Weapons, Borders, and Human Rights: The complicated relationship between the European Union and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
Weapons, Borders, and Human Rights: The complicated relationship between the European Union and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

Author(s): Francesco Marilungo
Subject(s): Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, International relations/trade, Military policy, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment, Politics and Identity, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Weapons; Borders; Human Rights; European Union; Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria;
Summary/Abstract: When we consider the European Union’s general policy towards the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Kurdish: RêveberiyaXweser a Bakur û Rojhilatê Sûriyeyê, hereafter simply NES), we must assume that the European Union (EU) does not have any single policy towards the NES. Indeed, it is hard to speak of a EU coherent foreign policy on anyissue.1 In recent years, we became accustomed to complaints about the lack of a broad European policy on defence and foreign affairs, as well as exhortations to create a common continental approach to international security issues. Presently, each Member State moves with considerable autonomy, taking care primarily of its national interests and reacting mostly to domestic grievances, whilst the European bloc in itself seems to move steadily towards irrelevance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)region, where global and regional powers have reduced European influence.Recent events, such as the Turkish invasion of areas of northern Syria in October 2019, have only confirmed what analysts have been saying about EU foreign policy in the last years: ‘that the EU has little influence over the course of events in Syria’ (Pierini, 2016).

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