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Nathalie Tocci is director of Istituto Affari Internazionali, a special adviser to European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, and the author of POLITICO‘s World View column. Her opinions are her own.
ROME — Lebanon and Belarus are reminders that what is fragile can eventually break.
For decades, the European Union’s neighborhood has been characterized by fragility: simmering conflicts in the Caucasus and Ukraine, unstable authoritarianism in North Africa and the Middle East, inexorable de-democratization in Turkey and the western Balkans.
Fragility has become such a constant in this part of the world that it’s sometimes easy to pretend that it’s a state of affairs that can last forever.
To be sure, the EU has elevated resilience-building into a major goal of its foreign policy. The idea is to help societies get to a point that when the inevitable disruption arises, they are able not only to bounce back, but to learn from the crisis and come out of it stronger.
The formidable rise of the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya created the illusion that democratic change was possible.
In practice, however, we have all too often chosen instead to maintain the fiction that fragility can be maintained indefinitely, not necessarily improving but never totally deteriorating either. We sometimes choose to believe that societies can be not resilient but resistant to positive change — preferring stability to long-term sustainability.
What’s happened in Lebanon and Belarus —two countries, in which this cynical approach has been especially blatant — is a clear demonstration that fragility can never be a permanent state.
For decades, Lebanon was the poster child of chronic fragility. Torn by socio-political divisions, home to millions of refugees, jostled around by regional powers and unable to stand economically on its own, the country has staggered on through crisis after crisis.
After it survived the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a war with Israel in 2006 and a devastating civil war in next-door Syria, many just assumed that Lebanon was simply resistant to breakdown.
Then came disruption: the blast in Beirut that destroyed swaths of the city, killing at least 200 people and causing more than €10 billion worth of damage. The blasts were probably triggered by a spark that caused 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse to explode. That such a quantity of highly explosive material was left lying there for six years is tangible proof of Lebanon’s fragility.
Further north along the EU’s border, Belarus is fragile in a different way. A stubbornly authoritarian country, it was described by former U.S. President George W. Bush as Europe’s last dictatorship. Belarus today may no longer be the only authoritarian state in Europe — but it’s certainly the longest-lasting one.
Firmly in power for twenty-six years, President Alexander Lukashenko has kept an authoritarian grip on the country, notwithstanding a cooling relation with Moscow after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. It was precisely that cooling relation that had led some in Europe to toy with the idea of a partial rapprochement with Minsk.
The run-up to this month’s election offered a glimmer a hope. The formidable rise of the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya created the illusion that democratic change was possible. Those hopes were dashed when Lukashenko declared victory with a far-fetched 80 percent of the vote, cracking down on peaceful protests and forcing Tikhanovskaya to flee to neighboring Lithuania.
Like Lebanon, Belarus’ fragility is being put to the test.
It’s too early to tell whether Lebanon and Belarus have irrevocably snapped. Outrage in Beirut, coming on top of hardship, could trigger revolt, revolution or even another civil war. Belarus’ protests could generate revolutionary change, a democratic alternative, an authoritarian retrenchment, or something in between.
The outcomes are uncertain, but the fragility that generated the disruptions is not.
So, what can the EU do about it? How can it deal with the multifaceted fragilities, not just in Lebanon and Belarus, but across its troubled neighborhood?
One thing is certain: In the complex task of resilience-building, the EU cannot count on the support of other major powers. Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Donald Trump’s America and Xi Jinping’s China have all, in different ways, either generated or exacerbated the fragilities in and around Europe. Hence, while it’s possible to work with regional or international organizations, it’ll be up to the EU to do the heavy lifting.
EU institutions have produced no end of strategies and sub-strategies, action plans and work programs laying out what it will take to strengthen the resilience of the troubled neighbors | Laurie Dieffembacq/AFP via Getty Images
The EU knows what needs to be done. Its institutions have produced no end of strategies and sub-strategies, action plans and work programs laying out what it will take to strengthen the resilience of the troubled neighbors. Enhancing rights and political participation, reducing socio-economic inequalities, reforming security sectors and promoting energy transition are all part of a well-rehearsed resilience building agenda.
But building resilience requires more than just plans. You need real resources. And that’s where the problem lies.
In the negotiations on the EU’s next long-term budget — the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) — foreign and security policy took a beating.
Along with a green transition and a digital push, Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission had come into office promising to be “geopolitical.” This effort included plans to beef up the EU’s security and defense capabilities, with a €13.5 billion European Defense Fund, a €6.5 billion Military Mobility Fund, a €10 billion European Peace Facility. Collectively this would have amounted to a fresh €30 billion.
With the pandemic, and the creation of a €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund, those new funds have been boiled down to a far more modest €13.5 billion, less than half the original goal despite the far more ambitious MFF overall.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to reconsider these priorities. The ink on the MFF has not dried yet. As the Commission and European Council enter budgetary negotiations with the European Parliament, there’s still scope to make sure the resources for addressing fragility beyond the EU’s borders are made available.
The images from Lebanon and Belarus should serve as an illustration of what can go wrong if we choose to believe once again that countries can remain fragile forever.
