The EU and the Syrian Crisis: The Use of Sanctions and the Regime's Strategy for Survival

Abstract

The Syrian crisis has from May 2011 and onwards been met by the EU with rounds of tightening sanctions attempting to put pressure on the Syrian regime and the elites surrounding it. Based on a typology for the sanctions and a periodization showing how the measures have proceeded, the article discusses the EU sanctions and to what degree they have influenced the situation in Syria. Furthermore, the article sheds light on regional and international dimensions of EU policies towards Syria and demonstrates how the policies are met with the Syrian regime's ability to adapt to conditions related to changing internal and external challenges. The article concludes that what in the first phases of the EU sanctions against Syria represented a deviation from the traditional pragmatic EU policies vis-à-vis the Middle East, seems during the latest phase to be followed by a more cautious approach, which also takes security concerns into consideration.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual British International Studies Association conference (Birmingham, 20 June 2013), in the panel ‘EU Foreign Policy Post-Lisbon: Role and Challenges of the European External Action Service’. The author wishes to thank the convenor (Federica Bicchi, London School of Economics) and the participants for valuable feedback.

The author also wants to thank the reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions.

Notes

^1. In addition to the EU sanctions, the Syrian regime has also faced sanctions from the US, the Arab League, Turkey and a number of other external actors.

^2. The EEAS homepage mentions that besides being a member of the ENP, Syria is a signatory of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration and a member of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). The description of EU–Syrian relations can be found on the EEAS homepage at: http://eeas.europa.eu/syria/index_en.htm.

^3. As a significant forerunner for European Commission (2011c), see ‘Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean’, published 8 March 2011.

^4. Regarding the realism inherent in the ENP of 2004, see also Seeberg (2010).

^5. Two well-known contributions to the discussion about authoritarian resilience are Heydemann (2007) and Hinnebusch (2006). Michelle Pace and Francesco Cavatorta distinguish in a discussion about theoretical perspectives following the Arab uprisings between a democratization/transition paradigm which was dominant in the 1980s and 1990s and a paradigm of ‘authoritarian resilience’ in the 2000s, see Pace and Cavatorta (2012).

^6. A number of important theoretical and empirical studies related to the development in the MENA region and the interpretation of it in scholarly research have been presented recently. For a discussion about the lack of ability to predict the surprising developments in Tunisia, Egypt etc. in early 2011, see for instance Gause (2011). Interesting examples of country-specific studies covering Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, respectively, and with an attempt to contribute to the theoretical discussion about the character of the new developments, are Dalmasso (2012), Guazzone (2012) and Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011).

^7. The Dahl quotation in the chapter by Ehteshami et al. refers to Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (1971).

^8. The document can be found at the Archive of European Integration. European Commission (1977).

^9. The value of the European Unit of Account (1 EUA) on 1 July 1977 was the equivalent of $1.10.

^10. The MEDA programme is the main financial instrument of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. MEDA comes from MEsures D'Accompagnement (French for accompanying measures).

^11. For a concise analysis of the first years of Bashar al-Assad's rule, see Lesch, 2005.

^12. Reports from behind Syrian borders during the internal crisis since early 2011 have been criticized for building on unverified sources. There are, however, no reasons to doubt that atrocities have taken place – probably on both sides.

^13. For a well-informed analysis of the early uprisings in Syria and the reasons for the lack of coherence in Syrian opposition, see Leenders and Heydemann (2012).

^14. The first list of restrictive measures on behalf of the EU were: European Council (2011a).

^15. The second list followed 12 days later (EU-Commission, 2011b).

^16. The third list was launched one month after the second (European Council, 2011d).

^17. For a broad work on the history and perspectives of EU sanctions, see (Portela, 2010).

^18. This is mentioned in a EU Council Press Release 22 April 2013, 8611/13 (OR. en) PRESSE 155.

^19. This viewpoint was put forward by international news agencies such as for instance Reuters, see http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/15/uk-syria-crisis-geneva-insight-idUKBRE9AE08C20131115. For an interesting discussion of this perspective, see Buckley (2012).

^20. For a discussion of forces mobilizing for and against the regime during the first months of the uprising in Syria, see Leenders and Heydemann (2012).

^21. This tendency in EU policies is also rather obvious in Libya and Lebanon. In Libya the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton in a meeting with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan expressed her worries about the security situation in the country. And the EU has worked intensively on the EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya, which is tied up with the Common Security and Defense Policy and has counter-terrorism as one of its strategic goals. In Lebanon the EU has underlined its recent security focus by adding the Hizballah Military Wing to its list of entities, groups and persons involved in terrorist acts. Both represent examples of the EU's preoccupation with security and counter-terrorism following the development in the MENA region from 2013.