FPC Research Associate Alex Jackson gives us his analysis of the new alliance between billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili and Western-feted opposition leader Irakli Alasania, that has been shaking up Georgian politics in recent weeks.

The UK has a number of on-going goals at the UN, none of which have much chance of an early resolution. For example, expanding the permanent representation on the Security Council to more accurately reflect the global balance of power in the world today rather than that of 1945 has been the policy of successive UK governments. Yet the practical challenges remain as intractable as ever. Adding further nations with veto powers would make an already dysfunctional body almost entirely unworkable. The main alternative, supported by the UK, is creating new (second-class) permanent members, always in the room but without a veto, with the most likely candidates being: India, Brazil, Japan, Germany (the G4 group) and an African seat for which South Africa and Nigeria would compete. Membership for each of those countries would spark a reaction from neighbourhood rivals, some of whom form part of the ‘uniting for consensus group’ opposed to any fundamental reform that cannot command overwhelming support, while the lack of a veto would still rankle.

Britain’s sensitivity over its continued membership of the P5 will continue to guide its actions – pushing for reform while resisting attempts to merge the UK and French seats under an EU umbrella, an unthinkable move given Conservative antipathy to the concept of an EU foreign policy, rather than just wildly implausible as before.

The Human Rights Council is a much maligned body, noted as often for the dubious human rights credentials of some of its members (voted for by regional neighbours) and its focus on the Israel/ Palestine conflict as its wider contribution to global human rights practice. In a small victory for common sense, Libya was kicked off the council after the conflict broke out this year but this still begs the question what it (and others such as Saudi Arabia) was doing there in the first place. The council’s new(ish) Universal Periodic Review at least gives all member states the chance to cross-examine countries on their human rights records and here the UK can play an important role in pushing for greater direct involvement of the voluntary sector, both within countries under review and internationally. The UK also needs to push for stronger action against those countries that refuse to grant access to the Human Rights Council’s special rapporteurs. The UK can continue to push for wider support of the Responsibility to Protect principles, building on the arguments accepted at the UN in the Libya case, although Russian and Chinese scepticism will continue to limit its broader applicability.

The findings of DfID’s recent Multilateral Aid Review effectively articulated an agenda for reform of UN specialised agencies by identifying areas of organisational weakness and explicitly linking funding to performance. This approach has led to the withdrawal of funding from four UN agencies, including the politicised and contentious decision to cease UK funding of the ILO, while two others were put in ‘special measures’.

The UN can be an infuriating institution but is an essential one in which Britain has traditionally played an important role. Yet, there is little evidence to suggest there is scope for rapid progress. For example, while political change in the Arab World may lead to new democracies, they are unlikely to be much more supportive of Western-style interventionism than their predecessors. The UK should continue to work diligently behind the scenes to achieve gradual progress. Sadly there is little scope for Britain to successfully spend significant political capital to ‘spearhead’ a major campaign for UN reform.

First published in Politics First Magazine Issue 4 (http://www.politicsfirst.org.uk/2011/should-britain-be-spearheading-a-campaign-to-reform-the-un/)

Petr Necas leads the Civic Democratic Party (Obcanska Demokratická Strana, or ODS), the country’s main centre-right party, and a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament, alongside the British Conservative Party. ODS was founded at the beginning of the 1991 by the current President Václav Klaus, and has championed radical free-market policies from the outset. Although Klaus is no longer a member of ODS, he still has many followers in the party, and his staunchly eurosceptic outlook and rigid free-market doctrine are core tenets for most members. It might indeed be argued that Klaus carries even more influence on his old party that the low-key Necas who is regarded by many as a weak and ineffective leader, concerned more with the survival of his government than matters of ideological purity.

Necas‘ coalition partners are two new centre-right parties, both of which were formed in the run-up to last year’s general election. One of the parties, Public Affairs (Vecí Verejne, or VV), imploded earlier this year, seemingly unable to recover from serious infighting, and in most opinion polls they are below the 5% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament. The more powerful of ODS’ partners is TOP 09, founded in 2009, and now in control of the ministries of finance and foreign affairs. TOP 09 shares much of ODS’ free-market ideology, but is more pro-European. In the 2010 election TOP 09 came only a few points behind ODS, and the party’s leaders are hoping to position it to overtake its rival to become the main centre-right party. Paradoxically, whilst ODS is by far the most eurosceptic party on the Czech political scene, their electoral base comprises some of the more pro-European sections of Czech society, and this could benefit their more Europhile rival. Moreover it is widely believed that Václav Klaus is planning to form a new eurosceptic party once his term as president ends in early 2013 – this would most probably take the form of a Czech version of UKIP, possibly also including more extreme elements. If Klaus does form his new party he is likely to attract current members of ODS, increasing the vulnerability of the party which he himself founded.

In this political climate the fiscal compact leaves Petr Necas in an unenviable position. The majority of his own party is virulently eurosceptic, and would be delighted to see him refusing to support the new agreement. On the other hand, the leaders of TOP 09 are firmly committed to the agreement, and have hinted that this could be a resignation issue, which would spell the end of the coalition. Beyond this balancing act, there will be pressure from Václav Klaus, who besides commanding support in ODS, has never hesitated to use his high media profile in support of his controversial views, and who, as president is entitled to attend cabinet meetings. Supporting the agreement would also put Necas on a collision course with the Czech National Bank. The majority of the central bank’s Board of Governors are Klaus appointees and the atmosphere at the bank is firmly eurosceptic. The bank is also against increasing its funding of the IMF in order to support the Eurozone. So Necas could keep his coalition together, at the expense of alienating many in his own party and risking the wrath of President Klaus and the opposition of the central bank. Or he might placate his party and avoid provoking a conflict with Klaus, only to see his government fall apart. He will also be acutely aware that the government in neighbouring Slovakia (which unlike the Czech Republic is in the Eurozone) fell this year precisely over the issue of support for an earlier rescue package.

A further complicating factor will come early in 2012 when both chambers of parliament debate the Czech opt-out from the Lisbon Treaty’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The opt-out was demanded by Václav Klaus as a precondition for signing the treaty, the last step in the process of ratification. The Czech Republic was the last country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the delay being the result of cases brought in the Constitutional Court by Klaus supporters. Klaus’ official reason for this demand was the concern that the Charter might be used by members of the country’s former German population to reclaim property that was confiscated at the end of the Second World War. This issue was never raised by Klaus during the process of negotiating the Lisbon Treaty, and it would appear fairly transparent that it was primarily a face-saving ploy when Klaus finally signed the treaty in late 2009. The validity of his claim as well as the legality, under the constitution, of his decision to withhold his signature are the subject of lively debate amongst constitutional lawyers. Nevertheless, the European Union did grant the Czech Republic the requested opt-out, which now has to be ratified by all member countries. Ironically, it is now clear that the opt-out will not be ratified in the Czech Republic, where it needs to pass both chambers of parliament. Since elections last Autumn the opposition Social Democrats have had a majority in the upper house, the Senate, and are committed to voting down this opt-out, which they see as an attempt to curtail workers’ rights. This will leave Klaus and his supporters incensed and in no mood to countenance further European treaties.

In conclusion the Czech government is bitterly divided on the question of whether to support the fiscal compact and the safest course of action for the Prime Minister is to delay a binding decision until as late as possible. Hence the Czech decision taken at the summit was not to support the agreement, but to consider the country’s position. Neèas has made it clear that a final decision will only be made once the full details of the deal are clear, which will not be until the Spring. Meanwhile he has been forging alliances with other potential dissenters, with a highly publicized telephone conversation with David Cameron in recent days and a personal meeting with the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, all the time being careful not to make a commitment either way. In his own words: “the fiscal compact reminds one of the Yeti, everyone talks about him, but nobody has actually seen what he looks like.” Necas must surely be hoping that this particular Yeti will die its own death before he is forced to face the moment of truth.

Sadly the FPC website is unable to display the ‘hacek’ that should be found on the c in Prime Minister Necas’ name.

Russia specialist Catherine Owen gives the FPC her take on unfolding political events in Russia, following the December 4th Duma elections. She examines the voting problems and the response of both the ruling elite and nascent opposition.

• Firstly the future of the City was not on the table in Brussels until David Cameron put it there. The decision to make financial regulation the issue on which the UK government would seek to make a stand seems only to have crystallised in the days immediately prior to the summit. Before this attempts were being made to see if other member states might accept a repatriation of powers in employment and social law (the old social chapter), a longstanding Conservative Party demand (and coalition agreement point) flatly rejected by the other governments. This was an engineered crisis to allow the Prime Minster to return home with something to show to his backbenchers that he had not missed the opportunity provided by the Eurozone’s desire for treaty change to extract a price for the UK’s cooperation. It is conceivable that had some of the UK’s negotiating points been put forward with greater subtlety and time, fellow member states may have been willing to agree to keep the show on the road. As it was they felt bounced into changing long-standing arrangements on matters that were nothing to do with the issue at hand – the existential economic crisis facing the Eurozone – and decided to call the Prime Minister’s bluff.

• Through this exercise in (failed) brinkmanship the Prime Minister has on balance made it more rather than less likely that new financial sector changes that he does not agree with will come to pass. Under previous EU arrangements a potential financial transactions tax (FTT) would have required UK agreement, as unanimity would have been required for it to go ahead. It is indeed true that any new arrangement for Eurozone fiscal coordination would have increased the risk of caucusing, which may have in turn under pressure from President Sarkozy changed the dynamics of the financial regulation debate within the EU that in practice had been moved forward unanimously until now (even in areas covered by Qualified Majority Voting-QMV). However following the new ‘Eurozone plus’ arrangements the future is less certain, and there is now a somewhat greater possibility that the 26 might choose to introduce such an FTT amongst themselves than would have been possible under existing structures with the British veto. In the other areas which the UK tried to have changed from QMV to unanimity such as the scope and location of European supervisory bodies that exist under current EU frameworks, the diplomatic deterioration makes it more rather than less likely that that the UK position will get outvoted in future.

• If these events are to presage a final rupture between the UK and the EU, there needs to be some clarity over what Britain’s options for going it alone actually are. European Economic Area members (EEA) members Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland have full access to the single market for goods, services, capital and labour (including freedom of movement) and as such have to accept EU regulations on these areas wholesale, without the ability to influence their constructions (with the exceptions of agriculture and fisheries). Switzerland (a member of the EFTA but not the EEA) has access to some areas of the single market as a result of negotiating bilateral agreements, where access has been balanced by corresponding regulatory convergence. Having at first cited Norway as a potential example of a country succeeding outside the UK, pro-withdrawal Eurosceptics are now more commonly using Switzerland as their potential alternative model, balking at the practicalities of the Norwegian experience of ‘fax diplomacy’. Notwithstanding differences in the two countries’ GDP per head and the structures of their economies, the UK’s demographic and economic size means that its presence has a much more significant impact on the operation of the single market. The UK should not assume it could pick and choose the elements of the single market and its regulations that it wanted à la carte from the EU. A doomsday scenario of a bitter divorce where no bilateral agreement was reached would inflict even greater damage on both sides, but the failsafe provided by the WTO would provide greater comfort to continental goods exporters than the UK’s services sector.
Much newsprint has been devoted to the Prime Minister’s sudden transformation from Neville Chamberlain to Winston Churchill in the eyes of Eurosceptics. However the national stereotype more fitting for the current position would be John Bull, not Churchill – the isolationist little-Englander rather than internationalist Briton (). The next few weeks and months will prove critical for Britain’s future. It is essential that those who believe that the UK has a role on the world stage, built as it is on the unique ability to knit together European, American, Commonwealth and global perspectives, to push the country back from the precipice and recommit to pragmatic discussions with our EU partners so that the European pillar of British influence is retained. Now is not the time to play political games that seek to embarrass the coalition for short-term gain, the economic and strategic risks for Britain’s future are too great.

A version of this article is available on the Huffington Post UK site at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-hug/john-bulls-britain-paddling-towards-euro-isolation_b_1145585.html

If the situation is to improve in the Eurozone (and the EU as a whole) in 2012 there are three elephant traps that policy-makers have fallen into over the past eighteen months that they must henceforth be avoided: Offering an overly simplistic diagnosis of the causes of the crisis, presenting one dimensional solutions which only address part of the problem, and attempting to ‘short-circuit’ democracy without developing the political tools necessary to deal with the crisis.

Beware the simplistic diagnosis:

When establishing the factors which caused the Sovereign Debt Crisis it is crucial to understand just how varied the circumstances are within the countries that have fallen victim to unsustainable Sovereign Debt. The cases of the two countries that were first affected by the debt crisis – Greece and Ireland – are so very different that it is impossible to offer a generalized diagnosis of what caused the crisis in 2010. A brief re-cap on the circumstances in both countries is a useful reminder of this.

In Greece the problems started after former Prime Minister George Papandreou announced that the actual level of the Greek deficit was 12.7%, not 6% as had been previously claimed, in the autumn of 2009. The markets were rocked by the dishonesty of the previous Greek Government and the cost of borrowing subsequently started to rise sharply. Things came to a head in May 2010, when it became apparent that the Greek State was unable to function because its cost of borrowing was too high. Greece’s cost of borrowing had always been about 10 percentage points above that of Germany before they joined the euro, so it was illogical for their cost of borrowing to drop so sharply simply because they changed currency. A combination of market failure and dishonest accounting led to a cheap credit supply, some of which was misallocated (from an investment point of view) by successive Greek Governments. The Euro had been a sleeping pill for Greece.

Ireland, by contrast, rather than acting duplicitously, did everything ‘right’ – as far as the economic orthodoxy of the day was concerned. Ireland was considered by many to be the ‘poster boy’ of the European Union; the country ran a budget surplus in most years and they were not even close to breaching the rules in the Stability and Growth Pact, which had been flouted most seriously by Greece, but also by France and Germany in 2003. The Irish economy grew quickly from the 1990s to 2006 and they had created a ‘successful’ economy by setting low corporate tax rates and attracting a high rate of foreign investment. The crisis in Ireland could perhaps better be referred to as a conventional banking crisis, which in turn caused the State to become exposed to a degree which it could not afford when the Irish Government decided to cover every single loan made by every Irish commercial bank. In the blink of an eye, Ireland went from being in surplus to having an unsustainable level of Sovereign Debt similar to that of Greece, even though the debt the State was responsible for was private debt, not public. Rather than a sleeping pill, the Euro had been a vitamin booster for Ireland, encouraging borrowing and driving growth through the private sector.

However, listening to some politicians in the German and British Governments one might be led to think that the entire crisis was caused by feckless Greek Governments, when in reality this is only a part of the problem – there would still be a Sovereign Debt Crisis even if all EU countries had followed the rules in the Stability and Growth Pact, as whichever government was required to step in to cover the unsustainable debt in the private sector, would in turn be crippled by that debt. Politicians of the centre-right are unwilling to use Ireland (or Iceland) when seeking to diagnose the problem as this requires an admission of market failure and all that follows.

It is important to remember that many of the problems that caused the crisis in Ireland were policy errors and market failures that were replicated right across the developed world, and such a severe over-allocation of capital to sectors that returned so little (real estate and financial instruments) is not particularly uncommon in the history of capitalism. The cases of Greece and Ireland are linked not simply by the fact that they share the same currency, but by the fact their debt is held by so many other players across the EU and across the world.

Beware the one-dimensional solution:

As there is political blindness over what caused the crisis it is unsurprising that the solutions put forward often reflect this. So many of the long term potential solutions have been focussed on ‘competitiveness’, or reducing public spending in Southern Eurozone states. Though these issues are important they miss the fact that undercapitalized banks in Northern Europe which are exposed to the debt of Ireland and Greece are just as responsible for the economic instability as the undercapitalized countries of Southern Europe. In the same way, structural trade deficits within the Eurozone which have caused the competitiveness gap between the ‘core’ and the ‘periphery’ are as much the responsibility of the surplus countries (Germany) as the deficit countries (Spain). If I were to try and explain the problem in a nutshell I would probably put it something like this: You can’t have a single currency area with structural current account imbalances and an undercapitalized banking system.

There is agreement on the most obvious solutions; there has to be proper oversight of national debt and deficit figures, so countries are not able to tell fibs about their levels of borrowing. Regarding the structural current account imbalances, a multi-dimensional solution will recognise that it is equally important for surplus countries to stimulate demand as it is for deficit countries to focus on exports, and this must be as prominent as the competitiveness and austerity agenda in 2012. A further dimension to the solution which has finally come to the fore in recent weeks is that the undercapitalized banks in Germany, France and Britain, which made bad loans, must be part of the solution, as they too are responsible for the crisis. In the future these banks must never be so exposed as to tip Governments into unsustainable debt.

Finally, regarding the ‘nuclear solution’ of the break-up of the Eurozone and a return to national currencies, it is hard to see how this would benefit the countries that are worst affected by the crisis. Devaluation would not suddenly allow exporters in Ireland or Southern Europe to compete with specialised German exporters, it takes decades to engender such a manufacturing program; instead Greece and Ireland would be devaluing against China, who themselves keep their currency artificially low. The devaluation tool is simply no longer the economic wrench it once was for European Finance ministers. In addition the colossal level of debt would cripple the new ‘independent’ countries with rates of repayments that would be far higher than they are now and far higher than any developing country. Of course it would benefit the tourist industry as it would be cheaper for Northern European tourists to take package holidays in the Mediterranean, but this is hardly a credible long-term solution – it would be a sticking plaster at best.

Beware the solution that ‘short-circuits’ democracy

The elephant trap that has lured more policy makers than any other since the crisis started has been the instinct to ‘short-circuit’ democracy. Though it is necessary for each nation to pool its sovereignty in some policy areas within the EU, there is nevertheless a strong economic argument against by-passing national democracies if one is seeking to find a credible solution. The complexity of the problems, as explained in the difference between Greece and Ireland, show that a single formula will not be appropriate as the problems are often so varied. During periods such as this it is more important than ever that those seeking to find a solution are in touch with the political and economic nuances within each country, as without these any solution will be impractical. It is seductive to produce a grand solution which by-passes the official EU channels with the accompanying political squabbling, but attempts to do this during the crisis so far have been damaging.

The first plan of this nature came in the spring of this year when France and Germany produced the ‘Competitiveness Pact’ that was designed to force all Eurozone countries to follow a strict program of reform on a wide range of policy areas including pensions, public sector pay and market reform; this, it was said, was the pact to ‘bring Europe out of the crisis’. The most pertinent objection to the pact was that it recommended changes that were necessary in some countries but would be counter-productive in others.

For example, public sector pensions in Belgium are quite sustainable and not in need of reform, whereas in other countries they are crippling the public purse. The later agreement that become the ‘Euro Plus Pact’ recognised these differences after Heads of Government in the EU were able to contribute, thus avoiding a Franco-German diktat.

More recently the idea that ‘technocracy’ can provide the solution has also become appealing, though historically it has been very difficult to foster long term economic stability in a country just by installing ‘experts’. Trying to “‘GDP’ a country” – as the IMF have found out – is almost impossible as only an elected politician who is accountable to the voters will have the agility and the accountability to implement reforms that are required. In addition, any technocrat, whether installed in Brussels, Athens or Rome will have an impossible research agenda if they are to design a comprehensive solution that is appropriate for the entire Eurozone. A temporary solution in which democratically elected parliaments install a ‘non-political’ head of government might be acceptable if it provides some temporary respite from the crisis, but if you try to short-circuit democracy too often the solutions will not work.

There will be many more agreements and fall outs as the key players attempt to reach agreement in 2012. The process of finding a solution to end the Eurozone crisis would be greatly assisted if policy-makers adhered to the following principles: avoid rhetoric that ignores the multiple causes of the crisis, propose solutions that address all the dimensions of the crisis and recognise that a long-term solution can only be found when democratically elected politicians work together.

The government has an expressive votong majority in National Congress. Nominally, there are 400 in the House and 62 in the Senate. However, this does not mean that life is easy in Parliament. Allied dissatisfaction and appetites make mobilization of this majority difficult and voting on some issues of interest to the Planalto Palace extremely expensive.

The constitutional amendment that extends the Disentailment of Union Revenue (DRU), a mechanism which allows the government to use 20% of the Budget as it pleases is a good example of this. This is an important fiscal policy instrument for the government.

Last week, the issue was on the House floor agenda to be put to first-round voting. However, due to pressure from allies, it was postponed until November 8.

In order to increase its power of blackmail over the Executive Branch, using its full weight the PMDB supported a DEM amendment which proposes the extension of the DRU until 2013 only and not 2015, as desired by the Executive Branch. This might further tie down president Rousseff in budget terms, right on the eve of the elections. In other words, approval of the DRU in 2013 would cost even more.

Blackmail from the base does not only reside in the House, but also in the Senate. In order to circumvent the delay in approval of the DRU in the House, government leader in the Senate, Romero Jucá (PMDB-RR), presented a similar proposal to that of the Executive Branch. It was on the Justice and Constitution Committee agenda last week and voting was equally delayed.

Management of its base (not its actual base per se), is therefore one of the government’s greatest legislative challenges. The good results of the Rousseff administration combined with high popularity have contributed for this scenario not to be even worse.

Lula most certainly has an important role with regards to the government’s stability and, especially, in maintaining political base unity. Without Lula, many of the allies, even within the PT itself, would disperse and the conflicts situation would be even greater than it currently is.

Besides his role as a stabilizer, Lula is still considered a real political possibility for 2014. Notwithstanding the fact that he has declared on numerous occasions that he will not run for the Planalto Palace and that Dilma Rousseff is the natural candidate for reelection, it is a well-known fact that he could be candidate. Should Rousseff not be successful in promoting unity of the political base around herself, Lula would be a person capable of bringing the allies together.

Thus, at this moment in which the news surfaces without greater details and without knowing the precise prognosis of the disease, the political world is experiencing a moment of great tension; and certainly the most serious moment of the Rousseff administration, inasmuch that Lula has a politically strategic role.

Initially, Lula’s illness may even strengthen the government politically. The motion caused by the news may generate more unity and even more popular support for Rousseff. However, behind the scenes, the news came as a bombshell and has caused doubts and uncertainties.

Within the short-term scenario, Lula will step away from politics in order to treat his illness. A source close to the situation told Reuters that, besides chemotherapy as informed by the Sírio-Libanês Hospital, Lula will also be submitted to radiotherapy. In all, the treatment is expected to last for three months. He has canceled all his national and international trips up to January 2012.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this is a serious problem for the PT. After all, following an agenda targeted at international events, Lula was going to more energetically dedicate himself to negotiations surrounding the municipal elections. Its worthwhile remembering that on November 27 the PT party will have its primaries to choose the party’s candidate for the São Paulo City Hall. The former president also commands the preparation of the PT party’s electoral strategy for the 2012 municipal elections in various important cities.

With the PT weakened by Lula’s current frailty, the government may become more dependent on the PMDB.

If you look at periods, such as the early 2000s, when Turkey passed crucial package of reforms aimed at boosting its membership chances of joining the European Union or when it took bold steps towards settling the Cyprus issue, you will see those times coincided with lulls in fighting in the south east. Or else, they were times when the insurgency was under control and the Kurdish militant group PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – was in retreat with its leader safely locked up. Turkey has made substantial progress over the past 10 years. It has become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies with increased prosperity and stability at home and growing influence abroad.

But as we have seen time and time again, democracy is still fragile. As the security situation deteriorates, already inadequate checks and balances weaken. Institutions become the guardians of the state rather than the guarantor of citizen’s rights. This prolonged conflict traps Turkey in militarism and both Turks and Kurds in ultra-nationalism. Violence also gives both the PKK and the state a considerable economic and social power. There are many on both sides that will lose out if and when the fighting stops. How else do you explain the Kurdish insurgents’ latest attacks happening on the same day of the first meeting of the parliamentary committee negotiating changes to the constitution? Was it a coincidence that the PKK deliberately escalated the conflict, just as the debate to give Kurds their long-fought ethnic rights got underway?

This vicious cycle of mutual destruction has now reached a very dangerous stage beyond threatening freedom of speech and other basic rights. The violent attacks perpetrated by the PKK on October 19, in the south east, caused widespread anger – increasing the risk of a Turkish backlash against Kurds elsewhere in the country. If the government responds beyond legitimate security measures, further escalation of violence and deepening of Kurdish grievances become inevitable. Those of us that have always believed that the best way to solve the Kurdish conflict was to have more democracy now find it ever more difficult to argue for change. It is not easy to convince others that a consensus-based, non-discriminatory set of rules – in line with universal values and international law – would be the best way forward, while indiscriminate violence goes on; undermining the basic foundations of democracy.

The day after the series of deadly strikes near the border with Iraq, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called media managers and newspaper editors to a three-hour meeting. It was off-the-record and details of the discussion were treated as a “state secret”. In a statement afterwards, Erdogan said he had asked the media to avoid extensive coverage of acts of terrorism and to refrain from using sensationalist language. Journalists had already been under pressure. Turkish reporters writing about state links to Islamist movements or the Kurdish issue or the 1915 Armenian massacres often find themselves in serious trouble. Reporters Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener have been held in prison for more than six months. They are two prominent journalists known for critical reporting on the Turkish criminal justice system and the police.

In April this year – Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, asked Turkish authorities to bring the country’s media legislation in line with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe commitments on media freedoms. She wrote to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, saying that the authorities must protect objective reporting even on sensitive topics such as terrorism or national security. “The public has a right to know such issues,” she said. Erdogan has an extremely poor track record in his relations with the media. The numerous lawsuits brought on by Erdogan; an against journalists and hectoring tone he takes with media professionals set the tone in the country. Also, there are always plenty of pro-government journalists to verbally attack those that do not fall in line. The result is, despite countless number of publications and media outlets, a diverse – but not necessarily pluralistic – self-censoring media. Erdogan called it “imposing self-control and adopting a national standing”. I call it a worrying decline in Turkey’s press freedoms.

In June 2011, African leaders unveiled concrete plans to create an African-wide free trade area when they announced that 26 African nations will join the three existing, but often overlapping regional trade blocks. Their ambition is to create a duty and quota free movements of goods, services and business people by 2016, and an Africa-wide economic and monetary area by 2025.

There are very obvious advantageous of an African free trade area. Pooling their markets may help African economies better take advantage of new growth opportunities offered by the rise of powerful new emerging powers. It may also help African economies overcome new challenges caused by the decline of some of the old industrial powers in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Given the debt crises in the US and the EU it becomes even more important for African countries to integrate closer and quicker, because better intra-regional trade can provide a protective buffer from global shocks. Furthermore, it may provide a protective wall to African countries to beneficiate their economies from single-commodity dominated ones and nurture new manufacturing and services industries.

Many African economies are so tiny they are unviable on their own. Pooling African economies will bring larger economies of scale and markets which has the potential of expanding production and demand. Currently African countries trade more with the rest of the world, mostly former colonial powers, than with each other.

What should be done differently to prevent the idea of an African grand free trade area turning into a grand failure?

The first requirement is political will – at the heart of many African development failures.

There are a number of regional trade blocs in Africa, all with different rules, regulations and are at different stages of integration – all which could slow the building a free trade area.

Whatever the level of integration within these regional groupings, all of them have struggled to free the movement of goods, labour and services.

There are high levels of protectionism between African countries. Restrictive trade permits requirements and frequent bans on imports from neighbours persist. Economic disparities between African countries are further obstacles. Smaller countries fear domination by bigger neighbours, while bigger ones, fear a grand free trade area would lead to domination by South African produce. Non-trade tariffs such as travel restrictions, poor physical infrastructure, incompetent public administrations and rampant corruption are major stumbling blocks.

Political instability in many African countries is a major problem. Most of African economies are one raw material or agricultural product-based economies. African countries typically export raw materials abroad and buy the finished products at higher prices.

Africa’s rising growth has mostly been because of a boost in mineral exports’, increase local demand at home due growing domestic markets fuelled by a rising African middle class, and increased trade with new emerging powers, such as China, India and Brazil. However, Africa’s current growth spurt is following the old pattern of being based on exporting raw materials instead of diversifying into manufacturing, services and value-add products. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan rightly calls this African growth spurt, ‘low-quality’ growth. The growth has remained “inequitable, jobless, (and) volatile” and if continued on current patterns unlikely to lead to widespread job creation and poverty reduction. A report by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union (AU) released in July 2011, titled “Economic Report on Africa 2011,” urged Africans to diversify production and exports through improving “competitiveness by tackling supply-side constraints as well as improving infrastructure and productive capacities, among other things”.

Weak logistics and supply chains, and scarce bank finance are other obstacles.

Africa imports most of the manufacturing and services it could arguably produce at home from abroad – this will have to be rectified.

The challenge is for individual African countries within a grand free trade area to specialize: one country must produce what another country can’t, but needs. In fact, each African country should pick the manufacturing and service sectors they may have competitive advantages, and then trade or barter with each other. At the moment if one African country needs manufactured products, few neighbours can provide it.

Each African country should be required to cobble together an industrial policy which at its heart should have diversifying from one agricultural product or commodity to value-added products.

All the individual country industrial policies must feed into a regional industrial policy; which in turn should be connected to a continental-wide industrial policy for Africa. Developing regional supply chains for products can help African economies against global shocks, such as the current debt crises in the Eurozone and US. The bulk of the indigenous sectors of most African economies are in the informal sector, that’s also where most of the jobs are being created. A free trade zone among Africans will be useless unless it includes small traders in the informal sectors, who are often face formidable bureaucratic barriers.

The existing regional blocs should be turned into regional economic growth zones. Infrastructure – power, transport, telecommunication networks and so on – should be developed within each country, within and between the regional economic growth zones.

A continental infrastructure grid must connect the regional economic growth zones.

Up to this day most infrastructure networks in most African countries have not changed since colonialism. Colonial powers constructed infrastructure networks in the countries under their control from the small areas that produced the one commodity or agriculture product to the coast for export to the ‘mother’ country. The colonial infrastructure networks rarely connected neighbouring countries.

Sadly, African countries during the post-colonial period have left such infrastructure arrangements untouched and even unmaintained.

All the regional blocs must work towards macro-economic convergence – setting basic prudent standards for fiscal and monetary policy. Exchange rate volatility – often because of poor monetary policies – has been a particular problem in Africa.

Convergence of macro-economic policies will be a challenge given the history of African countries over-emphasising political and economic sovereignty.

Most African countries have trade agreements with former colonial powers which often undermine integration with other African countries. The European Union’s economic partnership agreements (EPAs) demand that African countries declare the EU as ‘most favourite nation’. Under the United States African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA), the US signs trade arrangements with individual African countries – rather than with regional blocs. This undermines African regional integration and the formation of regional supply chains.

It would naïve to think that the new emerging powers such as China and India would suddenly open their markets for African products. In reality it is very difficult for African manufactured products and services – to penetrate China and Indian markets.

African countries will have to trade more smartly – together – with their new emerging market friends as well as with old industrial powers. Given the impact of the global financial crisis on industrial countries it is unlikely that high tariff barriers and subsidies in industrial nations and new emerging powers are going to decline significantly – in many cases they may become more protective and cut development aid.

It will also be silly to think that if industrial nations and new emerging powers suddenly lift tariff barriers and subsidies to African products that many African producers will be able to compete. Most African countries are uncompetitive – compared to industrial nations and some new emerging market players – when it comes to manufactures and services. However, African produce and services may perhaps be uncompetitive for whatever reasons in industrial markets – but African countries can trade these products with each other, if they off course can bring down the costs of infrastructure, red tape and corruption.

For another, the big challenge also for Africans is going to be to set out a legally binding mechanism – and penalties – to get signatories to the free trade area to stay the course. Africans will also have to set up more effective dispute resolutions to deal with inevitable trade disputes between members. Lastly, better African leadership and greater democracy remains a crucial barrier in creating an effective free trade area. African citizens – farmers, traders, civil society and individual citizens’ – must actively participate in building a grand free trade area, if it is to be durable.

William Gumede is Honorary Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is the co-editor of The Poverty of Ideas, Jacana.