Caution remains as Bush calls for reforms in the Middle East

Date: 10/02/05

To prepare the visit of the US president to Brussels on 21-22 February, EU policymakers are anxiously revisiting debates over reforming the Middle East.

George W. Bush's recent inauguration and State of the Union addresses were peppered with references to encouraging a "higher standard of freedom" and a "generational commitment" to democracy in the broader Middle East.

Despite broad agreement on the aims of Bush's plan and hope that finding common ground on Middle East reform can revive transatlantic relations, major differences remain between Brussels and Washington over how to promote democracy in an area ranging from Morocco to Iran.

The EU has continued to guard jealously its ten-year old 'Barcelona process', through which it ploughs €5 billion in grants and loans into the region each year.

After Bush's talk of democratising the Middle East last year, the EU feared its Barcelona process could be swallowed up by a high-profile US plan, denigrated in the region because of the unpopularity of the messenger.

But European officials now point to a "change in atmosphere" and say that the US is showing willingness to treat the EU as an equal partner and take regional concerns on board.

Yet caution remains. "We want to see what the Americans want to do," said one Luxembourg diplomat.

Seasoned Washington observers admit that major questions still remain.

According to Ron Asmus, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and current head of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Centre, it is not yet clear that Washington is willing to abandon realpolitik for a reform agenda.

"The question is, can we get out of bed with autocrats?" says Asmus.

Egypt's importance as an interlocutor in the Middle East peace process and Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves will mean those two countries provide the litmus test. So far, neither the EU nor the US have proved that they can be tough on Cairo or Riyadh.

In Cairo last week, Egypt's 15 legally sanctioned parties gathered for much vaunted discussions on reform in the Arab world's most populous country. But, carefully choreographed by President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party, the talks offered little more than a glimmer of hope for democratic reform.

Last year the outlook was more optimistic.

Spurred on by Washington's talk of democratising the Middle East, reformists took to the streets, criticised the government and campaigned for constitutional change to allow more than one candidate to run in presidential 'referenda' and to limit the president's stay in office to two terms.

Since then reformists - faced with an international community more interested in courting Egypt for its role in bringing Palestinian militants to heel - have been forced to back down and now openly acknowledge they overplayed their hand.

The chances of them forcing constitutional change before Mubarak installs himself for his fifth six-year term in one-man elections later this year are slim.

Now Bush is beating the drum of democratic reform again but Egyptian reformists are more sceptical. So much so that in Cairo their leaders agreed to Mubarak's calls to reject "reforms imported from abroad".

They are not the only ones.

As one Commission official put it "democracy means instability". Focused on a region in which stability is a scarce commodity, the EU is likely to continue to press for incremental change.

Meanwhile life gets more difficult for the likes of Egypt's reformists, as Asmus points out, since "neither reformers nor the governments are sure we are serious yet".

Article reports on the perspective of a joint EU-US initiative for the Middle East peace process.