interests of the US are to secure the freedom of navigation, to maintain free trade, and, especially, to ensure the availability of unrestricted access to naval straits.1 The Eastern Mediterranean holds two significant choke points, namely, the Suez Canal and the Dardanelles, connecting vital geographical areas 112

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and trade routes. Since 1956, Cairo has since 1956 owned the rights to operate the Suez Canal, where roughly 13% of the global trade passed through in 2019 according to Mohab Mamish, Head of the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone.2 Recently, increasing Chinese investment in the canal and the surrounding infrastructure have also captured the United States’ attention.3 Another inescapable regional actor is the Russian Federation with its longestablished historical and cultural influence on many Eastern Mediterranean countries. Ever since Moscow increased its presence in the Syrian Arab Republic and the neighbouring countries because of its participation in the civil war, the United States must have sharpened the State Department’s focus to monitor its strategic competitor’s activities. The resolution of the Syrian conflict is still a primary goal of the US, which was also reaffirmed by the new Democrat president in 2020.4 Examining all of the potential actors in the region is beyond this paper’s scope; therefore, it will only concentrate on the relations of the US with two countries: the State of Israel and the Republic of Turkey.

The US–Israeli Relations The United States of America has had historical relations with the Jewish state since the latter was founded in 1948. Protecting Israel and maintaining its qualitative military edge (i.e., its military superiority) among its neighbours became a cornerstone of US diplomatic efforts.

This special bond was renewed throughout the decades of the 20th century regardless of the political changes in Washington. Under the Trump administration, former secretary of defense Mark Esper reassured Israel that the

Vice President Joe Biden meets Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel in 2016.

US would continue to keep its military-edge promise.5 A security statement towards Israel

by President-elect Biden during his election campaign called it ironclad, which the US is legally obligated to honour as it was enacted in 2008.

Former president Donald J. Trump delivered a decades-long promise to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by moving the US Embassy to the city. Several presidents before him, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton used the possibility to postpone the execution of the act on an already passed bill, which became law in 1995, called the Jerusalem Embassy Act6, but the recognition finally happened at Trump’s behest.

Although the decision met several objections from regional states around Israel, it seemed that Israel could benefit from Trump’s erratic diplomatic moves. Despite the anticipated mayhem, the project was successful, lacking confrontation according to the former US ambassador to Israel.7 Biden’s presidency has, however, raised concerns in Jerusalem when the Democrat politician gained more electoral votes on Election Day on 3 November 2020. During his campaign, President Biden claimed that he did not have the intention to remove the embassy from Jerusalem although he intended to reopen a consulate in East Jerusalem as a sign of a two-state solution.

Having been the vice president of the Obama administration, Joe Biden could experience how complicated the relations between the US

and Israel were. Despite the tensions between Barack Obama and Netanyahu, Biden’s relationship with the Israeli prime minister was balanced, and they even addressed each other as friends who had long-standing and tried bonds.8 Nevertheless, the new president had concerns over the annexation of the West Bank, and he expressed his firm disagreement on the matter.9 From a US point of view, the contractions of Israel on that territory is against the principles of international law.10 Because of the 2021 spring Israeli elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu might have been non-submissive in the question of these settlements. It is plausible that, as an unresolved issue, this enduring disagreement between the United States and Israel will outlive the present and future administrations. Nonetheless, the former friendly relationship between the two leaders suggests that understanding could be achieved between the two states.

Besides the relocation of the embassy, Tel Aviv’s other milestone achievement was the creation of the Abraham Accords Declaration, a document of historical importance signed by the State of Israel, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and the Republic of Sudan to encourage peace and collaboration in the region. The different

The territories proposed to be annexed in the West Bank in 2019 West Bank Mediterranean Sea

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The signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020 (from left to right: Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, and Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan)

individual agreements among the participating states enhance cooperation in a broad range of issues, e.g., in economy, science, technology, and trade—not to mention investments and the energy sector. Signatory countries are all committed to having a full normalisation in their relations and cooperating alongside their mutual interests.

The new Biden administration in Washington is expected to support other regional countries in joining the Abraham Accords so that they can build trust and mutual understanding, promoting peaceful cooperation and economic entanglement, as these serve core US interests in the region.

The Iran Nuclear Deal Mediated by the US, several major countries concluded a significant deal in order to limit the civilian nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2015. However, President Trump announced that the US would withdraw from the agreement in 2018. He claimed that the agreement failed to contain restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the country’s proxy warfare activities.11 Israel and the US may shortly discuss the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, as President Biden would sign an executive order to rejoin it. Presumably, Israel has new conditions to add to the deal. Israel’s remarks on the US’s withdrawal from the deal was equally 114

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supported and opposed as Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose a grave danger upon Israel’s existence. However, the uncontrolled situation is certainly a risk for Jerusalem. According to a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Iran would only need approximately three months to produce enough enriched uranium for military purposes.12 President Biden needs to have surgical precision moves in diplomacy to assure the Jewish state of its security upon the US’s rejoining the nuclear deal with Iran. Having served many decades in foreign policy and having dealt with Iran earlier, he might have the seasoned experience to prove equal to the task.

US–Turkey Relations The Republic of Turkey holds strategic positions connecting the Eurasian landmass and owns the Dardanelles that connect the Black Sea through the Sea of Marmara with the warmwater Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Gaining access to that strategic position was a centurylong goal of Russian imperial forces, too, and later, the Soviet Union also pursued this aim.

Turkey, however, joined NATO in 1952 and remained its member even after the end of the Cold War.13 Nevertheless, relations between Washington and Ankara were not without conflict in the last four years. Turkey’s most criticised step by its NATO allies has been the acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defence missile system.14 An analysis of the events leading to Ankara’s choice shows that it was not a result of a sudden decision. From the 1990s, Turkish military decision makers realised that the systems available on the market, including those of the NATO members, could not completely meet Ankara’s security requirements. There were many occasions when the US and Israel were offered an opportunity to improve their systems to meet Turkey’s needs so that these could later be deployed to protect the Anatolian peninsula.

However, these efforts to cooperate were denied, and Turkey had to select from four major providers.

The contenders were European and US systems within the NATO framework and Chinese

and Russian systems outside it. Unexpectedly, for the US it first seemed that the final victor of the tender would be Beijing and its FD-2000 system which was considerably cheaper than the others. The United States warned Turkey against contracting with the chosen Chinese firm, as their system would not fit into NATO’s weapon systems and Chinese access to the NATO infrastructure would seriously endanger the organisation’s security. After that, Turkey decided to accept the second-best offer made

by Moscow, eliciting an even harsher reaction from Washington, which raised the same concerns over choosing an inoperable system.15 According to former vice president Mike Pence, there were several warnings from the United States repeating that, if Ankara continued to conclude the deal, it would endanger its participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme.16 Losing access to the most advanced technology in military aviation—despite the programme’s well-known issues—could be a significant disadvantage for the Turkish Air Force and the industries connected to it. Mention must also be made of US sanctions against Ankara which include a ban on US export licenses, asset freezing, and visa restrictions. The sanctions embodied Washington’s disapproval and diplomatic pressure on the Turkish leadership due to its decision on the Russian weapon system. Should Turkey proceed with the USD 2.5 billion military acquisition of Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missile system instead of the US Patriot systems, it would be a cause for concern for the United States. Russian operating personnel in Turkey’s airbases, and, therefore, on NATO territory, would have an excellent occasion for military espionage.

The new secretary of state, Antony Blinken, stressed that further sanctions are expected on Turkey, and he even referred to Ankara a “so-called” strategic partner. The new leader of the US foreign relations is not the only one having a poor opinion on Turkish actions. Brett McGurk’s appointment as the Middle East and North Africa coordinator at the National Security Council can also be detrimental to Turkey–US

relations, as he is known for his sharp criticism towards Turkey.17 Seemingly, there was a change in Turkish foreign policy towards its neighbours and the region; Ankara is cherishing regional leadership ambitions while trying to find its place in the multipolar world order. And that will place Ankara on a collision course with US interests.18 RUSSIAN INTEREST IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN As a result of the Arab Spring, bloody revolutions broke out and conflicts arose in the Middle East and Northern Africa. In Syria, a civil war started in 2011, attracting the attention of the international community. For Russia, there was no question that it would play a role in the conflict. It had supported the Assad regime diplomatically, militarily, and financially since 2011, but it did not directly intervene with its forces before September 2015. Russia finally carried out its first air strikes against terrorist groups in Syria on 30 September 2015, after obtaining authorisation from the Russian Federal Council,19 in order to prevent the collapse of the Syrian state—as the Russian foreign minister stated.20 There are several reasons behind Russia’s intervention in Syria and the country’s relevance to Moscow. First of all, there is a geopolitical and geostrategic reason the most important element of which is the Russian naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartus. Tartus is strategically and symbolically important to Moscow and forms a gateway between regional and international power projection. Warm-water ports have always been essential for the geographically locked

A meeting between Putin and Assad in 2015 INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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Russia to promote its geopolitical, military, and economic interests. Russia, however, does not aim at establishing maritime control over the Mediterranean Sea—it rather intends to have a naval presence and to establish a foothold in the region.21 Syria also forms a bridge between Moscow and its other allies, for example, Iran, Iraq, and Egypt. Therefore, influence over Syria helps promote Russian geopolitical interests and create a Russian geopolitical stronghold in the region.22 Secondly, the vacuum caused by Syria’s destroyed statehood was started to be filled by terrorist groups. The fight against terrorism is a vital interest of many countries—including Russia— which decided to annihilate extremist Islamic cells.23 This step also helped Moscow improve its global image and present itself as a saviour who fights against terrorism and assists in stabilising and rebuilding the country. The significance of its role as a saviour in Russian terminology is clearly outlined in Vladimir Putin’s historic speech at

the UN General Assembly in 2015, in which he blamed the Western powers for the “exportation of revolutions” to the Middle East and Northern Africa and called on the international community to develop a comprehensive strategy for political stabilisation as well as social and economic recovery.24 He added that Russia would desire to have a leading role in this process by fixing everything that had been destroyed by the West.

By reaching a political settlement in Syria, Russia would have the opportunity to assert its status as a global power, to fill a power vacuum, and to become not only a saviour but an indispensable actor, too.25 Thirdly, the coup against Assad backed by the US-led rebel coalition was seen as a threat in Moscow. The Kremlin believed that the Syrian events would serve as an example and further legitimise the practice of regime changes also known as “colour revolutions.” Russia considers this type of Western intervention and Westernbacked regime changes as a significant threat to

The Tartus port, the last Russian military base outside former Soviet territory, has a clear geopolitical importance to Moscow UKRAINE ROMANIA

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Tartus

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its national interests. The Kremlin is convinced that the West, especially the United States, tends to use similar tactics to undermine the Russian government and/or the governments of Russia-allied countries.26 The Kremlin’s position on settling the Syrian civil war has been unchanged for years—it expects to solve the crisis by political means.27 Moreover, Russia needs a friendly government in Damascus and does not want Assad to leave, as currently there is no alternative for the Syrian leader who could be suitable for the Russian interests. However, Moscow will not be able to stop an eventual Syrian national effort that aims to replace Assad.28 Syria offers economic advantages and concessions to Russian economic actors in rebuilding, and, for instance, in the oil and gas industry.29 Moreover, it was a perfect training field for the Russian army, which could test its weaponry in conflict and gain experience in conducting modern warfare.

Libya’s case is very similar to that of Syria.

Historically, the country has been a partner of the Soviet Union and, then, Russia. In 2008, Moscow wrote off most of Libya’s USD 5 billion debt in exchange for contracts on oil, gas, weaponry, and railways, and access to the Port of Benghazi.

In 2011, Qadhafi’s overthrow and the NATO-led campaign cost Russia its contracts and access to Libya,30 and Moscow now seeks to retrieve it all. Just as in Syria, Russia is interested in a political settlement of the Libyan conflict. It does not seek either the collapse or the total victory of any warring parties (i.e., the Libyan National Army or the Government of National Accord).

For Moscow, the perfect scenario would be to make the Libyan National Army strong enough with Russian help by which it would be taken so seriously by the Government of National Accord that it could begin diplomatic negotiations with the latter.31 Another thing that Russia’s Syrian and Libyan interests have in common is that Moscow wants to play the role of a saviour in Libya, too, and to “fix” the unstable situation which arose after the NATO- and US-led interventions. As stated above, in its own eyes, “Moscow fixes what

the US destroys.”32 Furthermore, the peaceful diplomatic settlement of the conflict with Russian help would reaffirm Moscow’s role in global affairs and within the international community.

Russia wants to have a seat at the table when great powers adopt a resolution to any major global issues and also aspires to ensure that its interests be considered.33 Its geopolitical objectives are the same as in Syria: using the Port of Benghazi helps Russia enhance its presence in the Mediterranean.

However, unlike in Syria, Russia has avoided direct military presence in Libya and deployed mercenaries instead. The Wagner Group has actively been engaged in Libyan operations since 2018. However, Vladimir Putin stressed that the Wagner Group did not represent Russian interests, since it was a private military company which could be hired by anyone.34 Besides Syria and Libya, Russia also has ties with several countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. It signed billions of dollars’ worth of weapon-sale contracts with Turkey and Egypt.

Turkey bought S-400 missile systems from Moscow.35 Egypt, among others, has signed deals for Su-35 fighters, Ka-52 helicopters, and Mig-29 and Mig-35 fighters.36, 37, 38, 39 This equipment gives superiority to the Egyptian army in the regional airspace.

Russia has good relations with Israel, as well.

About 15% of Israel’s population are Russianspeaking Israelis, and the country is home to the world’s largest Russian Jew population.

Most of them emigrated there from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.40 “We consider Israel a Russian-speaking country,” said Putin.

Netanyahu and Putin meet on a regular basis and the Russian president strives to build constructive, mutually beneficial relations with the Jewish state.41 To sum up, Russia’s threefold interest in the region translates to geopolitical supremacy, as it strengthens the country’s diplomatic, economic, and military relations with the Mediterranean states, helps exercise control over natural resources and secure extraction concessions and reaffirms Moscow’s great power status by presenting it as a saviour.42 INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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CHINESE AMBITIONS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Egypt: the Suez Canal and the African Continent Bilateral relations between the People’s Republic of China and Egypt started in 1956: this was the first diplomatic relation that China established with an Arab nation situated in Africa.43 This certainly gave great momentum for the further development of relations, which led to the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two nations as they drew even closer during the presidency of Hosni Mubarak, who was called as an “old friend of China” in 2009. 44 Then came the Arab Spring and, with

it, some disturbances, but the Sino–Egyptian relations survived.

When Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi became the president of Egypt, he also inherited serious economic and social problems. In an attempt to rescue his country’s economy, he visited Xi Jinping in 2014 to enhance bilateral ties with China and managed to sign a document on “comprehensive strategic partnership” during the visit.45 In recent years, after the partnership had taken effect and Egypt had become a focal point of the BRI and investments arriving within the framework of the project, it seemed that Sisi had made the right choice when he started to deepen its relations with China, since the cooperation between the two nations expanded gradually.

The location of the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone Mediterranean Sea ISRAEL

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Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China has become a critical partner for the African nation in achieving economic revitalisation. The mutual self-interest that bonded these two nations together has been stimulated by the partnership, and, before COVID-19 arrived, Egypt had become one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, mostly as a result of the Chinese capital inflow.46 Besides the so-called “Egypt’s Vision 2030” was announced in 2016 as the new national development strategy, which elevated the SinoEgyptian partnership to a whole new level, since the two sides started to plan their cooperation with each other’s strategic needs in mind.47 Today, infrastructure construction and the enhancement of manufacturing production capacity have become the most fundamental aspects of the Sino-Egyptian economic cooperation,48 raising Egypt’s GDP growth to a stable 5.6% in 2019.49 Chinese presence in Egypt is concentrated in industrial zones, free trade zones, and financial centres. Since the Suez Canal is the most important part of Egypt for China because it gives access to Europe, the main project of the BRI in the country is the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone (SETC), where most of the Chinese investment flows to.50 Therefore, Chinese capital and firms arrive in the African country to establish production bases for African and European markets. There is also a subtle risk of the Suez Canal’s basket of currencies being filled with Chinese yuan. This action is supposed to create a more balanced international currency market in the region, which so far has not seemed problematic but can turn into an issue in a matter of years if the Chinese currency floods the Suez Canal’s area. Because of this, Egypt’s thirst for hard currency could cloud its vision for the future.

The 13.5 square kilometres that the Chinese industrial city received in 2015 south of the canal is another important aspect of Egypt’s core position in the BRI. The infrastructure, the logistic and the industrial entities that arrived brought USD 1 billion Chinese investment with them and a new factory deal worth USD 800 million in 2019.51 While the pandemic has slowed down Chinese investments, it did not halt the evolution of bilateral relations between the two countries,

since Egypt has truly become a more promising business environment for Chinese companies.

The economic stability created a more stable political environment, which can only partly be attributed to improving relations with China. Since Egypt’s trade and investment partnerships are still quite diverse,52 the quickly growing Chinese presence does not mean an overpowering economic dependence yet. However, if Chinese capital and investments manage to gain a firmer foothold, it can force other foreign actors out of Egypt in the long run—even if it leads to growing competition and surging investment rates in the short run. Nevertheless, Cairo must tread carefully, since these high-risk manœuvres can turn into disasters if not managed correctly.

All in all, Egypt has managed to boost its prospects by joining the BRI.53 For the African country, the initiative provided various opportunities ranging from decreasing its trade deficit and increasing its foreign exchange reserves to developing the infrastructure and the Suez Canal Economic Zone. The comprehensive strategic partnership gave the cooperation a new boost, as major projects started to be implemented gradually. The high-level exchanges provided a platform for both sides to support each other’s core interests, ultimately turning Egypt into a “pillar country along the BRI route.”54 Growing numbers in bilateral trade also became a factor to consider while taking a closer look at the cooperation. For these reasons, it may come as no surprise that the most important part of the Egypt–China cooperation is the Chinese industrial zone in the Gulf of the Suez region, where Chinese investments have started to create a brand new administrative capital for Chinese firms and investments.55 As Egypt becomes an increasingly important focal point for the BRI, the news of Chinese capital influx in the coming years is certainly a delightful outcome of the cooperation for the African nation. The megaprojects are supposed to boost Chinese investments all around Egypt; therefore, the promotion of industrial investment from China might not come as a surprise, either.56 The best summary of both sides’ reasons for the enhanced level of cooperation can be found INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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in an interview with Mahfouz Marzouk, the vice chairman of the SCzone, who said: “There is a pan-African road that is being constructed extending from northern Egypt to Cape town. We finalized our part until Ethiopia. . . . The rest will be finished through the help of Chinese companies, Chinese know-how, and investments.” He also mentioned that Egypt would be “a focal point because of its location, industrial cities, 100 million population, purchasing power of $370 billion, well trained labour, free trade agreements covering 1.3 billion people, and because of the cost of production, which is 30 percent cheaper.”57 The other side of the coin is, however, that, with Egypt’s increasing reliance on Chinese capital to finance its projects, to improve its capacities, and to fund its development, a dangerous gamble may occur in the future for President Sisi’s nation.

Based on all developments made by China and the financing of such infrastructural projects, it is possible that Egypt is just the beginning of China’s Africa strategy.58 Turkey: the Pathway to Europe Relations between Turkey and China are often described as a “strategic partnership” which deepens slowly but surely. The main areas of cooperation are on economic and security fronts, while there is also a shared interest in achieving Asian dominance in the region.59 When observing the basis for relations between Turkey and China, it becomes evident that the interests of these nations align in many areas.

The most important links between them include the BRI which offers a solution for Turkey’s investment and financial problems, their shared mistrust for the West, and the opportunity for realising strong economic cooperation that stretches across the Asian continent.60 One example of the tendency for leaning towards each other and against the Western pressure in the past could be the proposed air defence– missile deal between China and Turkey.61 While it was not realised in the end,62 the intention of closer cooperation was made evident. However, the partnership did not reach its full potential in the last couple of years, mainly because of the long-standing disagreement between the two 120

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parties on the Uyghur question.63 This was at least so until the end of 2020, when an extradition treaty that could mean a breakthrough in the problem was announced.64 This might solve the last years’ political differences and elevate the cooperation to a higher level. Of course, Turkey needs to ratify the treaty first, and its government might face vehement opposition domestically if it does so. The possible ratification of the extradition law and, earlier, Ankara’s decision to recognise the East Turkistan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organisation show an increasing Chinese influence that is capable of brokering a deal about Uyghur rights with Turkey.

Turkey is a regional power in the Middle East but partly also belongs to Europe. These feats by themselves make the country an interesting nation to observe, but, with the announcement of China’s BRI, Turkey has become an even more important player in the region. The win-win nature of the initiative, constantly being stressed by China, might be even more relevant between these two nations with the potential in their relations. Xi Jinping’s more proactive foreign policy, based on China’s major economic successes and the country’s growing influence around the world, plus the Western world’s newfound opposition to traditional cooperation with China, is a possible complement of the slightly biased foreign policy conducted by Erdoğan in opposition to its traditional Western allies. Thus, the aligned interests make both sides appreciate each other, especially when talking about economic cooperation.

The economic aspect of the Sino-Turkish relations had become the most important factor of their cooperation during the past decade, as China became one of Turkey’s largest trading partners.65 Although Turkey may not seem the most important priority for Chinese foreign policy, its location, market, and connections definitely make it a major player for the Chinese foreign policy. This statement has only become truer since the BRI was launched because the Silk Road Economic Belt is supposed to connect China to Europe through, among other cities, Ankara and Istanbul.

The growth of bilateral trade prompted Turkey to align its Middle Corridor initiative with China’s

The Chinese One Belt and Road initiative and the Turkish Middle Corridor

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BRI for attracting more Chinese capital. In 2016, a memorandum was also signed, the goal of which was to harmonise the two projects and to enhance further cooperation on key projects, which could ultimately make Turkey a key hub of BRI operations in the future.66 These ambitions are based on the possibility of close cooperation, since China’s infrastructural investment projects in the BRI framework can certainly be aligned with each other. With Xi ensuring to help develop Turkey’s relevant railway construction projects, other possible areas of cooperation have emerged, too, namely in the energy, aerospace, and finance sectors.67 One example of the ambitious plans stands out: energy cooperation, where China is supposed to help Turkey develop its new nuclear power plant. The support aims at assisting Ankara to have more clean energy sources,68 also leading to a stronger Sino-Turkish partnership.

However, the growing volume of bilateral trade and closer economic cooperation made Turkey’s trade deficit with China widen, and, therefore, Turkish academics claim that the “win-win” cooperation has not materialised and that Turkey should adopt stronger measures for decreasing Chinese imports.69 It is true that Chinese FDI has increased in Turkey since the BRI was launched, but only modestly. The investment from China focussed mostly on the financial, logistics, energy, and telecommunications sectors, increasing slowly but gradually in the past years but still being overshadowed by investments from the West, mostly the EU member states.70 The slow rise of investment can be explained by many factors, among which the uncertainties of the Turkish political situation, especially after the July 2015 coup attempt, could be the most important.

Additionally, there have also been political and geopolitical risks and friction between China and Turkey over the above-mentioned Uyghur question.

As Turkey announced its readiness to expand cooperation within the BRI framework in mid2020,71 more Chinese investment is expected to arrive in Turkey for the coming years. While, in the past, there was a question of compatibility between Turkey’s Middle Corridor and China’s 122

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Belt and Road Initiative, the two grandiose projects have both set transcontinental integration as their goal.72 Turkey’s main objective with its new region-wide railroad network–based economic corridor is to create a belt of prosperity in its neighbourhood and to connect Europe to Asia while expanding its markets and contributing to the development of regional cooperation in Eurasia.73 Even though Ankara needs Chinese investments in Turkish transportation for developing its infrastructure, the country does not seem to offer lucrative tenders to Beijing yet. Turkey’s historical partnerships, its NATO membership, and its deep economic integration with the EU made China hesitant to inform Turkey more deeply about the planned outcome of the Chinese strategies. On the one hand, it is understandable from the Turkish perspective that, without concretely laid out plans, their devotion will not be total. On the other hand, however, the Chinese must maintain their strategic secrecy to keep them ahead of the game. So far, Beijing has seemed to follow a wait-and-see policy to avoid political uncertainties, but this strategy will, in the future, reduce engagement and influence in Turkey.74 All in all, Sino-Turkish relations are certainly improving. The “reorientation” of the Turkish foreign policy, aiming to achieve the diversification of its international relations and to decrease its dependence on Western countries, met China’s interests in many aspects. The BRI, as one of the foundations of modern Chinese foreign policy, presents an enhanced strategic partnership for both parties. Nevertheless, Chinese and Turkish economic and geopolitical interests still differ, and, therefore, it is hard for the two countries to build up real trust, which could call the whole cooperation into question in the future.75

ENDNOTES 1 Till Geoffrey: The Freedom of the Seas: Why it matters. GOV. UK. 30 November 2011. <https://bit.ly/3sFlSTE > 2 SCZone head: 13% of world trade passes through Suez Canal. Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide. 24 June 2019. <https://bit.ly/2PajA0c>

3 Suez Canal: China’s Trade Flows Via The Suez. HSBC.

России. Президента России. 30 September 2015. <https://bit.

<https://bit.ly/3u9wHh8 > Accessed: 26 January 2021.

ly/3sEDuiq >

4 Jon B. Alterman [et al.]: Restoring the Eastern Mediterranean

20 Russia carries out first air strikes in Syria. Al Jazeera. 30

as a U.S. Strategic Anchor. Center for Strategic & International

September 2015. <https://bit.ly/39pzCu3 >

Studies–Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham–Boulder–New York–

21 Tanvi Chauhan: Why Are Warm-Water Ports Important to

London, 2018.

Russian Security? The Cases of Sevastopol and Tartus

5 Judah Ari Gross: Gantz touts ‘major leap’ for Israeli Security

Compared. JEMEAA, The Air Force Journal of European, Middle

as US re-ups military edge promise. The Times of Israel. 22

Eastern & African Affairs. 2020/1. 66–67.

October 2020. <https://bit.ly/31uwYP5 >

22 Дмитрий Тренин: Россия на Ближнем Востоке: задачи,

6 Philip Bump: In 1995, Congress reached a compromise on the issue of Jerusalem. Trump is poised to end it. The Washington Post. 6 December 2017. <https://wapo.st/32AC7Wp >

приоритеты, политические стимулы. Московский Центр Карнеги. 5 April 2016. <https://bit.ly/3rHCEzT >

23 Заседание Международного дискуссионного клуба

7 David M. Friedman: A year after opening the Jerusalem

«Валдай». Президента России. 27 October 2016. <https://bit.

embassy: On the right side of history. Israel Hayom. 12 May

ly/3cH9dtT >

2019. <https://bit.ly/39q4D0I >

24 70-я сессия Генеральной Ассамблеи ООН. Президента

8 President-Elect Biden on Foreign Policy. Council on Foreign

России. 28 September 2015. <https://bit.ly/3m5mZcJ >

Relations. 7 November 2020. <https://on.cfr.org/3czDElu > See

25 Dmitriy Frolovskiy: What Putin Really Wants in Syria. Foreign

also Jennifer Epstein: Biden Says He Wouldn’t Move U.S.

Policy. 1 February 2019. <https://bit.ly/2PkJYEF >

Embassy from Jerusalem. Bloomberg. 29 April 2020. <https://

26 Samuel Charap–Elina Treyger–Edward Geist: Understanding

bloom.bg/3ry3L0l >

Russia’s Intervention in Syria. RAND Corporation Research

9 Ibid.

Report, RR-3180-AF. 2019. 5–6. <https://bit.ly/2Pnkh6f >

10 As Biden takes office, Israel should refrain from aggravating

27 Пленарное заседание Петербургского между­народного

tension. The Jerusalem Post. 21 January 2021. <https://bit.

экономического форума. Президента России. 2 June 2017.

ly/39stzF1 >

<https://bit.ly/3m8ZD68 >

11 Kali Robinson: What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal? Council on

28 Dimitrii Brigea: What are Russia’s interests in Syria leading

Foreign Relations. Last updated: 25 February 2021. <https://

to? Middle East Monitor. 20 July 2020. <https://bit.ly/3udXF7h >

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29 Arany Anett: A lezárás felé? A szíriai polgárháború

12 Robin Wright: Biden Faces a Minefield in New Diplomacy with

megoldásának lehetséges körvonali (8.) – A rezsim túlélésének

Iran. The New Yorker. 4 January 2021. <https://bit.ly/3fm1B1w >

kihívásai. KKI-elemzések, E-2020/66. 9. <https://bit.

13 Ahmet Davutoğlu: Stratégiai Mélység. Törökország Nem­

ly/3u6DJ64 >

zetközi Helyzete. Antall József Tudásközpont, Budapest, 2016.

30 Anna Borshchevskaya: Russia’s Growing Interests in Libya.

14 Peter A. Wilson–John V. Parachini: Russian S-400 Surface-

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 24 January 2020.

to-Air Missile System: Is It Worth the Sticker Price? RAND.

<https://bit.ly/3rARU1K >

6 2020 May <https://bit.ly/3sziYPf >

31 Saurabh Kumar Shahi: Understanding the Russian roulette

15 Mustafa Kibaroğlu: On Turkey’s Missile Defense Strategy: The

in Libya. National Herald. 25 June 2020. <https://bit.

Four Faces of the S-400 Deal Between Turkey and Russia. SAM

ly/3sDyTg9 >

Papers, No. 16. April 2019. 8. <https://bit.ly/3wawLyT >

32 Molnár Anna [et al.]: A nemzetközi jelenlét Líbiában 2011-től

16 Vice President Pence Speaks at NATO Engages. C-SPAN. 3

napjainkig. NKE Stratégiai Védelmi Kutatkóközpont Elemzések,

April 2019. <https://bit.ly/3rCA3r2 >

2019/11. 11 July 2019. 7–8. <https://bit.ly/3cA9OgO >

17 US’ incoming top diplomat Blinken targets Turkey with

33 Samuel Ramani: Russia’s Strategy in Libya. Royal United

sanctions. Daily Sabah. 20 January 2021. <https://bit.

Services Institute. 7 April 2020. <https://bityl.co/6CyA >

ly/3rElmng >

34 Robyn Dixon: Russia’s ally in Libya is battered by defeats.

18 Didem Buhari Gulmez: The resilience of the US–Turkey

But Moscow has wider goals to expand its influence. The

alliance: divergent threat perceptions and worldviews.

Washington Post. 6 June 2020. <https://bityl.co/6CyE >

Contemporary Politics. 2020/4. 475–492. <https://doi.

35 Amanda Macias: Turkey’s multibillion-dollar arms deal with

org/10.1080/13569775.2020.1777038 >

Russia casts a shadow over NATO summit. CNBC. 2 December

19 В Совет Федерации внесено предложение об исполь­

2019. <https://bityl.co/6CyG >

зовании Вооружённых Сил за пределами территории

36 Антон Валагин: Россия начала сборку истребителей СуINTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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35 для Египта. Российской газеты. 17 May 2020. <https://

Chinese Studies, Discussion Paper, 2/2013. August 2013. 36

bityl.co/6CyO >

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37 Валагин.

59 Eszterhai Viktor–Simigh Fruzsina: Kína és Törökország –

38 Олег Корякин: Вертолеты Ка-52 и Apache встретились

Stratégiai partnerség és geopolitikai realitások. In: Újhold.

“лицом к лицу” в Египте. Российской газеты. 5 January 2020.

A török külpolitika útkeresése a 21. század elején, edited by

<https://bityl.co/6CyU >

Baranyi Tamás Péter–Szálkai Kinga. Antall József Tudásközpont,

39 Egypt signs $2bn deal for 50 fighter jets from Russia. Middle

Budapest, 2016. 238–249.

East Monitor. 17 August 2019. <https://bityl.co/6CzW >

60 Tolga Bilener: Relations Turquie-Chine Ambitions et limites de

40 Izabella Tabarovsky: Russian-Speaking Israelis Go to the

la coopération économique. Notes de l’Ifri, Asie.Visions, 116.

Polls. Wilson Center. 4 April 2019. <https://bityl.co/6Czc >

October 2020. <https://bityl.co/6D4P >

41 Конгресс фонда «Керен ха-Йесод». Президента России.

61 Mustafa Kibaroglu–Selim C. Sazak: Why Turkey Chose, and

17 September 2020. <https://bityl.co/6Czf >

Then Rejected, a Chinese Air-Defense Missile. Defense One. 3

42 Bassam Barabandi: Understanding the Russian Position in

February 2016. <https://bityl.co/6D4b >

Syria. Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy. 23 July 2020.

62 Turkey scraps Chinese air defense system. DW. 18

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November 2015. <https://p.dw.com/p/1H7cU >

43 Krajcsír Lukács: Sárkány a piramisoknál. In: Traumák és

63 Fatih Furtun: Turkish–Chinese Relations in the Shadow of the

tanulságok, edited by Salát Gergely–Szilágyi Zsolt. Budapest,

Uyghur Problem. İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi, Global Political

Typotex Kiadó, 2016. 182–208.

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44 Krajcsír.

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45 Juan Chen: Strategic Synergy between Egypt “Vision 2030”

64 Helen Davidson–Bethan McKernan: Pressure on Turkey to

and China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative. Outlines of global

protect Uighurs as China ratifies extradition treaty. The Guardian.

transformations: politics, economics, law. 2018/5. 219–235.

29 December 2020. <https://bityl.co/6D4m >

46 Hisham AbuBakr Metwally: Egypt boosts its prospects by

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joining Belt and Road. China Daily. 19 December 2019. <https://

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The Multiple Roles of Egypt in China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative.

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67 Guo–Fidan.

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51 Noha El Tawil: Why Egypt is significant to Belt and Road

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Initiative. Egypt Today. 27 April 2019. <https://bit.ly/39PeeyF >

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52 Haisam Hassanein: Egypt Takes Another Step Toward China.

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Economic Zone in Suez. Stellenbosch University, Centre for 124

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FRENCH INTERESTS IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN Fanni Korpics

INTRODUCTION France has long been interested in the Mediterranean, and it is one of the most powerful regional actors in the Mediterranean Basin today. Thanks to its mandates established after World War I, it managed to expand its zone of influence into territories today known as Syria and Lebanon. The country’s foreign policy is based on the principles of the so-called “grandeur” and “gloire,” two concepts that were vividly represented during the first half of French president Emmanuel Macron’s tenure, as he is quite ambitious when it comes to diplomacy.

When examining France’s interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, the first country worth looking at is Lebanon, as, having been a former French mandate along with Syria, it keeps maintaining close ties with Paris.

France, however, is also working on deepening its relations with the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly Libya. On the other hand, France’s dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean is challenged by several other actors, such as Italy, Turkey, or Russia—today, the country’s role seems to decline in the Middle East with the latter two emerging as new regional powers. Overall, Macron’s France has two main goals to achieve in the region. First, to strengthen its geopolitical positions, and, second, to involve regional actors in the fight against terrorism. The latter objective prompted France to support the eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar in the Second Libyan Civil War instead of the internationally recognised Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj as Paris believes general Haftar can contribute to the fight against terrorism in the civil war-torn country.1 France’s main adversary in its fight for geopolitical leadership and natural resources in

the Eastern Mediterranean is the Erdoğan-led Turkey. In reality, there are several issues over which these two countries quarrel. They both want to be the leading power of the Eastern Mediterranean region besides winning the right to exploit oil and gas reserves discovered there.

Further tensions unfolded between the two countries when Turkey attacked the Kurds that had fought alongside France in the fight against the Islamic State in the Middle East or when Turkey started a military intervention in Libya despite France’s intentions of leading the international coalition there. Albeit not in the region proper, Macron and Erdoğan also disagreed on whom to support in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; while Macron picked the Armenians, Turkey militarily supported the Azerbaijani forces. Furthermore, President Erdoğan openly criticised President Macron for taking a stance against radical Islamist separatism and championing freedom of speech, and, as a consequence, he also called for a boycott against French products, which several other Muslim states joined.2 Last summer, prior to the boycott, new tensions over the dispute between Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey about the exploitation rights of the maritime resources discovered in the Aegean also built up between France and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean. France immediately took the side of Greece and Cyprus, trying to convince its fellow EU member states to do the same.

President Macron clearly saw the opportunity to take the lead within the EU, as Germany is reluctant to damage EU–Turkey relations for fear of another migration crisis or the further destabilisation of the entire Middle East.

The current Eastern Mediterranean situation offers Paris a chance to show that it is a real stakeholder in the region and has an essential role in the security of the Mediterranean in INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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it does not have the appropriate constitutional means for solving it at home. Besides, it also has the means to intervene, as it is the bestequipped country for military operations within the European Union.

Macron visiting Beirut after the explosion in summer 2020

general. Therefore, President Macron took a slightly more aggressive approach, reinforcing the French naval and aerial military assets based in the Eastern Mediterranean and describing his actions as a “red line policy.”

The military escalation was, however, merely symbolic; it only served to show that the country still has an interest in what happens in the Eastern Mediterranean. 3 Indicatively, it was France to chair the 7 th MED7 summit this year, an informal international forum for the leaders of the EU’s seven southern member states. At the summit, France had dual ambitions: the French president aimed to promote European independence in the Mediterranean while he also argued for resuming German mediation between Turkey and Greece. As for the wider Mediterranean region, France’s main objective is to avoid the eruption of another Libyan conflict and to install more effective migration management within the EU in cooperation with its partners on the African continent and in the Middle East. This is important not only because France is one of the main destinations for migrants arriving in Europe, but also because it has been the main target for terrorist attacks carried out on European soil during the last decade.4 France often engages in preventing its former colonies or mandates from falling into chaos partly because it has a significant population of Arab and African descent many of whom have joined terrorist groups and international terrorist networks—a problem that Paris prefers to solve beyond its borders, as 126

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A TRADITIONAL ACTOR IN THE REGION In order to establish a closer and more institutionalised relationship with its Mediterranean neighbours, the EU launched the Barcelona Process in 1995. Then French president Jacques Chirac claimed that the Mediterranean must remain a strategic priority for Europe, as it was a strategic priority for France.

The Fifth Republic has always wanted to remain a key actor within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), as France has always considered the EU to be a tool for successfully projecting French interests. Following that, the new president, Nicholas Sarkozy proposed a plan called Union for the Mediterranean, by which he wanted to unite Mediterranean countries under French leadership. The first reason why Sarkozy suggested the formation of this union was to advance the Gaullist notions of international rank and grandeur, while the second reason was to enhance French national security unilaterally.

The way President Macron now emerged as Turkey’s main nemesis from EU heads of states or governments could remind us of President Sarkozy’s—one of the fiercest opponents of the Turkish accession to the European Union—conduct. It is important to note that, in numerous questions, France’s own geopolitical and strategic interests do not collide entirely with those of the whole of the European Union. There are member states, however, that fear France’s increasing influence over the EU’s common strategic decisions. Although President Macron is showing willingness to become the leading figure of a common European foreign policy, we should also notice the renationalisation of foreign policies in many EU countries hidden behind the active promotion of the EU’s common interests.5 After Sarkozy, François Hollande took a completely different approach to the Mediterranean region from that of his

predecessor. In his foreign policy vision, European issues were pre-eminent, while he seemed to ignore issues beyond the EU except for Operation Barkhane, a military intervention launched in the Sahel belt receiving logistical and diplomatic support from the United States.

Despite President Holland’s different approach, the Mediterranean region gradually became the focal point of French foreign policy during the last few decades, even if different presidents incorporated this shift in various measures.

The Mediterranean as a whole has been a key to advance French interests, to preserve France’s domestic stability, and to maintain the country’s international influence.6 The 2011 Arab Spring, however, has completely redefined the political, societal, and economic landscape on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. New extra-regional actors entered the region’s political, economic, and military scene, and, therefore, France finds it important to assume protagonism in this new environment. At first, Paris might have been optimistic about the Arab Spring, but it soon had to realise all the downsides of a destabilised Arab world. As a result, France has become a main target for terrorism and emerged as a leading power in the war against it throughout the world. Even more so in the light of the 2015 migration crisis, which was deepened by the fact that Libya had given up border control, which resulted in an immense flow of people towards the frontline member states, and, then, in many cases towards France as a result of secondary movement. France considers the Mediterranean cooperation to be a key factor in tackling migration—that is why the Holland presidency improved relations with Ankara. France has also built up many economic interests across the Mediterranean, most importantly in its former colonies and mandates. Despite all that, French diplomacy was devastated by the failure of not being able to substantially influence the course of events in Syria.7 France has always had a premier role within the EU in forming strong relations with the MENA region. It was also competing with Italy, the other main European stakeholder in the

Mediterranean, in the Libyan conflict instead of cooperating with it to resolve international issues affecting both of them, such as migration and terrorism. Obviously, Libya is highly important for both countries, as their economic objective is to support the activities of their respective giant oil companies, ENI and Total. This geopolitical– economic competition might result in a longterm conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well, since the two oil giants are both aiming at gas and oil exploitation rights in disputed maritime territories. On the other hand, France is still one of the most active international actors in the Libyan conflict promoting stability. The Libyan Civil War was the first conflict where French diplomacy applied the “security first” strategy, an approach it is currently using in the Eastern Mediterranean. This relatively new attitude can be justified by the prospects of financial and economic gains besides longpending hegemonic ambitions, although, to realise all that, France will need the support of its fellow EU member countries. France’s new attitude might start, however, a geopolitical race for supremacy over Mare Nostrum.8 Besides Libya, there is also another theatre of conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean, notably Syria. France has taken significant interests in crisis settlement there after French diplomacy supported the Assad regime for forty years to ensure its influence in the Middle East, partaking in the attempts to solve situations such as the Lebanese Civil War or the Arab–Israeli

Members of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) established by President Sarkozy in 2008

EU member states Other members Suspended members Observers

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conflicts. In this regard, French diplomacy has to compete with Turkey’s increasing activism in the Middle East and the growing presence of Russia. The question is, therefore, still open: will France remain relevant in the Middle East in the end? The answer to this question starts in the Eastern Mediterranean.

RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS IN THE REGION There is a new geopolitical front forming on the doorstep of Europe, in the Eastern Mediterranean, meaning that whatever happens there is not a peripheral issue for the European Union any more. There is an anti-Turkey front emerging in the region, led mostly by EU member states, namely, Cyprus, Greece, and France, cooperating with actors from afield, for instance, the United Arab Emirates, as a result of Turkey’s growing activism in search for gas in the foregoing disputed maritime areas between Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. Cooperation has recently also increased between Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt, as well as key energy companies from Italy and France. This group was

completed by Jordan and Palestine, resulting in the formulation of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum in 2019, which lacked Turkey despite, or because of, its claims over maritime territory. As a result, Cyprus, France, Greece, Egypt, and the UAE published a joint declaration in May 2020 that urged Turkey to respect the maritime boundaries and condemned the country’s military interference in Libya.9 French interests in the Eastern Mediterranean could grow in this new geopolitical situation where Washington is absent and Berlin is indifferent. In this environment Macron can prepare to replace the US as a security provider for the Middle East and the Mediterranean.10 Accordingly, France was the first foreign country to provide support in the rescue operation in Lebanon in the aftermath of the explosion that destroyed the port of Beirut last August, and French president Emmanuel Macron was the first foreign leader to visit the country after the tragedy, triggering political change by prompting the Lebanese political elite to collect the pieces of the fragmented political responsibility. Moreover, France also called upon the international community to offer

Macron visiting Beirut after the explosion in summer 2020 (from left to right: Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, and Emmanuel Macron, president of France) 128

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French military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean (2018)

OPERATION CHAMMAL IRAQ AND SYRIA WITH TROOPS BASED IN JORDAN AND DEPLOYED

EUNAVFOR MED OPERATION SOPHIA

IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SEA

CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN SEA

UNIFIL LEBANON

SPECIAL FORCES LIBYA

PERMANENT MILITARY BASES UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Major French military presence in the MENA region since 1975 SINCE 1978 Lebanon, through the UN (UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL)

1990–1991 Kuwait and Iraq, through a US-led coalition (Operation Desert Storm) SINCE 2009 United Arab Emirates, through two permanent military bases (navy and air force) SINCE 2014 Iraq, through the US-led coalition against IS SINCE 2015 Syria, through the US-led coalition against IS

1982–1984 Lebanon, through the ad hoc Multinational Force (MNF)

1991–1998 Iraq, through an ad hoc US–FR–UK coalition Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch)

2011 Libya, through NATO (Operation Unified Protector) SINCE 2015 Libya, through special forces

SINCE 2015 Mediterranean Sea, through the EU (EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia) INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

129 127

help at a United Nations aid conference and provided a remarkable amount of financial and material assistance.

In the debate evolving between Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey about the oil and gas exploitation rights, France prominently took the side of the first two countries. The Turkish research ship Oruç Reis that caused tensions between EU countries and Turkey was only one factor setting Macron against Erdoğan.

Emmanuel Macron did not hesitate to deploy French military vessels near Cyprus to protect France’s interests and to make sure Total can profit from the exploitation rights that Cyprus and Greece would be happy to provide France with in exchange for its protection against the Turkish aggressor. President Macron sees this international tension as an opportunity rather than an inconvenience, as his country can, at last, have a chance to assume a leading role within the European Union. It is questionable, however, why France decided to take its course rather than align its position with its greatest ally, Germany. One of the explanations is that France aims to make use of Brexit to take the lead in the European project.11 Besides, Europe could witness the most severe Turkish–Greek escalation in years. The core of the conflict is, indeed, the fact that Eastern Mediterranean maritime boundaries are disputed between two NATO allies, prompting other NATO members to choose between the two opposing sides.

France’s choice was rather simple for the above reasons: for the ex-colonial empire, the Mediterranean is a bridge to Africa and its former colonies, and Turkey gaining influence there would disrupt existing maritime routes.

This situation is also a perfect opportunity for Macron to showcase that France is a key regional player. Germany’s indecisiveness can further contribute to assuming this role, as Greece runs for help to Paris rather than hiding behind its main financial protector.

When the president of the French Republic was invited to give an opening speech on the 2020 Middle East Mediterranean Summer Summit in Lugano, President Macron emphasised France’s connection to the 130

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Mediterranean and implied that his country was willing to assume its leading role in the area justified by its geographic position and its economic size. Aspiring to this task, President Macron has never hidden his feelings about NATO: he considers it to be a weakening organisation because its main patron, the United States, has decided to withdraw from its commitments in the Mediterranean. Therefore, France has decided to take its role, even if it means a clash with other NATO allies, notably the Erdoğan-led Turkey. Last but not least, Macron emphasised the delicate issue of the tension evolving between Greece and Turkey, recommending that the Mediterranean should form an energy union to make sure conflicts in transit countries would not threaten energy supply.12 Over the question of Turkey’s strengthening influence, the two traditional competitors in the Mediterranean, France and Italy, decided to join forces. If they could persuade other EU members, real sanctions could be imposed against Turkey—just like in 2018, when the EU froze accession negotiations with Ankara after its gunboat diplomacy had started. It is very hard to identify the rule maker in the Mediterranean great game, as, for instance, France, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt have all been competing in Libya to assume a leading role.

In order for Macron to be able to realise his Pax Mediterranea, a Franco–Italian energy cooperation based on the often-mentioned EU solidarity would be needed.13 Recently, a Turkish warship illuminated a French frigate with a targeting radar, upsetting the French administration that accused NATO of failing to condemn the incident. As a result, France pulled out of NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean, organising joint military exercises with Greece, Italy, and Cyprus instead. Unfortunately from France’s perspective, Europe is divided over Turkey’s expansionism: while France, Greece, and Cyprus belong to the tough camp, Italy, Spain, and Germany have a more conciliatory approach. It would without doubt be in France’s interest to unite leading EU member states on its

side.14 Otherwise, the French aspiration to build hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean might be undermined by Turkey. The two powers have always found themselves on opposing sides in conflicts emerging in the Mediterranean since the Libyan Civil War. Both have supporters, but Turkey’s aggressive behaviour might push most Arab states towards France. However, Macron’s posture adopted towards Islamism and the way how Erdoğan capitalises on that might break this trend.

Méditerranée de Lugano. Élysée.fr. 29 August 2020 <http:// bitly.ws/bNUo > 13 Michaël Tanchum: Turkish Military Maneuvering Pushed Italy and France to Join Forces in the Mediterranean. Now What?

Foreign Policy. 23 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUr > 14 Jana Puglierin [et al.]: Views from the capitals: Gas conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. European Council on Foreign Relations. 16 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUu >

ENDNOTES 1 Remi Daniel: France in the Eastern Mediterranean: Rushing to save Beirut, Losing in Libya, and Standing Alone against Erdogan. The Institute for National Security Studies. 19 August 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNU6 >.

2 Christophe Ayad: La diplomatie d’Emmanuel Macron à usage interne montre ses limites. Le Monde. 10 November 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNU7 > 3 Iyad Dakka: Will Either Macron or Erdogan Back Down in the Eastern Mediterranean. World Politics Review. 9 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUb > 4 Update on the Mediterranean at the Med7 Summit.

Gouvernement.fr. 10 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUf > 5 Jakub Wodka: Union for the Mediterranean and Eastern Partnership geopolitical Interests or Complementary concepts?

Turkish Policy Quarterly. 2010/3. 147–156.

6 Sébastien Abis–Jean-François Coustillière: François Hollande and the Mediterranean Region. IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook. 2013. 159–162.

7 Ibid.

8 Matteo Ilardo: The Rivalry between France and Italy over Libya and its Southwest Theatre. AIES Fokus, 2018/5. 9 August 2018. <https://bit.ly/3m2W8xX > 9 Asli Aydıntaşbaşv [et al.]: Overview: Fear and loathing in the eastern Mediterranean. European Council on Foreign Relations.

21 May 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUh > 10 Henri J. Barkey: France vs. Turkey: A Showdown in the Mediterranean Is Brewing. The National Interest. 16 September 2020. <http://bitly.ws/bNUi > 11 Jean-Loup Bonnamy: «Le couple franco-allemand n’existe plus: le refus de Merkel de soutenir la Grèce et la France face à Erdogan le prouve.» Le Figaro. 19 August 2020. <http://bitly. ws/bNUk > 12 Notre Méditerranée gronde. Écoutez le message du Président Emmanuel Macron au Forum Moyen-Orient INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

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6

ANTALL JÓZSEF KNOWLEDGE CENTRE

Since its inception in 2010, the Antall József Knowledge Centre (AJKC) in Hungary has introduced a variety of events targeting Hungarian students enrolled in higher education, as well as domestic and international professional audiences.

The Knowledge Centre is named after József Antall (1932–1993), a Hungarian teacher, educator, librarian, historian, and statesman, who served as the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Hungary after the fall of communism (from 23 May 1990 to his death on 12 December 1993).

The Knowledge Centre’s main objectives, in line with Antall’s philosophy, include managing talent and providing students and young professionals with wide-ranging practical knowledge through various events. The Knowledge Centre is a foreign policy think tank researching topics such as the Visegrad Cooperation, the future global role of the EU, the US, China, issues of the Middle East and Far East, security policy, as well as technological and social innovation.

The whole of AJKC works towards strengthening institutional relations both at a national and international level, developing scholarship and internship programmes, and boosting professional cooperation via international conferences, workshops, and event series. Our institution’s

main office is located in Budapest, operating with two international departments, focussing on European and global relations, respectively, a research department, and a thematic department, covering areas such talent management and innovation. In addition, AJKC has a regional office in Győr and an office in Brussels, which was established in 2015 to represent the Antall philosophy in the heart of the European Union and to promote the values that he stood for at an international level.

The publishing activities of AJKC involve releasing professional publications, scholarly works on political and social sciences (with special regard to security policy and international relations), as well as university textbooks. In our autobiographical series, prominent personalities of the Cold War period, including Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl, recount crucial years and decisions still affecting their lives. Reacting to events of political, social, and economic significance in the 21st century, the professional publications series of the Knowledge Centre features works incorporating the latest results of international relations and geopolitics, the history of politics, economics, and psychology.

The AJKC’s most ambitious professional event is called think.BDPST. The conference, organised in cooperation with Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and supported by the International Visegrad Fund, focusses on regional development and the new perspectives of research, innovation, and future technologies.

The business world’s most notable, creative and innovative thinkers are all invited to think.BDPST along with actors from NGOs and the political sector to share and inspire one another to develop forward-thinking strategies that will facilitate the development of the whole Visegrad region. The event also aims to position Budapest as an ideal destination for enterprises with a pioneering spirit seeking new horizons, new markets to enter, or a new territory and knowledge base to include in their plans for the future. In 2021, topics covered at the 6th think.BDPST conference include effects of and opportunities offered by digitalisation, with special regard to issues such as the renewing of the economy after the pandemic and the implementation possibilities of digital governance.

The Antall József Summer School is an educational programme for MA and PhD students, as well as young professionals, which

examines the Central European region, in particular, the Visegrad Cooperation, and its wider neighbourhood from various aspects through frontal and more interactive forms of education.

After a year of hiatus, the Antall József Summer School will return in 2021, focussing on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the cooperation and its relations with the Western Balkan region.

The event will be organised in partnership with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Hungary. Each year, the Knowledge Centre organises its Foreign and Security Policy Conference, which focusses on the key diplomatic priorities of Hungary, the Central European region, and the Transatlantic Alliance as a whole, such as the future of NATO, stability in the Western Balkans, and EU defence cooperation. The 2020 event examined security challenges originating from the latest space and cyber technology achievements, while also putting emphasis on the rapid development of information technology and its viral role in our everyday lives and national economies, as well as the new type of arms race and cooperation between national security bodies. The conference series is organised in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and supported by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: BETWEEN RIVALRY AND ALLIANCE BUILDING Online conference, 25 May 2021 An online two-panel conference entitled “The Eastern Mediterranean: Between Rivalry and Alliance Building” was organised by the Antall József Knowledge Centre on 25 May 2021.

In the first panel under the title A New-Old Geopolitical Arena?, the region was discussed from complex diplomatic, geopolitical, and security aspects by our invited speakers including Dr Erzsébet N Rózsa, Professor at the University of Public Service—Ludovika, and academic advisor at the Institute of World Economy, and Dr Gallia Lindenstrauss, senior research fellow at Institute for National Security Studies. The panel was moderated by Lukács Krajcsír, international relations manager at the Antall József Knowledge Centre. In the beginning, Gallia Lindenstrauss gave an overview of Israel’s East-Mediterranean policy, while Erzsébet N Rózsa summarised Egypt’s and Libya’s regional policy. Both analysed the impact that the geopolitical rivalry has on the alliance system, the external and internal challenges that the studied countries are facing, and potential outcomes that we can expect in the following years. The moderator’s questions revolved mainly around the non-

regional actors’ East Mediterranean policy, such as some European countries, the United States, or China.

The second panel bearing the title Race for Undersea Energy Resources featured Dr Isabelle Ioannides, fellow at Department of Political Science at the Free University of Brussels and a research associate at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, Dr Peter Kacziba, assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at University of Pécs, Dr Muzaffer Senel, assistant professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Ankara Medipol University. The second panel was moderated by Zsolt Csepregi, deputy director for International Affairs at the Antall József Knowledge Centre.

This time, the focus of the discussion was on energy and economic aspects: in recent years, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey have become active in exploring and extracting new undersea gas fields. The questions posed mainly concerned the attitudes of the European Union and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the role of private companies, and the possibility of an armed conflict for energy sources.

7 AUTHORS

S GUE OR

S GUE OR

AUTH ST

AUTH ST

Csicsmann, László Vice-rector for faculty at the Corvinus University of Budapest, and the head of the Department

The Endgame in Syria?

The Dilemmas of the Reconstruction

of International Relations

Éva, Ádám Non-resident research fellow of the AJKC

Crises and the Search for Reforms in Lebanon

Ionnides, Isabelle Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a research associate at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy in Athens, and a non-resident Europe’s

Cyprus in the EU: From Integration to Present-Day Challenges and Opportunities

Futures fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (2019–2020)

Kacziba, Péter Assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Studies,

Greece—Return to the Eastern Mediterranean

University of Pécs

Kádár, József Doctoral candidate at the University of Szeged

Jordan: In between the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean

N. Rózsa, Erzsébet Senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics of the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies in the Hungarian Academy

Threats and Challenges in the Post-Qaddafi Libya

of Sciences and professor at the University of Public Service

AUTHORS

135

C AUT JK

C AUT JK

RS OF A HO

RS OF A HO

Csepregi, Zsolt Deputy Director for International Affairs

Interview with HE Yacov Hadas-Handelsman Strategy of Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean

Korpics, Fanni International relations manager

French Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean

at the European Relations Department

Kozma, Tamás Research track leader and head of the Global Relations Department

Krajcsír, Lukács Historian and international relations expert at the Global Relations Department

Miklós, Nobert International relations manager at the Global Relations Department

136

AUTHORS

Interview with State Secretary Tristan Azbej The Importance of the Eastern Mediterranean for the European Union's Gas Supply Security Endeavours

Interview with HE Péter Kveck Step by Step: Cairo’s Maritime Ambitions and Build-up of the Egypt Navy

Influencing the Eastern Mediterranean: Where Do the American, Russian, and Chinese Interests Collide

C AUT JK

C AUT JK

RS OF A HO

RS OF A HO

Pál, Zsombor Szabolcs Historian and senior research fellow

Restás, Bianka International relations manager at the European Relations Department

Szilágyi, Laura Research fellow at the Talent Management and Innovation Department

Szilvási, Simon Research fellow at the Global Relations Department

Interview with State Secretary Tristan Azbej

Migration in the Eastern Mediterranean—Key Trends and Challenges

Influencing the Eastern Mediterranean: Where Do the American, Russian, and Chinese Interests Collide

Influencing the Eastern Mediterranean: Where Do the American, Russian, and Chinese Interests Collide

AUTHORS

137

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Challenges and Opportunities

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2019. Source of data: Number of tourists from Russia arriving

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Crises and a Search for Reforms in Lebanon

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Financial assistance to Greece between 2010 and 2018. Source

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Migration in the Eastern Mediterranean—Key Trends

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4

Central and Western routes. European Council, Council of the European Union. Accessed: 27 May 2021. <https://www.

HORIZONTAL TOPICS

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for the Gas Supply Security Endeavours of the

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European Union

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Table 1: The most significant offshore natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean. Source: Tamás Kozma:

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An aerial view of the Moria refugee camp in 2019. Source: Shutterstock ID: 1649744272, author: Nicolas Economou/

Chart 1: Energy dependency rate, EU-27, 2008–2018 (% of

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net imports in gross available energy, based on tonnes of oil equivalent). Source of data: Eurostat (data code: nrg_ind_id).

The new temporary refugee camp in Kara Tepe with UNHCR

Graphic design: Péter Somos.

tents. Source: Shutterstock ID: 1860756055, author: Nicolas Economou/Shutterstock.com.

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5

22 January 2021. <https://www.statista.com/ statistics/1021735/share-russian-gas-imports-eu/ >

INTERESTS OF EXTERNAL ACTORS

and Eurostat (data code: nrg_124m). Graphic design:

Influencing the Eastern Mediterranean: Where Do the

Péter Somos.

US, Russian, and Chinese Interests Collide?

Vice President Joe Biden meets Prime Minister Benjamin

The Southern Gas Corridor and its parts. Source: https://

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The territories proposed to be annexed in the West Bank

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in 2019. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Proposed_September_2019_Israeli_annexation_of_

French military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

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The signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020

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Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan).

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A meeting between Putin and Assad in 2015. Source:

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photos/42148, licence: CC BY 4.0.

The Tartus port, the last Russian military base outside former Soviet territory, has a clear geopolitical importance

6

to Moscow. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

ANTALL JÓZSEF KNOWLEDGE CENTRE

File:Detailkarte_der_Marinebasis_Tartus.svg, author:

All pictures published in this chapter are possessions of the

Bin im Garten, licence: CC BY-SA 3.0. Redesign: Péter

Antall József Knowledge Centre.

Magyar ‘Medoks.’

The location of the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone. Source of data: <http://www.setc-zone.com/

7

system/2017/04/26/011260607.shtml >. The map is

AUTHORS

based on: Shutterstock ID: 140529211, author: Peter

The portraits of our contributing authors were provided by

Hermes Furian/Shutterstock.com. Author: Péter Magyar

themselves.

‘Medoks.’

The portraits of authors of the Antall József Knowledge Centre are possessions of the Antall József Knowledge

The Chinese One Belt and Road initiative and the Turkish Middle Corridor. Data compiled by the editors. The map is based on: Shutterstock ID: 496799155, author: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock.com and Shutterstock ID: 1049737193, author: MicroOne/Shutterstock.com. Author: Péter Magyar ‘Medoks.’

French Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean Macron visiting Beirut after the explosion in summer 2020.

Source: Shutterstock ID: 1796176306, author: James Chehab/Shutterstock.com.

Members of the Union for the Mediterranean established

by President Sarkozy in 2008. Source: https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Union_for_the_Mediterranean_-_ updatable.svg, author: Treehill, licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Redesign: Péter Magyar ‘Medoks.’

German president Angela Merkel, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and French president Emmanuel Macron before their Syria summit in 2018. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/58934/photos/56242, licence: CC BY 4.0.

Centre.

21-24 JUNE 2021 ONLINE EVENT The Antall József Summer School is a one-week international educational programme focusing on the Visegrad Cooperation. This year the programme will be dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the cooperation and its relations towards the Western Balkan region.

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The COVID-19 crisis has had terrible effects on the European economy and once again brought to the spotlight the big divide between Northern and Southern Europe. However, the EU today has proved to be able to respond to this historic challenge unlike after the 2008 financial crisis. At that time, Southern European member states were the main victims of the EU’s wrong, shortsighted economic decisions that created dangerous divisions within the EU threatened with the EU’s collapse. Last year, however, the EU made a U-turn on its former approach: the European debt mutualisation and the creation of a revolutionary recovery fund, symbolically called Next Generation EU, represent a complete reversal of the former crisis-management approach, and, therefore, Italy and Spain, together with other countries in the Mediterranean region, might be their biggest beneficiaries.

Our next issue aims at showing that Mediterranean Europe, contrary to the common perception, represents a very heterogeneous group of countries with only a few similarities among its members. Our authors intend to shed light on each country’s particularities, showing that any prejudicial classification is flawed. There is one element, however, which currently unites all of them: their awareness of facing a momentous crisis and a crucial generational challenge. This means that all their efforts will be directed at taking full advantage of this (hopefully not) oneshot fund which is their last chance to restore their competitiveness and to catch up with the EU’s core. Should they manage to do so, it will benefit the whole union and help the integration process enter a new and revolutionary phase.

Previous issues of In Focus are available on the AJKC Digital webpage: digitalistudastar.ajtk.hu/en/in-focus

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IMPRINT Publisher: Antall József Knowledge Centre Publishing Director: Péter Antall, Director, AJKC Editor-in-Chief: Zsombor Szabolcs Pál Editors: Tamás Kozma, Bianka Restás Language Editor: Mónika Vajda Proofreader: Mónika Vajda Transliteration and proofreading of Arabic and Persian names: Ádám Éva Contributors: Dóra Jónaska, Csilla Lichtenstein, Zita Mihály Graphic Design: Péter Magyar ‘Medoks’, Péter Somos Cover: Péter Magyar ‘Medoks’ Pre-press Preparation: Péter Somos

CONTACT INFORMATION Antall József Knowledge Centre 1027 Budapest, Királyfürdő utca 4. +36 20 310 8776 www.ajtk.hu www.ajtkkonyvmuhely.hu