Arms sales and development

At the risk of being dubbed a spoiler, allow me a little diversion from the Easter din and merrymaking to focus attention on not so beautiful developments that are worth all the attention that we can give them.

The prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), has just published a report claiming that while western military expenditure fell in 2013, it continued rising sharply in the rest of the world particularly in Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.
This may be read as yet another “proof” of the decline of the West and the resurgence of the East.

Whatever interpretation it may be given, it has one ominous meaning for the European Union as we approach the European elections: that while the EU may be making less emphasis on developing its military capabilities, the rest of the world is not thinking in the same way.
In addition, SIPRI information shows that while the EU bends over backwards in providing economic aid to developing countries – even while struggling through hard times – many of these aid beneficiaries may be some of the regular customers at world’s busiest arms bazaars where a number of EU member states are brisk and aggressive salesmen.

For, paradoxically according to SIPRI not less than eight EU member states are to be found among the world’s top 20 arms exporters for the period 2008-2012, responsible for more than a quarter of world deliveries of arms. Military industries are lucrative businesses but they also expose the paradoxes of EU foreign policy, which seems to want to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

Arms exports to the developing world are also a way by which European countries encourage these poor countries to squander their natural resources while the profits go to Europe.

Hence on the one hand the EU wants the rest of the world to resolve their conflicts peacefully, but on the other hand some of its member states are busily selling arms to them. This ambivalence easily tarnishes the EU’s image. In the case of the Ukrainian crisis, the EU’s appeal to reason and calm would seem hollow had Russia not been an unapologetic believer in the use of force and only second to the USA in arms shipments.

So as we approach the European elections and a new European Parliament, the establishment of a new Commission, probably also a new High Representative for the EU’s foreign policy and a new president of the European Council, legislators should turn their heads a little to see what is going on in this domain.

This European election is unique in many ways but in a particularly novel form. For the first time, European policies are under attack and citizens want answers fast. One of the policies that have not been lambasted so far is certainly Europe’s defence and foreign policy. Could this be due to the hardships (except for the Ukraine) and stench of war being so far away from European shores?

The new institutions that will emerge after the European elections, and not least among them the European Parliament that provides democratic legitimacy to them, need to take stock of defence and foreign policy and revise the EU’s strategies. For one thing, it is clear that arms spending trends indicate that while the EU seems less willing to resort to military power, the rest of the world is not on the same wavelength. And the EU provides them with arms!

Then there is the question of the EU’s development policy. The EU and its member states are the world’s biggest aid donors.
SIPRI reports that military spending in Africa increased by 8.3 per cent in 2013, reaching an estimated $44.9 billion (€36 billion). Over two-thirds of the African countries for which data is available increased military spending in 2013. Algeria, which is also linked to the EU by an Association Agreement and is a member of the Union for the Mediterranean, became the first country in Africa with military spending over $10 billion, an increase of 8.8 per cent since 2012, and of 176 per cent since 2004.

Africa and all the other trouble spots around the world are the main sources of what is referred to as irregular immigration. Time and again we have harped that the root cause of this human tragedy needs to be attacked by a proper development policy that gives the people of these countries reason to stay and work there rather than flee from them.

Selling arms to these countries undermines Europe’s development aid strategy. It is perhaps time to ask those EU member states that sell arms to Africa to take a bigger share of responsibility for the migrants that flee for safety to our shores.