The EU’s promises for peace and security in our neighborhood have been broken completely
Statement by Georgos Loucaides, AKEL Press Spokesperson
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 16th June 2015, Nicosia
The European Commission has begun a procedure to review its so-called European Neighbourhood Policy, which since it was elaborated in 2004 sets out the framework for the EU’s relations with sixteen states on its eastern and southern borders. Today no one challenges that the EU’s promises about ensuring more security and stability in its neighborhood have been broken competely. The dramatic developments in Syria and Iraq, Ukraine, Libya and the Middle East have verified the assessments and warnings which AKEL and the international anti-war movement have been making for several years.
The unavoidable truth is that the EU has drenched its hands with the blood of the peoples of our neighborhood, because together with the US and NATO it has engaged in destabilizing governments, waging interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign states, strengthening extreme fanatics even pro-fascist groups, selling arms and weapons to authoritarian regimes and coercively imposing privatizations and liberalizations in its neighboring states through the various Free Trade Agreements. Of course the Anastasiades government also bears a share of responsibility which in just two and a half years in power has managed to align itself fully to all the policies of the EU-Atlantic bloc.
Today, the EU and the ruling political forces admit the failure of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), but do not however seek o change its essence and orientation. Instead, they are seeking to further intensify their interventions, militarism and the policy of selective sensitivity on issues relating to democracy and human rights. The redrawing of borders in the Middle East and the geopolitical encirclement of Russia continue to be a common strategy for the EU, the US and NATO; a strategy that harbors enormous dangers to world peace and security. The attempt to isolate Russia is expressed in the attempts by some Member States to remove ENP funds that are currently allocated for its Southern Dimension and to be channeled for the implementation of EU policies in Eastern Europe. This is a position with which we as AKEL disagree with and which the government also quite rightly disagrees with.
Faced with these plans, AKEL is asserting fundamental changes in the foreign and neighbourhood policy of Europe, with the de-militarization of the EU’s external action, the disengagement from NATO and dissolution of NATO. We demand the termination of the economic war and aggression waged against Russia. We demand the abandonment of the policy for exporting and imposing neoliberalism on neighbouring countries. AKEL proposes a policy of peace, solidarity and equal cooperation with neighbouring states, without any interventions and impositions; a policy which should be based on the respect of their sovereignty, International Law, human rights and on positions of principle with regards pending international problems of our neighborhood.
