Posts Tagged ‘Libya’

17
January 2013

Do EU sanctions work?

Deutsche Welle

The European Union has increased its use of sanctions against “outlaw countries” in the last few years. But one analyst argues that it has failed to police them – as a result, the efficacy of sanctions remains unclear.

For an international power often dismissed as too soft, the European Union is becoming increasingly fond of using sanctions to coerce other countries to its will. But a new paper by Konstanty Gebert, of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), accuses the EU of a “wilful blindness” in the way that sanctions are imposed, which has led to inconsistent successes and protracted deadlocks.

As of June 2012, the EU had sanctions in place against 26 countries around the world. And there has been a sharp increase in the last three years – from 22 decisions in 2010 to 69 a year later. Most of these have been focused on “outlaw” countries like Syria and Iran, but the EU has also shown that it is more willing to spread these diplomatic and economic weapons around – imposing them on 16 different nations in 2002, but to 28 in 2011.

The term “sanctions” can of course refer to a range of measures, some political, others economic. Some aimed at governments, others at individuals within those governments, and others still at private individuals. Often it comes down to freezing financial assets, or blocking trade in certain industries.
And the aim of sanctions can be equally wide-ranging – they can either be punishment for severe human rights violations or democratic backsliding, or deterrents to prevent countries from carrying out actions that could threaten European security.

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04
April 2011

The world has changed

EU Russia Centre

Events in North Africa have led to an upheaval in region’s seemingly stable condition. Until recently the internal problems of these countries had hardly attracted attention while externally they have served as more or less dependable partners of the USA and the European Union. Over the past few months the situation has changed dramatically. Thanks to the Libyan crisis the EU has faced a drop in oil supplies. The catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan, meanwhile, has put paid to the already weak conviction that nuclear power could be safe within the EU. On top of this has come a sharp increase in the number of refugees fleeing the North African disturbances which only highlights the lack of an effective strategy within Europe for integrating those who arrived before.

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