Calls for Saudi arms embargo pitted EU values ​​against EU interests

BRUSSELS / PARIS / BERLIN (Reuters) – Pressure is mounting for the EU to consider an arms embargo in Saudi Arabia after Germany, Austria and the European Parliament have called for the end of arms sales following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In the space of a few hours that have highlighted tensions on the issue, German Angela Merkel reiterated Friday that her country would not deliver arms to Saudi Arabia until 39 that the death of Khashoggi be explained, while the French president Emmanuel Macron said that such steps felt populist demagoguery. ".

EU ambbadadors could formally discuss this issue after a rare request from governments, two diplomats said Friday, and the Netherlands is pushing for a new EU regime to sanction human rights violations. Man, wherever they occur.

But the debate in Brussels and in European capitals is also reviving the usual divisions of the bloc's foreign policy, the main European powers defending their own economic and political interests, which tend to undermine any restrictive foreign policy of the European Union. which aims to be guided by democracy and human rights. .

The badbadination of Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, committed on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, provoked a global scandal, became a crisis for the world's largest oil exporting state and set light the way the Western powers are allied to an Arab kingdom the death penalty for dissent.

The Belgian region of Wallonia, which owns firearms manufacturer FN Herstal, said it would consider future arms export license applications from its main arms client, with "utmost circumspection After Khashoggi's murder.

While Austria, which holds the six-month EU presidency, wants to stop arms sales and Germany will stop approving arms exports until Khashoggi's murder is cleared up France has not taken these calls into account.

Macron went further on Friday, saying that there was no connection between the sale of weapons and the badbadination of Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi de facto ruler, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"It's a pure demagoguery to say" we have to stop selling arms. "This has nothing to do with Mr. Khashoggi," he told reporters on a trip to Slovakia, without exclude other coordinated sanctions against those responsible.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that British arms exports to Saudi Arabia comply with the national and European arms export licensing rules.

At the same time, Spain is trying to sell 400 bombs to protect a Saudi contract with a shipyard in the Andalusian region that would create 5,000 jobs.

"If Austria proposes this ban, then ask how many weapons it sells to Saudi Arabia," said an EU diplomat.

Billions of dollars at stake

Although Austria has a substantial arms industry, it has sold a meager amount of 1.4 million euros ($ 1.59 million) in Saudi Arabia in 2017, according to the reports. EU data.

Germany has approved arms shipments to Saudi Arabia for an amount of about 400 million euros in the first nine months of 2018.

Last year, Germany sold 351 million euros worth of aircraft, including helicopters and airplanes, to Saudi Arabia, although EU data do not specify the number of military ships .

German weapons account for less than 2% of Saudi Arabia's arms purchases.

Britain exported military goods to Saudi Arabia for £ 1.1 billion ($ 1.41 billion) in 2017, according to British parliamentary documents, while tiny Belgium and Luxembourg gathered 184 million euros in arms sales to the Saudis last year.

France sold 1.8 billion euros worth of aircraft, helicopters and other aerospace equipment to Saudi Arabia in 2017, an amount that soared over the past decade, according to EU data, without however specifying the role of the army.

"The sale of arms is a very political affair that fits into a long-term vision," said Camille Lons, a researcher at the European Council's Foreign Relations Reflection Group.

Lons cited Libya, Syria and even the Sahel region, where France, which has thousands of soldiers on the ground, has asked Saudi aid to fund local African forces.

Macron's strategy is at the heart of his strategy, Mohammed bin Salman, often referred to as MbS, the 33-year-old de facto Saudi leader who introduced himself as a reformer, but whose involvement in Khashoggi's seizure and death is under surveillance.

"It is easy for Merkel (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel to do it when she sells weapons everywhere except Saudi Arabia," said a senior French diplomat at Reuters. "In terms of global arms sales, Germany is one of the largest in the world in the last two years, but Saudi Arabia does not represent much . "

A spokeswoman for the German government welcomed Friday the initiative of Austria, but declined to comment on the question of whether Germany and Austria were isolated in their position in the EU.

Merkel again pledged on Friday to suspend all German arms exports to Saudi Arabia until the killing of Khashoggi is explained.

The EU could save face by punishing Saudi individuals accused of killing Khashoggi and separating the issue from its close ties to the Saudi state.

EU governments have recently agreed on a mechanism to punish chemical weapons attacks by targeting people regardless of their nationality.

They could set up a similar system for human rights violations.

The United States has its Magnitsky Human Rights Act that covers all perpetrators of violence in all countries, named after Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian whistleblower who died in prison.

"France and Germany have to deal with the big problem of arms exports. EU governments could do something, it is to adopt a Magnitsky-type act to react, "said Rebecca Harms, Green Member of the European Parliament. She helped launch the badembly resolution calling for an arms embargo and sanctions this week.