"World" editorial. Faced with the drama unfolding in the Syrian province of Idlib, what can Europeans do? The scale of the humanitarian disaster – nearly a million people thrown on the roads by the regime's offensive -, the military escalation, with the loss of 33 Turkish soldiers, killed by a Syrian bombing on Thursday, February 27, and the involvement of Russian forces is combined in a major moral and political challenge for Europe.
In a column published by Le Monde, 14 European Union foreign ministers, including France and Germany, this week asked the Syrian government and its allies, Russian and Iranian, to end their offensive and to return to the terms of the 2018 ceasefire agreement reached in Sochi. This laudable initiative leads to two observations. First, even on such a consensual text, the Twenty-Seven are not able to display a united front. Britain is also missing, while Paris insists on the essential convergence with London in terms of security after Brexit.
The second observation, unfortunately repeated many times, concerns the helplessness of Europeans. This Syrian war, its dramas and its successive phases have cruelly tested for the past nine years the determination of Western democracies, their values and their capacity to translate their ambitions into military acts.
Europeans have only been really active in dealing with aftershocks: the humanitarian crisis, migratory flows. Today, they have neither the means nor the common will to impose a no-fly zone (no-fly zone) to prevent Russian aerial bombardment in Syria. The United States has washed its hands of the Syrian problem. The UN Security Council is paralyzed by Russia's systematic veto, often with Chinese support, of the resolutions on Syria.
Risks of a massive migration wave
The Europeans therefore anxiously witness spectators at the confrontation between the Syrian army, supported by the Russians, and the Turkish forces. The real risks of a new massive migratory wave and the displacement of jihadists to Europe may well, however, force them to step out of this role. After the deadly attack on its soldiers by Damascus forces on Thursday, Turkey, through the voice of one of its officials in Ankara, has raised the threat of no longer retaining the refugees from Syria, where it already shelters 3.5 million since the start of the war in 2011. If he lets the refugees go to Europe, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will break the arrangement concluded with the European Union in 2016, in the aftermath of the serious crisis in exodus of 2015. This new element was very likely to appear on the menu of discussions of the NATO Council, which met urgently Friday at the request of Ankara.
Paris and Berlin have tried to relaunch a four-way meeting format, with Moscow and Ankara, to give diplomacy a chance. But, in the absence of effective pressure tactics and interests shared by both parties, the road is narrow. Moscow, above all, does not want to hear anything. Russia supports the Damascus offensive, which wants to regain control of its entire territory. It justifies this support by the presence, among the combatants in the Idlib region, in the northwest of the country, of thousands of jihadists, without making any distinction.
France is finally starting to put words on the behavior of the Russian forces. The rostrum of European foreign ministers, including Jean-Yves Le Drian, clearly accuses the Russian air force and its strikes, which "Deliberately target hospitals and health centers" in the Idlib region, and denounces these "Massive violations of international humanitarian law". Russia has committed repeated war crimes, also covering up with the Syrian military. To say so is a first step, whereas Mr. Macron has embarked on an attempt at a more general dialogue with Moscow.
