Europe urged to move swiftly on adopting new incentives for Syria

The European Union and its member states have not clearly signalled how they would update their policies towards Syria despite sending a flurry of diplomats to meet rebels who took over Damascus just over a week ago, analysts have told The National.

Speaking in the Turkish capital Ankara, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday said that the EU would engage directly with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), the group that led the takeover of Damascus on December 8.

“We have to step up and continue our direct engagement with HTS and other factions. We will enhance our engagement in early recovery, including basic services like electricity and water, and infrastructure,” Ms von der Leyen said.

What engagement with Damascus means is still being discussed as challenges pile up after 13 years of civil war. In the days following the fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime, EU officials said they had no contact with HTS, which was listed as a terror organisation and sanctioned in 2014 by the UN, the EU and the US, due to its former links to Al Qaeda. A shift has occurred in the past week with countries establishing different rules of engagement with the group.

The Syrian state is under US and EU sanctions for the Assad regime's human rights violations. HTS leader Ahmad Al Shara on Monday called for these sanctions to be lifted to enable his country's swift recovery. Analysts say this is necessary as Syria struggles with poverty, destroyed infrastructure, sectarian tensions, Israeli bombardment and a possibly imminent invasion by Turkey in the north-east.

List of conditions

Europe is giving the idea that it needs time to formulate a plan while hashing out a list of conditions to engage with Syria, yet Syria does not have the time to wait for the EU to gather its thoughts, analysts warned. “This suggests that Europe is going to be very late to the party,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at think tank ECFR.

The bloc has less influence in Syria than regional players such as Iran and Turkey, but its slow response may translate into an even weaker diplomatic footprint. “Europeans should be leaning in and putting a big offer on the table to incentivise positive progress in line with kind of core European interests,” Mr Barnes-Dacey told The National.

As Ms von der Leyen visited Turkey, European diplomats, including those from Paris and Berlin, intensified their presence in Damascus, with France hoisting its flag above its embassy for the first time since 2012. It remains unclear whether diplomats met Mr Al Shara. In a statement, France's foreign affairs ministry said the delegation met “a representative designated by transitional authorities”. It also met unnamed representatives of civil society, various communities, the UN and the EU.

Germany's foreign office said its diplomats had conducted similar meetings. A spokesperson said in a statement to The National said that, while HTS had “acted cautiously so far,” it was also under close scrutiny. “Syria must not become a plaything of foreign powers or an experiment for radical forces. We know where HTS comes from and know its origins in the Al Qaeda ideology,” the spokesperson said.

Senior UN officials have publicised meetings with Mr Al Shara, including UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pederson and Tom Fletcher, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. Mr Fletcher wrote on X that he felt “cautious hope” after talking to Mr Al Shara, who he described as “commander of the new administration” in Damascus.

But some EU countries such as the Netherlands have tied engagement with HTS with it expelling Russia from its military base in Hmeimim in the coastal province of Latakia. Others, like Austria, have cautioned against setting red lines that may weaken European diplomacy.

Linking sanctions to Russia

The Dutch point of view appears to be shared by many of the EU's 27 countries. Speaking after a meeting of the EU's foreign affairs ministers on Monday, the EU's foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Many foreign ministers took this up to say that it should be a condition for the new leadership, that they also get rid of the Russian influence there, because it is a base where they also conduct their activities – towards Africa and southern neighbours.”

Ms Kallas also said ministers did not want to repeat mistakes made in Libya and Afghanistan but that sanctions against the Syrian state may only be lifted once HTS takes “positive steps”, including regarding minorities, in the “coming weeks and months.”

The EU's geographic closeness to Syria and the direct impact of its refugee crisis on the continent in the past decade requires a sense of urgency, said Brigitte Herremans, an expert on accountability in Syria and postdoctoral research fellow at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University in Belgium. “The EU is waiting to see what others are doing, whereas it should be saying ' now we're lifting the sanctions', because otherwise warnings about the possible further disintegration of Syria will become self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said.

The EU has historically adopted a more passive attitude in Middle East diplomacy than the US, which has led the West's diplomatic response to Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. However, the EU has invested heavily in supporting Syrian civil society opposition to Mr Al Assad as well as accountability for its human rights abuses, including the enforced disappearance of roughly 130,000 people. It should be more proactively addressing the new reality in Syria by quickly adapting its sanctions policies and support of civil society in rebuilding the country, Ms Herremans told The National. “You have to invest in strong policies if you want Syria to not become a failed state,” she said.

The risks against Syria's territorial integrity and social fabric are acute as more than 80 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line. Europe can hardly be blamed if the latest developments fail to consolidate the country, Mr Barnes-Dacey said. “The question is: can Europe be moving with greater strategic urgency to try and avert those risks and incentivise a positive trajectory? And my concern is that the window of opportunity might be quite narrow.”