On Monday 21 January, the European Foreign Ministers will discuss the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the presidential elections as well as the political crises in Venezuela and Nicaragua. They will prepare for upcoming meetings with the Arab League and ASEAN and will address the phenomenon of disinformation.
Preparing for difficult meetings with the Arab League
The Council will also prepare for the EU/Arab League ministerial meeting on 4 February, which will be held in advance of the summit on 24 and 25 February.
Ministers need to formulate a declaration for the ministerial meeting that is expected to reaffirm the importance of their partnership on a number of regional issues and the need to cooperate on common challenges such as migration, the fight against terrorism and the fight against climate change.
Beyond these topics, however, the ministers may address several issues that could poison the ministerial meeting and the summit.
The chairing of the EU/Arab League summit by the Arab partners is a sensitive issue. While Saudi Arabia - recently criticised for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - currently holds the presidency of the Arab League, Egypt, which will host the meeting, could also chair the summit (see EUROPE 12160).
Nor are Europeans in favour of the presence of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at the summit. It is an “extremely sensitive” issue for the Europeans, according to one diplomat.
The EU is also considering the possible return of Syria to the Arab League table. Thus, for this diplomat, one of the elements of the 4 February meeting will be to convince the Arab countries "to be careful, and to not reconnect prematurely with the Syrian regime".
Syria. Syria will also be the subject of a short briefing by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, concerning the current situation in the country, including the regime's continued reconquest of territory.
The 'Brussels 3’ international conference, which will be held on 13 and 14 March, may also be mentioned.
The ministers are expected to adopt sanctions without debate against eleven individuals and five entities related to the situation in Syria (see EUROPE 12173). Syria will be discussed at greater length at the informal ministerial meeting in Bucharest on 30 and 31 January.
Strengthening cooperation with ASEAN
The ministers will also discuss EU-ASEAN relations. This discussion will enable them to prepare for the EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, which will take place in the wake of the Foreign Affairs Council.
At this ministerial meeting, both sides are expected to discuss efforts to establish a strategic partnership and cooperation on regional and international issues. Europeans and Asians could revisit security cooperation, including the fight against terrorism, the environment and the fight against climate change, connectivity, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Human rights are a subject of tension between the EU and several ASEAN members, including Burma, the Philippines and Cambodia.
Without debate, and as announced by EUROPE (see EUROPE 12173), the ministers are expected to adopt sanctions against nine individuals and one entity related to the use of chemical weapons.
Update on the post-election situation in the DRC
High Representative Federica Mogherini and the ministers will briefly take stock of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has been constantly evolving since the CENI (Independent National Electoral Commission) announced on 10 January the provisional results of the 30 December presidential election, which gave Félix Tshisekedi the win and provoked a constitutional appeal by the opponent, Martin Fayulu (see EUROPE 12170).
On Thursday evening at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and several African Heads of State called for the suspension of the proclamation of the final results on the grounds of “serious doubts” about the conformity of the proclaimed provisional results with the verdict of the polls. They had decided to send a high-level African delegation to the DRC to engage "with all Congolese stakeholders, with the aim of reaching a consensus on an outcome to the post-electoral crisis", a decision the EU joined on Friday.
“A delegation will soon arrive in Kinshasa [...] The EU joins the African Union in inviting all Congolese actors to work constructively with this delegation, to find a post-electoral outcome that respects the vote of the Congolese people and to achieve the historic objective of the country’s first democratic transfer of power", said the spokesperson of the European External Action Service in the afternoon. However, according to the spokesman for the Congolese government, quoted by the AFP, it is not up to “the government or even the African Union to tell the Court what to do”.
Discussion on disinformation
A few days after the General Affairs Council (see EUROPE 12167), the heads of diplomacy will discuss the external aspects of the plan to combat disinformation presented by the European Commission at the end of 2018 (see EUROPE 12153). They are expected to revisit the establishment of an early warning system, international cooperation in this field, the exchange of good practices, improvements to response capacities and the handling of bad information within the EU.
The EU is facing, among other things, “fake news" from Russia, but also from China and Iran. “We must have a multidimensional approach, we must take a 360-degree view", said one diplomat. “We are not talking about years, but weeks to be ready to function”, he added, highlighting the European elections. The focal points for the Twenty Eight will also meet on Monday 21 January for the first time within the European network for cooperation in electoral matters to discuss ways to achieve safer elections.
Political crises in Venezuela and Nicaragua
Ministers will briefly discuss the situation in Venezuela as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro recently began a second term that the Europeans consider illegitimate.
Ms Mogherini will review the establishment of an international contact group to create the conditions for a resumption of dialogue between the regime and the Venezuelan political opposition, but without acting as a mediator. About ten Member States are interested, the objective being to bring together countries neighbouring Venezuela, which are facing a massive exodus, and regional organizations.
The Foreign Affairs Council will adopt conclusions on the political crisis in Nicaragua (see EUROPE 12108) without debate. These conclusions should reflect the EU's concerns about the Ortega regime’s repression of the press and civil society and the cessation of cooperation with several regional organisations. The question of EU sanctions in the event of a further deterioration of the situation could be raised.
In addition, Poland is expected to host a conference, co-organized with the United States on 13 and 14 February in Warsaw, on “Security and Stability in the Middle East”. According to a European source, the High Representative will not attend because of a scheduling issue, and “there is great uncertainty about the participation at the ministerial level for many European ministers”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant, Aminata Niang, Mathieu Bion)