International Crisis Group
EU Watch List / Global 22 May 2025 20+ minutes
Watch List 2025 – Spring Update
Each year, Crisis Group publishes two updates to the EU Watch List identifying where the EU and its member states can enhance prospects for peace. This update covers Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions, drug trafficking from Latin America, Pakistan’s forcible expulsion of Afghan refugees, the Sahel and Syria.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Armenia and Azerbaijan;Getting the Peace Agreement across the Finish Line
- Latin America; Europe's War on Drugs Should be Different
- Pakistan - Afghanistan : Tempering the Deportation Drive
- Defining a New Approach to the Sahel's Military-led States
- A Helping Hand for Post - Assad Syria
Introduction
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Getting the Peace Agreement across the Finish Line
Latin America: Europe’s War on Drugs Should be Different
Pakistan-Afghanistan: Tempering the Deportation Drive
Defining a New Approach to the Sahel’s Military-led States
A Helping Hand for Post-Assad Syria
Introduction
For the European Union and its member states, a long-deferred moment of reckoning has arrived with Donald Trump’s re-election to the U.S. presidency.
Some European leaders may have been lulled into complacency by Trump’s first term. After all, when he sat in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Trump was more bark than bite. He made clear his frustration both with the EU, which he saw as undercutting the U.S. economically, and the NATO alliance, which he viewed as free-riding on Washington’s military might. But though Trump and his emissaries made these views known in uncomfortable meetings with European counterparts, his first administration did little to turn them into concrete policy – often because senior officials checked the president’s impulses.
This time is different. The administration has been constructed on the basis of loyalty to Trump and is more serious about realising the president’s preferences. It is also cannier about the mechanics of doing so. At the core of those preferences is a desire to free the U.S. from traditional relationships that Trump sees as expensive and entangling, the work of a foreign policy elite he despises. In place of the old alliances, he wishes to pursue a transactional approach to international relations. He wants the U.S. to use its enormous political, military and economic clout to secure deals that, in his view, will help “Make America Great Again” by dint of their benefits to the U.S. citizenry. In all likelihood, the president envisions that some close to him will profit, too.
This “America first” foreign policy was on display in Trump’s first major trip abroad in May (save a brief sojourn to Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis), which saw him visit three Gulf monarchies; pocket billions of dollars in investment commitments in exchange for transfers of arms and technology; and deliver a scathing speech attacking the interventionist inclinations of prior administrations.
The Good, the Bad and the Murky
There may be certain upsides to Trump’s approach. The unqualified support Trump enjoys from allies throughout the U.S. government gives his administration space to do unorthodox things that predecessors would have quailed from. He has, for example, been ready to disregard the predilections of hawks in Washington and Israel when it comes to many elements of Middle East policy: engaging in several rounds of nuclear talks with Iran, pulling back from a campaign that his own administration escalated against Houthi insurgents in Yemen, speaking directly with Hamas and lifting U.S. sanctions on Syria that have been strangling the country’s economic recovery (though as yet he has done nothing to stop Israel’s horrific assault on Gaza).
From the perspective of Washington’s European allies, however, Trump’s iconoclasm has mainly had downsides. Indeed, in its turbulent first three months, the new administration compromised virtually every dimension of traditional trans-Atlantic cooperation. With respect to matters of principle, Trump’s embrace of territorial expansionism – including the intimation that he might seize Greenland from NATO ally Denmark by force – marked the U.S. as a revisionist power, ready to redraw borders at will. If the U.S. and EU used to coordinate efforts to meet development and humanitarian challenges around the world, Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development upended that tradition, leaving huge gaps in global aid budgets. The EU and member states are scrambling to fill some of these holes, while making clear that their finances will not allow for plugging them all. Then came the U.S. tariffs levied on 2 April (“liberation day”, Trump called it), which hit allies hard. (The imposts have since been partially suspended until early July.)
Could things be worse? Yes. Peace and security arrangements are wobbly, but still largely intact. The administration briefly cut off material and intelligence assistance to Ukraine (the former was allocated under President Joe Biden’s administration) following a disastrous meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 28 February – but that has resumed, at least for the time being. Washington has not walked away from NATO or any of its treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific. After stunning the Munich Security Conference in February with a speech that sounded like an attack on European democracies (and on the same trip lending his support to Germany’s far-right opposition), Vice President JD Vance struck an almost conciliatory tone when he spoke to the forum’s leadership in May.
But for the EU and member states, these remain uncomfortable times. While Trump has yet to repudiate a mutual defence commitment, his apparent disdain for alliances can only call into question whether he would stand behind them in a pinch. Nor is it clear what might happen down the road in terms of U.S. troop deployments in Europe, which U.S. officials have said will be reduced, but not by how much or in exactly which places. European leaders are awaiting the results of a “force posture review” to see whether it becomes the vehicle for a major shift of U.S. troops off the continent. The best outcome would be a phased plan, to be rolled out over a term of years, which gives European powers time to develop their own defences as the U.S. draws down.
The Ukraine File
Against this backdrop of shocks and challenges, the Ukraine file has been especially difficult for European leaders to manage. As Crisis Group has noted elsewhere, the Trump administration manoeuvred the U.S. into a role that previously would have been unthinkable – acting as a mediator between Russia, on one side, and Ukraine and its mainly European backers, on the other. At times, this approach appeared to clear room for diplomacy, but the prospect of a deal – even a ceasefire – appears increasingly illusory. Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of entertaining the truce that Washington was urging upon the parties and Zelenskyy agreed to accept. Nor, despite Trump’s unconventional diplomacy, does anything thus far suggest that Putin will walk back his oft-repeated goal of stripping Ukraine of its capacity to defend itself or form security relationships with Western capitals. The Russian president refused to travel to Istanbul to negotiate with Zelenskyy on 15 May and stonewalled Trump during a 19 May telephone conversation, which ended without a breakthrough.
That call left Trump suggesting that he would defer to Kyiv and Moscow to work things out between themselves. While the administration has recalibrated its approach to Ukraine more than once over the past three months, Trump’s desire to first get some kind of pause in the fighting and then remove the U.S. from further Russia-Ukraine diplomacy has been a consistent throughline. If the U.S. genuinely steps back from talks, peace-seeking diplomacy with Russia will become vastly more difficult for Ukraine and its European supporters, as Putin has made clear he is mainly, and perhaps only, interested in engaging Trump. Not just that – if Washington takes the further step of again cutting off support to Ukraine, this time for the long run, the EU and member states may struggle to compensate in full. Even with the big strides Ukraine has made in its own weapons production, gaps remain – especially with respect to air defence and intelligence. What Russia is able to achieve in this scenario may partly depend on the extent to which the U.S. remains willing to sell Ukraine and its backers air defence systems and to share intelligence.
Ukraine’s European backers can thus be expected to try to buy time, as they have already been doing with some success. Skilful diplomacy by London, Paris and others has helped Zelenskyy repair bridges with Trump and may even have convinced some in the administration that European leverage can help Washington forge a deal. The natural resources deal Ukraine signed with the U.S. could be read as increasing Washington’s interest in keeping Kyiv sovereign – and perhaps offering some justification for continuing to provide it with support – though the agreement is, in fact, thin on commitments. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have also been at the forefront of a coalition of Ukraine’s supporters that has advanced discussions about a “reassurance force” that could – hypothetically – be deployed to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire. Even if doubts about the viability of such a force persist, the planning demonstrates to both Moscow and Washington that Europeans are willing to step up. Still, the EU and member states must live with the possibility that Trump’s patience will run out, perhaps even abruptly, and they will be left with an enormous responsibility that will be onerous to meet.
Making Up for Lost Time
While the EU and member states should have done more to make themselves less dependent on Washington before President Trump’s return, there is no longer any hiding from the challenge. Though the administration seems to have eased up on its European allies for now, Trump has clearly signalled that, more than any other U.S. president of the post-World War II period, he sees trans-Atlantic ties as expendable. There is no stable ground on which to rest the trans-Atlantic relationship that does not involve Europe exercising greater autonomy. But the continent remains too dependent on the U.S. militarily and economically to move in that direction as quickly as might be optimal. European leaders will need to work to keep the U.S. as committed as possible to Ukraine and NATO, for as long as possible, while also preparing for the possibility that one day, possibly soon, the U.S. assistance – at least in its current form – will be gone. In that case, as Crisis Group has previously written, European governments will need to help Ukraine defend itself, continue backing Kyiv in negotiated efforts to end the war (assuming those continue), and develop new strategies and plans for deterrence that do not rely on U.S. aid, commitments or enablers, such as transport, logistics and intelligence.
In this evolving European security architecture, the EU and member states will not be able to put up a soldier, ship or plane for each one that the U.S. pulls back, but instead will have to look to other options. Already, EU and NATO members are exploring how to use assets they have in a manner that reflects the budgets, threat assessments and risk tolerance of the countries involved. One idea gaining traction would see coalitions of like-minded countries – potentially including countries in NATO but not the EU, like the UK, Türkiye, Norway and Canada – uniting outside EU or NATO auspices to develop plans for defence purchases and other purposes. But with budgets tight and elections looming in several key states, capitals face a challenging set of tasks as they seek ways to invest in their joint security future without undermining immediate needs. NATO’s summit in June at The Hague may provide more of a roadmap, though, given the need to get all allies on board for plans, it will surely also leave much unanswered.
Beyond managing their own security, there is ample room for the EU and member states to carve out greater autonomy from the U.S. in setting their course vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Amid Trump’s unpredictability, Brussels is working to project itself as a reliable partner to a range of regional powers with whom deepened relations could provide economic, political or security benefits. In the first few months of 2025, the EU’s leadership had high-level engagements with India, Türkiye and South Africa, for example. In the second-to-last week of May, a long-awaited EU-African Union ministerial meeting is taking place in Brussels. Around the same time, the EU and the UK held a post-Brexit summit in London, to unveil a reset deal to improve relations.
Seeking Peace in a Perilous World
Beyond Ukraine, no crisis merits Europe’s attention more than the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. Nineteen months after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israel’s war in the strip has evolved into a phase seemingly defined less by the goal of destroying Hamas than by the unmaking of Gaza itself. Under the banner of Operation Gideon’s Chariots – a plan that has military and aid delivery components – Israel has relaunched large-scale airstrikes, while opening fresh axes for ground incursions and razing depopulated neighbourhoods, letting artillery and drones pound the rest. Already, the Israeli army has rendered 70 per cent of the strip a “no-go zone”. The plan is now apparently to funnel civilians through army checkpoints into cramped “humanitarian zones” to receive only ration-level aid. The scheme, by the lights of the UN‐coordinated body that assesses these matters, could tip the entire enclave into famine. With Gaza under total blockade since 2 March, prices for staples have skyrocketed, the entire population faces life-threatening food insecurity and a quarter of the population is starving. With the threat of mass starvation looming, Israel opened Gaza to aid trucks on 19 May, but the UN describes the supplies that have made it into the strip as a “drop in the ocean”. Israeli ministers openly label this new phase as “conquest”, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that his demand for ending the war includes what Israel calls “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians to third countries – which amounts to engineered depopulation under fire.
Whatever security logic might once have driven the war has evaporated. Israel claims to have eliminated most of Hamas’s senior commanders and weapons. Yet the devastation has pushed many young men into the group’s ranks, according to intelligence assessments. Meanwhile, the Israeli military campaign continues to flatten Gaza’s remaining buildings, destroy its governance capacity and rend its social fabric. Inside Israel, families of those still held by Hamas understand that every fresh assault further imperils the captives’ lives. A majority of Israelis have consistently called for an end to war to release the hostages as well as early elections to replace the Netanyahu government.
Many EU member states have condemned the Gideon’s Chariots plans – including in a joint statementsigned by 24 foreign ministers (including seventeen from the EU), European commissioners and the EU high representative, which demanded an immediate, full resumption of aid deliveries through tested existing channels, according to recognised humanitarian norms. France, Canada and the UK also put out a joint letter with similar demands. Such statements are a welcome, if belated, response to one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent decades.
But gestures will be ineffective unless linked to concrete steps aimed at curbing Israel’s policies. As Israel’s biggest trading partner, the EU should use the review of Israel’s compliance with the human rights provision of the EU-Israel Association Agreement – which EU member states pressed for on 20 May – as leverage, demanding that Israel end the war and allow immediate relief into Gaza in exchange for retaining its trading privileges. States like the UK and Germany should ban weapons sales to Israel until it stops the war and lifts the siege. Other measures might include an expansion of existing sanctions targeting West Bank settlements and individual sanctions against Israeli ministers and officers involved in human rights abuses.
Other crises where the EU and member states can make a positive contribution sit further from the headlines. This EU Watch List update focuses on some of those crises, with entries on Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks, Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions, the Sahel and Syria, as well as drug trafficking from Latin America to Europe. As always, this list is non-comprehensive. It does not address, for example, the civil war in Sudan, or the gang violence that is consuming Haiti or the conflicts that are tearing at Myanmar’s periphery. Crisis Group has covered these cases elsewhere, including in previous editions of the EU Watch List. But the present list does zero in on a handful of hotspots where the EU and member states can foster stability, serving their security, economic and humanitarian interests, while helping bring more peace to a changing and perilous world.
Armenia and Azerbaijan: Getting the Peace Agreement across the Finish Line
Almost two years after a lightning offensive restored Azerbaijani control of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee the enclave, a peace agreement between Yerevan and Baku could be in sight. Armenia and Azerbaijan announced in March that they have completed the text of such an agreement. The question is whether they will sign it. Azerbaijan says it will not do so until the Armenian constitution changes to omit language that it sees as a claim on internationally recognised Azerbaijani territory. Armenia’s leaders accuse Azerbaijan of using the issue as a pretext to sabotage the peace agreement; while they are working to change the constitution (which they say they are doing of their own accord) the process will not draw to a close for at least another year.
Meanwhile, tensions between the two South Caucasus neighbours are mounting. Azerbaijan regularly accuses Armenia of ceasefire violations at their common border – the main hotspot between the two since Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nor are issues relating to Nagorno-Karabakh fully put to rest: Baku fears that Yerevan has designs on taking it back, while Yerevan both denies the accusation and argues that Baku (which is far stronger and better armed) is edging the neighbours back toward war. As both countries build up their arsenals, the risk of renewed conflict is real.
While bilateral negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have replaced EU-mediated talks, the EU and its member states can support the peace process and contribute to regional peace and security by:
Encouraging the parties to sign the peace agreement and helping address issues that are preventing that from happening in the near term, for example by promoting a compromise under which the parties sign it on the basis of an Armenian commitment to subsequently make the constitutional change requested by Azerbaijan;
Proposing investments that could be made in conflict-affected regions of both countries once an agreement is signed, with a particular focus on projects that would help better integrate the region’s economy into the rest of the world;
Supporting risk reduction measures that can help defuse the prospect of escalation because of an accident or inadvertence, which is a particularly concerning scenario in the period before the agreement is signed.
Annalena Baerbock (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, 2nd row, M), Foreign Minister of Germany, visits the EUMA (European Union Mission in Armenia) near the border with Azerbaijan. Armenia, Paruyr Sevak, 4 November 2023. Hannes P. Albert / dpa Hannes P Albert / DPA / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP
A Peace Treaty in Limbo
On 13 March, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced that they had resolved outstanding differences over the final two articles of a long-negotiated agreement to end their string of conflicts dating back more than three decades.
The first war between the two sides took place in the early 1990s, when both were emerging from Soviet rule, and ended in an Armenian victory. Yerevan gained control of Nagorno-Karabakh – an enclave of mainly ethnic Armenians that was part of Soviet Azerbaijan – as well as several adjacent provinces of Azerbaijan. The entire local ethnic Azerbaijani population, more than 600,000 people, was forced to flee those territories. An ethnic Armenian de facto government took charge and set about consolidating authority in a statelet that was unrecognised by any other country and relied heavily on military and financial support from Armenia. Baku made clear that it found this status quo unacceptable. From 1994 to 2020, intermittent lethal incidents between the parties – and Azerbaijan’s steadily growing military might – underscored that another war remained possible.
In 2020, after more than twenty years of negotiations brokered by U.S., French and Russian diplomats failed to yield meaningful progress, Azerbaijan launched a war to take back its territories by force. Azerbaijani troops recaptured about three quarters of the land they had lost in the 1990s, but the core ethnic Armenian areas of Nagorno-Karabakh remained under de facto Armenian control. Russia was the guarantor of the ceasefire that followed and deployed a contingent of peacekeepers to the part of Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenian forces still controlled.
In 2022, [Azerbaijan] launched a major attack on Armenia proper, improving its strategic position.
Yerevan and Baku then started talks on a new peace agreement in 2021. But having gained the military upper hand with its 2020 victory – and with Russia distracted by its war in Ukraine – Azerbaijan quickly got dissatisfied with the pace at which these negotiations were moving and decided to press its advantage. In 2022, it launched a major attack on Armenia proper, improving its strategic position. Then, in 2023, Baku struck again, with a one-day offensive that resulted in the complete capitulation of the de facto Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh. It also saw the exodus of virtually the entire ethnic Armenian population, which before 2020 had amounted to about 150,000. Most now live in Armenia, with only remote hopes of going home.
But Nagorno-Karabakh was not the only issue dividing the two neighbours, who were also at loggerheads over a wide range of topics including the disposition of refugees, how to rebuild cross-border transit routes and the re-establishment of their common border. Thus, diplomatic negotiations continued – and yielded some success. Most critically, the two sides agreed on the core principle that they would show mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity. For Azerbaijan, that would mean a formal Armenian renunciation of a claim to Nagorno-Karabakh, while for Armenia, it would be a reassurance that Azerbaijan would not seek to take over any Armenian territory. They also launched into the task of demarcating and delimiting their border. They also agreed to put off resolution of some contentious issues, like cross-border transit routes, with the apparent aim of making it easier to agree on the fundamental issues first.
To finalise the text, Armenia conceded to two last conditions that Azerbaijan had put forth. The first was an agreement to withdraw international interstate legal claims against the other. The second was that third-party forces would not be stationed on the border after ratification of the agreement – a clear reference to the EU monitoring mission that has operated on the Armenian side of the border since late 2022.
Constitutional Impasse
Following the announcement that the parties had settled upon a text, Armenia said it was ready to sign. But Azerbaijan reiterated the demand, which it had been making publicly for more than a year, that Armenia change its constitution before being bound by any agreement. Baku objects to language in the preamble of the current Armenian constitution that refers to a 1990 declaration of independence – issued when Armenia and Azerbaijan were still part of the Soviet Union – that calls for the “reunification” of Armenia with what was then the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast under the jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan. For Baku, this reference carries forward a claim to its territory that it considers unlawful and illegitimate. It wishes to put this question definitively to rest.
Yerevan has not said no to Baku’s demand, but it clearly wants to present an initiative to change Armenia’s constitution as its own. Helpfully, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been saying he wants to amend the charter since shortly after coming to power in 2018, reflecting a desire to start from a blank slate after ousting the leadership that had ruled the country for two decades. Now the justice minister says the new document will be ready for a referendum in 2026. While Pashinyan has hinted that Yerevan will meet Azerbaijan’s demands, he and other Armenian officials insist that Armenia’s constitution is not being dictated by Azerbaijan.
That said, Armenian officials also argue that Azerbaijan’s focus on the constitutional issue is a pretext for scuttling the peace talks, and indeed, it does put their outcome in jeopardy. The new constitution will have to pass by a majority of votes cast, and get the votes of 25 per cent of the total registered electorate, a hurdle that could be difficult to overcome, particularly given popular frustration with what many see as Baku’s bullying. Nor does Pashinyan necessarily have the political heft to ensure passage. His political vulnerability was highlighted by his party’s poor showing in local elections in March, which may bode ill for a constitution so closely associated with the prime minister. If the constitutional referendum fails, it will be cited by Baku as evidence that Armenia is not really ready for peace. Renewed conflict would become much more likely.
Other Challenges
Even if the referendum succeeds, there is much that could go wrong before then. The beginning of 2025 saw another spike in tension along the border. Just three days before the announcement that the agreement’s text was settled, a news website associated with Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense published a report claiming that Armenia planned to start a new war in April. Then, in the weeks that followed the agreement’s announcement, Azerbaijan’s defence ministry repeatedly alleged ceasefire violations by Armenia, after what had been a period of quiet along the border. Armenia has denied the accusations – and shown evidence that Azerbaijan is itself violating the ceasefire. Many in Armenia have interpreted the claims and allegations as part of an information campaign aimed at manufacturing a pretext for an Azerbaijani attack on their country. Short of that, Baku may see these tactics as a means of keeping their options open and putting pressure on Pashinyan. While the situation appears to have calmed down of late, it could easily be reignited.
Meanwhile, the neighbours are jockeying for military position. Azerbaijan continues to occupy small but strategic slices of Armenian territory, which it has controlled since its 2022 campaign. Armenia, worried about a potential operation to cleave Armenia in two, has been building defensive fortifications in the border areas where they say Azerbaijan has been violating the ceasefire.
Both countries are also building up their militaries. Since 2020, both countries have more than doubled their defence budgets. Armenia, which used to get nearly all of its weaponry from Russia, its nominal treaty ally, is now buying French and Indian weapons and seeking other new partners. These arms purchases play a large role in Azerbaijan’s claims that it faces an imminent Armenian threat. But Azerbaijan is still spending far more on weapons than is Armenia – buying heavily from Israel and Türkiye, with purchases from Pakistan, Serbia and Slovakia, too.
Shifts in the geopolitical environment could shape the security order in the South Caucasus.
Shifts in the geopolitical environment could shape the security order in the South Caucasus. Russia’s fight in Ukraine and desire for good relations with Azerbaijan has seen Moscow continue to recede from its traditional dual role as Armenia’s security guarantor and as mediator between Baku and Yerevan. Should the war in Ukraine reach a resolution, many expect that Russia could again turn its attention to the Caucasus, though this idea remains in the realm of speculation. While the U.S. has long acted as a mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and in recent years tried to encourage Armenia’s drift away from Russia, the Trump administration has not yet tipped its hand on how it plans to deal with the Caucasus. Iran has emerged as a potential security guarantor for Armenia, and Türkiye remains Azerbaijan’s biggest backer, but their roles in any future conflict are difficult to predict.
Against this backdrop, the EU has sought to take a more active role by mediating peace talks between the two countries over the last four years – including by facilitating trilateral meetings among Armenia, Azerbaijan and the EU – and through confidence-building measures. One concrete step meant to quiet cross-border tensions was the bloc’s deployment of a civilian monitoring mission on the Armenian side of the Azerbaijan border. While serving as a de-escalatory and reassurance measure, the mission has also become a source of friction, with Azerbaijan accusing the EU of partiality because it operates only on Armenia’s side of the border and without Azerbaijan’s approval. Given that upon its effectiveness, the bilateral peace agreement would require the monitors to move away from the border, EU and Armenian officials say they hope to keep the mission in the country while redefining its mandate – possibly transforming it into an assistance mission to build Armenia’s own border management capacity, such as by training border guards and customs agents, while honouring the agreement to stay away from the border.
That said, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has created geopolitical opportunities for European actors in the Caucasus, and those have occasionally come into tension with its efforts to bring peace. The EU signed a deal to increase gas purchases from Azerbaijan as it tried to wean the continent off Russian energy. It has also sought to bring Armenia closer to the bloc and its member states following Armenians’ disillusionment with their Russian allies. To both sides, these moves have called into question Brussels’ impartiality in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. In the eyes of many Armenians, the gas deal with Baku caused the bloc’s response to Azerbaijan’s military offensives to be softer than it should have been. Yet to many Azerbaijanis, the EU’s wooing of Armenia has emboldened Yerevan to drag its feet on making the concessions Baku wants.
The Way Forward
While the EU’s role as a mediator has shrunk – Armenia and Azerbaijan have been conducting peace negotiations bilaterally for more than a year and with some success – the bloc and its member states can support the peace process by encouraging the parties to put the agreement into effect and then nurturing what will likely still be a tenuous peace.
The top priority should be to help the parties find a compromise that prevents the constitutional issue from unduly delaying the agreement’s signature. For example, some have proposed that the agreement might be signed before a new constitution is adopted, based instead on an Armenian commitment to take the necessary steps. (Presumably, there would be some linkage between the agreement’s continuing viability and satisfaction of this commitment.) Creative thinking about other solutions should be promoted. The EU special representative for the South Caucasus can play an important role in this regard given her longstanding engagement and the trust she enjoys among the various actors in the region.
The EU and member states should propose regional investment programs that ... would help consolidate the peace by developing the neighbours’ economies.
Secondly, the EU and member states should propose regional investment programs that, once an agreement is signed, would help consolidate the peace by developing the neighbours’ economies and strengthening their connections to Europe and the rest of the world. The EU can encourage progress in this direction through infrastructure programs and for reconstruction assistance for the areas in both countries that have been hit hardest by the conflict in both countries. These should include the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan, where reconstruction has been slowed by the onerous task of clearing the more than one million land mines that were laid since the first conflict in the early 1990s. They also should include areas along the border and in Armenia’s southern region of Syunik, where anxieties about a possible return to conflict are most pronounced and where the EU has already been directing aid.
Thirdly, Brussels should urge the two sides to commit to risk reduction measures, which could be especially important during the sensitive period before an agreement is signed. Armenia has proposed establishing an arms control agreement and border incident investigation mechanism (reportedly to impose restrictions on troop movements and exercises), as well as opening better channels of communication between the two countries’ militaries and defence ministries for crisis management purposes. Thus far, Azerbaijani officials have not responded publicly to the proposal and are cool to it privately. Nonetheless, the EU could use it as the starting point for the development of other ideas that would seek to reduce the military presence along the border and create mechanisms for defusing the risk that accidents and miscalculations could create an escalatory dynamic, which could too easily spiral out of control.
The entry on Armenia and Azerbaijan is also available in Russian.
Latin America: Europe’s War on Drugs Should be Different
European leaders are stepping up their fight against transnational organised crime following the arrival of record shipments of narcotics on European shores in recent years. The growing market has sparked violent competition to control drug trafficking in several cities in EU member states, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Sweden. More broadly, a larger market in illicit substances has brought many of the same ills that have long afflicted Latin America, which is the point of departure for several major trafficking routes, and where drug-related conflict has led to bloodshed and corroded state institutions in countries such as Colombia and Mexico for decades. Violence stemming from the drug trade has now expanded even to traditionally more peaceful areas of the region, including Ecuador and Costa Rica. As Crisis Group documented in a recent report, some of Latin America’s poorest communities were ill prepared for the rapid expansion of drug markets, placing them at the mercy of criminal groups perpetrating murder, displacement, extortion and forced recruitment.
The geographic expansion of transnational drug trafficking has created two distinct, if related, challenges in Latin America and now, increasingly, in parts of Europe. First, the growing supply of drugs to users; and secondly, worsening violence against civilians. Countries with large consumer markets, such as the U.S., have prioritised trying to curb the drug market, with little success, to judge by the diversity, volume and availability of narcotics. Many Latin American communities, on the other hand, are urgently demanding measures that stop the violence.
Over several decades, the EU has put into place a robust set of initiatives to help address drug supply, substance abuse and criminal violence. The bloc has sought to tackle the economic inequalities that have facilitated the growth of illicit drug production and trade, and support Latin American states in improving their policing, prosecutorial and judicial systems. But with narcotic flows on the rise and calls for tougher policies toward the illicit trade intensifying, the EU and its member states have turned to deeper law enforcement and judicial cooperation with Latin American countries in the hope that bolder moves will be taken to stem the flow of cocaine and other drugs.
In crafting its latest responses, however, the EU should draw upon the lessons learned from the 50-years-long “war on drugs”, and avoid repeating policies that have done little to stop trafficking while exacerbating instability in Latin America. When designing interventions that seek to curtail the arrival of drug shipments, the EU should consider the possible violent fallout involving organised crime on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a careful balance to strike between prevention, harm reduction and addressing root causes, on the one hand, and a firm police and judicial response on the other. This nuance is clear in the EU’s own drug policy, developed for Europe. The same principles could be applied in cooperation with Latin America.
In pursuit of an effective approach toward the violence caused by the market for illegal drugs, the EU and its member states should:
Place violence reduction at the heart of support for law enforcement in Latin America, and incorporate this approach in the ongoing revision of the EU Drugs Strategy that expires this year. Backing for strategies of focused deterrence would help concentrate policing resources on groups that produce the greatest violence while encouraging non-violence among criminal groups.
Work closely with Latin American governments to conduct prison reform, including creating non-punitive alternatives for non-violent offenders, as well as reducing criminal control inside jails.
Continue and expand work to prevent young people from joining or allying with criminal groups. Focus on prevention, particularly supporting programs aimed at reducing child and youth recruitment into criminal groups. The EU could also consider supporting recovery pathways for children and young people who have left these groups.
Members of the armed forces carry out an anti-drug operation in the Trinipuerto sector in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on March 16, 2025. AFP / Gerardo Menoscal
A Changing Global Drug Trade
European countries have reported bigger cocaine seizures every year for over five years running, while wastewater testing shows an 80 per cent increase in cocaine use in Western and Central Europe between 2011 and 2024. Europe’s rising share of a growing global narcotic market is in no small measure a result of the dramatic shifts in drug trafficking in recent years.
After decades of law enforcement efforts to break up large criminal groups and combat international trafficking of illegal substances, the supply chains that today move a broad array of drugs – particularly cocaine – from Latin America to consumer markets in Europe are more intricate and more resilient (Europe has long been a producer of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine, MDMA and ketamine). No single criminal group has the capacity to organise the production, shipment and delivery of drugs across international borders into Europe. Instead, these markets are built through a network of smaller criminal groups, each performing specific roles along the way. Any route of delivery that starts from, for example, coca farms in Latin America and ends in the sale of cocaine in Europe, could include half a dozen or more criminal players with fluid and changing alliances between them. This atomised structure means drug traffickers are nimble. Routes are constantly shifting to places with less oversight, including new ports in Latin America and transit points in West Africa, in a constant cat-and-mouse game to avoid law enforcement.
A limited number of highly sophisticated and well-resourced organisations manage international trafficking along long trajectories to Europe.
Despite the complex inner workings of the modern transnational drug trade, it is possible to decipher a hierarchy among criminal groups. A limited number of highly sophisticated and well-resourced organisations manage international trafficking along long trajectories to Europe, such as name-brand Mexican groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). As any multinational company would, these criminals subcontract out various parts of the logistics process when it serves their interests. International traffickers have a web of relationships with criminal organisations that work in a single country, for example in Colombia and Ecuador (to supply and export cocaine), and in Honduras and Costa Rica (to safeguard or re-route shipments). The fragmentation does not end there. Nationally-based groups, such as the Gaitanista Army in Colombia or Los Choneros in Ecuador, outsource some service provision to even smaller groups that operate locally in cities, towns and ports. Urban gangs or small criminal outfits might be charged with placing drugs on containers, refuelling speedboats, or ensuring a shipment’s safe passage through city centres.
Hovering above this disperse logistics chain, a class of white-collar criminals helps move money, facilitate transport through legal businesses, build criminal relationships and launder drug profits through the banking system. In this pyramid-like structure of groups, profits cluster at the top, while violence is increasingly concentrated around the smallest, most locally rooted groups, which compete violently for a slice of the supply chain. In Latin American cities such as Guayaquil, Ecuador or Barranquilla, Colombia, these outfits play only a small part in trafficking, but gain access to arms, capital and criminal networks through their participation.
Once in place, these networks can pivot to new markets. These range from human trafficking, including sex trafficking, to the arms trade, to the export of illegal gold and minerals. Meanwhile, the threat of prison has done little to deter these groups. Incarcerated criminal leaders have used a combination of bribes and threats to ensure prison guards look the other way as they traffic in cell phones, access the internet and even secure luxury goods and living conditions. “Everyone [who is part of a criminal group] just keeps working from prison”, one convicted former inmate told Crisis Group in Colombia.
The Effects on Europe
This networked system has proven highly adaptable. It is quick to capture profit-making opportunities and resilient in the face of law enforcement. As criminal groups seek to open and exploit new consumer markets, Europe has shown itself to be a particularly attractive destination. Cocaine traffickers have for the last half decade strongly preferred shipping drugs in containers, which can move large quantities of drugs and provide a predictable rate of interdiction. Europe’s ports were relatively ill prepared for an influx of drugs and criminal penetration of private shipping companies, ports and law enforcement institutions. The continent is now the world’s major growth market for cocaine, with the number of seizures rising consistently since 2015, recently surpassing those in the U.S. Over the same period, cocaine has grown more affordable while its purity has risen.
If these signals of the region’s growing market share were not warning enough, several European countries have also begun to report some of the same symptoms of criminal penetration that are familiar to many Latin American countries. Europol has estimated that 60 per cent of criminal groups rely on corruption in ports to facilitate the shipment of drugs. “We have underestimated the violence quite a lot”, one Belgian police official said. “We have also underestimated corruption, aimed not just at judges and police but also port staff … there is an erosion of democratic systems by these groups”. Moreover, rates of drug-related crimes, including recruitment, targeted homicides and even kidnapping, have also risen.
Drug labs used to refine raw coca or coca paste into cocaine are appearing throughout the continent, often directly modelled on floorplans of counterpart labs in Latin America, according to interviews with the EU Drugs Agency. Similarly, there are labs dedicated to transforming cocaine and coca paste that have been concealed as other chemical compounds back into narcotic form. This brings production much closer to the point of sale, increasing profits for European groups. Criminal organisations including from the Balkans, Albania, Italy, the Netherlands and Morocco are now intimately involved in distribution within Europe, in alliance with Latin American traffickers who deliver the goods. Some, including from the Balkans and Italy, have sent their representatives to Latin America to establish their footprint in the market.
As a result, the European Union and its member states are deploying more resources and attention to combating organised crime. The EU has named international cooperation as one of the four pillars of its roadmap to fight drug trafficking, with a focus on strengthening law enforcement and judicial agreements with regional countries. One of the primary tools to this end is the Europe Latin America Programme of Assistance against Transnational Organised Crime (El PAcCTO). This program focuses on boosting Latin American capabilities to investigate, prosecute and confront organised crime. In addition, the EU’s flagship Cooperation Program between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on drug policy (COPOLAD), fosters technical cooperation as well as political dialogue between Latin America, the Caribbean and the EU in support of more effective policies. Narcotics policy also figures among the priorities in regular conversations between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), including through a Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism on Drugs. The two sides agreed last year in La Paz to strengthen cooperation on a range of issues to address arms flow, environmental crimes and the effects of crime on communities.
What the EU and Member States Should Do
Since it first embarked on an effort to strengthen its cooperation on drug policy with Latin America over two decades ago, Europe has been a crucial ally in helping the region address the social and institutional vulnerabilities that criminal groups prey upon. Cooperation between the two regions is based on a “principle of common and shared responsibility” around three main objectives: shrinking drug supply, lowering demand and ensuring harm reduction for consumers. The sharp rise in violence on the continent related to the drug market, however, has led some European officials to suggest prioritising policing strategies that have been more traditionally associated with U.S. law enforcement, such as capturing high value targets and increasing interdiction of drug shipments.
Interventions along these lines have been deployed across Latin America for decades, but Crisis Group, as well as EU-sponsored studies, have shown they fail to rein in the drug market while often heightening levels of violence. Removing criminal bosses can spark violent internal feuds to fill the leadership vacuum. A prime example of this unintended consequence is the violence that has afflicted the Mexican town of Culiacán and its surroundings after the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael Zambada, known as El Mayo, was betrayed by a former ally and delivered to U.S. authorities in July last year. The struggle to control the criminal syndicate since then has left over 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing.
The EU and its member states should reaffirm their support for strategies with a track record of reducing violence.
At a moment when the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to toughen its approach to drug trafficking, even contemplating the use of military force in Mexico, the EU and its member states should reaffirm their support for strategies with a track record of reducing violence. One such approach involves law enforcement identifying, pursuing and punishing the most violent criminal groups, especially those that cause the greatest harm to civilians and community life. Focused deterrence, in which police target the most malign criminal groups, has shown promising results according to empirical studies. This strategy first gained prominence in combating gangs in the U.S., but it has since been effectively used in Latin America. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum achieved a sharp reduction in violence in the country’s capital by adapting this data-driven strategy when she was mayor of Mexico City (2018-2023). An evaluation of its implementation in the Brazilian town of Pelotas found that focused deterrence had led to an almost 40 per cent drop in homicides. The Colombian national police has also considered implementing this methodology in Bogotá and Medellín.
The EU should also continue to work with its Latin American counterparts to pursue effective prison reform. Prisons across the region are overcrowded with non-violent and minor offenders, including a large population of women in pre-trial detention. Criminal networks exploit this chaotic system, for example charging fees to allow inmates a place to sleep or demanding extortion payments from relatives of prisoners outside jail in exchange for protection. Helping states overcome the criminal control exerted over jails is vital, given that some prisons, as noted above, have become hubs for illicit activity. Governments, with EU help, should also fund law enforcement assisted diversion programs for non-violent drug offences, which support non-punitive responses to crimes that might be the result of drug abuse or other public health problems. Several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, following the U.S. example, have created so-called drug courts – that is, special tribunals that impose alternative sentences to incarceration for cases where drug abuse might be the source of the crime. The EU could work with its counterparts to resolve some of the issues that have plagued these courts.
The potential for sharing lessons and strategies does not end there. European officials have expressed increasing concern about violent recruitment of young people into criminal groups that transport and distribute drugs throughout the continent. Similar phenomena have drawn in generations of children and adolescents in Latin America’s most affected trafficking centres. Many of these young recruits, most of whom are men and boys, are lured in with the promise of opportunity and power that they lack access to in the legal economy. Programs to help young people find alternative livelihoods, as well as to reduce racial, socio-economic and even geographic marginalisation, are imperative, both in Europe and in Latin America. States should weigh the relatively low costs of prevention against the long-term burden of a generation whose demobilisation from crime will be costly and uncertain.
Faced with rising global demand, drug markets are likely to persist. Efforts to constrain them should not take precedence over making them less violent. As Europe expands its cooperation in Latin America, looking inward may be a good starting point. Harm reduction policies that are now a priority in many European capitals – for example to combat recruitment, improve the quality of policing and protect officials and port employees – should form the basis for policy in Latin America as well. Increasingly, partners on both sides of the Atlantic face a common challenge, and could benefit from sharing lessons, expertise and the priority of violence mitigation.
The entry on Latin America is also available in Spanish.
Pakistan-Afghanistan: Tempering the Deportation Drive
While the spike in hostilities between Pakistan and India has captured the world’s attention, the EU and its member states should not overlook the likely fallout of rising tensions between Pakistan and another of its neighbours, Afghanistan. A surge in militant violence in Pakistan has claimed the lives of hundreds of security personnel and civilians over the past two years, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, both of which border Afghanistan. The jihadist Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban) and its affiliates are responsible for much of this wave of attacks. As the death toll from insurgent assaults mounts, so does Islamabad’s anger with Kabul. Islamabad claims, and Kabul denies, that the Afghan Taliban authorities have given TTP leaders and fighters sanctuary in Afghanistan and refused to take firm action against the Pakistani insurgents. In a bid to convey to Kabul the extent of its discontent, Islamabad has hit back at the softest of targets: the millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. While Islamabad’s deportation drive fuels frictions with Kabul, the ultimate losers are ordinary Afghans, many of whom have long considered Pakistan their home.
Already in a deep humanitarian crisis, Afghanistan will be hard put to absorb such large numbers of returnees, more than two thirds of whom have never lived in the country. With humanitarian relief budgets both overstretched by the scale of the country’s challenges and depleted by donor cuts and U.S. aid freezes, returnees may have few survival options; some of them may seek ways to reach Europe. The EU is already supporting Afghan refugees and host communities in Pakistan, as well as internally displaced people in Afghanistan. But EU officials acknowledge in private that some of the bloc’s funds are drying up and that they have underestimated the scale of Pakistan’s deportation program.
The EU and member states should urge Pakistan to:
Respect its commitments to international humanitarian law, including the principle of non-refoulement, and halt the forcible expulsion of Afghan refugees, regardless of their legal status;
Refrain, at the very least, from deporting those at greatest risk of harm if returned to Afghanistan, particularly women and girls, journalists and human rights defenders. Pakistani authorities should work with UN agencies to identify those Afghans who face the biggest dangers;
Extend the status of registered refugees with UN-issued Proof of Residence (PoR) cards beyond 30 June 2025, for at least another year;
Refrain from detaining and deporting Afghan refugees whose claims for asylum and resettlement in EU member states have been processed but who have yet to be relocated. At the same time, European officials should fast-track the resettlement process, particularly for women and girls, who risk facing the withdrawal of their rights and opportunities in Afghanistan, as well as other vulnerable individuals in need of protection;
Facilitate the provision of EU humanitarian assistance to Afghan refugees, asylum seekers and host communities in the country. The EU should also scale up its response within Afghanistan, enhancing assistance for returnees and host communities.
Afghan refugees unload their belongings from a truck upon their arrival from Pakistan, in Takhta Pul district of Kandahar Province on May 7, 2025. AFP / Sanaullah Seiam
The Afghan Influx
The influx of millions of Afghans into Pakistan dates back to the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s and the subsequent civil war in Afghanistan. Millions more took shelter in Pakistan during the U.S.-led intervention between 2001 and 2021, and hundreds of thousands joined the exodus after the Afghan Taliban takeover in mid-2021. Over the years, Islamabad’s response to the refugee population has primarily been shaped by the state of relations with Kabul. When ties with Kabul deteriorate, Afghan refugees are held responsible, often without proof, for criminal and terrorist acts. The Pakistani government has justified the latest crackdown on refugees, which began in late 2023, on precisely these grounds, although in truth it stems from the resurgence of militancy in provinces bordering Afghanistan and the friction militant attacks have caused between Pakistani authorities and the Afghan Taliban.
While violence has spiked in Pakistan’s border regions, Kabul has rejected Islamabad’s calls to take military action against Pakistani insurgents and dismissed allegations that it is providing sanctuary to TTP members in Afghan territory. Pakistan’s response to these denials has been to ratchet up the pressure, shifting from diplomatic channels to coercive actions, including cross-border military strikes on alleged TTP targets, border closures and the expulsion of Afghan refugees.
Fearing deportation, hundreds of thousands [of Afghans] have left [Pakistan], but many have reportedly returned, often with the help of human smugglers.
Afghans residing in Pakistan fall into a number of different categories. An estimated 1.3 million Afghans are prime facie refugees, with PoR cards issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that entitle them to certain rights and services. Issued in 2006 and 2007, the cards are renewed periodically, most recently until 30 June 2025. There are also an estimated 800,000 holders of Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC), which are provided by the Pakistani government and facilitated by the UN’s International Organisation of Migration (IOM); these documents grant temporary residence but not formal refugee status. Finally, another 1.3 million were identified in late 2023 as having no formal documentation whatsoever; fearing deportation, hundreds of thousands have left, but many have reportedly returned, often with the help of human smugglers.
The latest influx, an estimated 600,000 Afghans, entered Pakistan after the Afghan Taliban takeover. Many women and girls sought safe haven in Pakistan from the Afghan Taliban’s gender-based restrictions, which had curbed access to education and social and political rights at home. Women’s rights activists and journalists, and thousands who had worked with Western military forces, missions or NGOs during the war, claimed asylum, with the intent of relocating to European and other Western countries once these requests were approved.
The Crackdown Begins
As insurgent attacks surged in 2023, particularly in regions bordering Afghanistan, Afghan refugees became the target of Islamabad’s ire. Militancy in border areas picked up pace soon after the Afghan Taliban took power in mid-2021, prompting Islamabad to demand that Kabul either take action against the TTP or prevent it from using Afghan soil to target Pakistan. But the Afghan Taliban authorities, who share longstanding ideological and ethnic ties with the Pakistani Taliban – both are predominantly Pashtun, subscribe to the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam and fought to drive Western forces out of Afghanistan – refused to comply. With Pakistan’s diplomatic entreaties failing and the death toll rising among security personnel and civilians, Islamabad resorted to more coercive actions, striking alleged Pakistani Taliban bases in Afghanistan and sporadically closing border crossings vital for trade and transit. On 1 October 2023, in an apparent bid to penalise the Taliban authorities for their refusal to act against the TTP, “illegal foreigners” were told to leave voluntarily within a month or face deportation.
The first phase of the plan, which went into effect in November that year, targeted the estimated 1.3 million Afghans lacking valid visas or other legal documents. According to IOM, by February 2025 more than 800,000 undocumented Afghans had left for home, many in fear of being forcibly expelled. Scores of ACC and PoR card holders also left, since a single household often includes individuals bearing different categories of documentation.
On 7 March 2025, Pakistan’s interior ministry launched the second phase of the plan, cancelling the Afghan Citizen Cards and ordering all card holders as well as undocumented Afghans to leave voluntarily by 31 March or face deportation. This order could affect up to 1.6 million Afghans, many of whom have been living in Pakistan for years, if not decades. Refugees with UNHCR-issued PoR cards are as yet excluded, but their future also remains uncertain since, for now, the cards are only valid until 30 June. Upping the stakes, on 10 April a top official warned that Afghans awaiting resettlement to the West, including to EU member states, could be deported if host countries did not relocate them by 30 April. Pakistani authorities, however, have yet to take action against this segment of the Afghan population.
Intensifying Deportations
Rejecting appeals by UN agencies to rethink the current policy of forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave, including through deportations, Islamabad retorts that Pakistan has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Hence, officials argue, it has the right to withdraw or deny refugee status to Afghans in Pakistan if it so chooses. Holding Afghans responsible for criminal and terrorist acts, top officials insist that Pakistan also has the right to limit entry or deny residence to foreigners on security grounds.
Dismissing calls by the Afghan Taliban authorities for the gradual and voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees, Islamabad is adamant that existing deadlines will remain unchanged. While it denies Kabul’s claims of mistreatment, including forced repatriation, there is evidence that hundreds of men and women have in fact been detained and coercively transferred over the border at two major crossings, Torkham in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Chaman in Balochistan province. Thousands more have left in haste, fearing police crackdowns and arrest. In these circumstances, many – including some who had lived in Pakistan for decades – had to leave their belongings behind or sell their assets for a pittance before heading for the border. Pakistani officials disclosed that, by the third week of April, more than 100,000 Afghans had left for their native country since the start of the month.
Fear of police harassment and arrest has forced many [Afghan refugees] to sell established businesses and belongings at throwaway prices.
On 20 April, in the first visit by a high-ranking official to Kabul since the deportation plan began, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar made no reference to deadlines for the refugees’ exit, but he assured his hosts that they would be given a “respectful” return. Formal reporting mechanisms, he said, would be put in place to address complaints of mistreatment, while the refugees would be allowed to sell their properties in Pakistan and take back household belongings. But these pledges ring hollow for many of those affected. Fear of police harassment and arrest has forced many to sell established businesses and belongings at throwaway prices.
Recent hostilities between Pakistan and India, meanwhile, could also adversely affect ties with Afghanistan. Islamabad has accused New Delhi of backing anti-Pakistani militants, including the TTP, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In late April, as tensions with India were rising, the Pakistani military said it had thwarted an attempt by the TTP to infiltrate the country from across the Afghan border; all 71 TTP militants, who were said by Pakistan authorities to be working at the “behest of their Indian masters”, were killed. Should Islamabad link the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to take firm action against the TTP to alleged Indian influence, the fate of Afghan refugees in Pakistan could become even more dire.
Targeting the Vulnerable
Islamabad insists that Afghans, especially those who complied with the order to leave the country before the 1 November 2023 deadline, are welcome to return, but only with visas. According to a top official, more than one million visas have been issued to Afghan nationals over the last two years. But for Afghans who intend to visit Pakistan through legal channels – as patients, students or traders – acquiring visas is increasingly difficult due to more stringent requirements.
Nor do visas address the dire implications of the deportation drive for the most at-risk refugees, particularly women and girls, journalists and rights defenders. After the Taliban takeover, many entered Pakistan illegally and hence fall into the category of undocumented foreigners. Some managed to obtain visas that have since lapsed, with Pakistani authorities appearing unwilling to extend them. Women who fled Taliban rule could face grave danger should they return home in the hope of acquiring a Pakistani visa. Should they summon the courage to do so, and manage to secure a short-term permit, this document would soon expire, leaving them once again vulnerable to expulsion by Pakistan and gender-based discrimination by the Afghan Taliban authorities at home.
Women refugees would also be among the worst affected if Islamabad strictly adheres to its 30 April deadline for deporting Afghans who have applied for resettlement in Western, including EU member, countries, but have yet to be relocated. Others hoping for resettlement in European countries, including many who worked for Western forces, missions and organisations during the war in Afghanistan, also face high risks of persecution and retribution should they be forced to return. The humanitarian crisis will worsen further if the Pakistani government does not extend the 30 June validity of UNHCR-issued PoR cards, causing these refugees to lose the legal rights and protections that allow them to remain in Pakistan.
What the EU and Member States Can Do
Although the prospects for Afghan refugees in Pakistan are gloomy, the sudden escalation in hostilities with India in May might bring some respite. The deportation drive appears to have been put on hold while the Pakistani government devotes its attention to India. Islamabad’s calls upon major European capitals for diplomatic assistance in its effort to persuade New Delhi to scale down hostilities also provide the EU and member states with some sway as they seek a more humane approach toward Afghan refugees. To this end, the EU should call on Pakistan to respect its commitments to international humanitarian law, including the principle of non-refoulement – namely, a commitment that persons who are entitled to protection receive it and are not involuntarily returned to persecution and danger. Pakistan should halt the forcible expulsion of all Afghan refugees regardless of their legal status. All these moves would be greatly assisted by the willingness of the Afghan Taliban to address Pakistan’s concerns, particularly by relocating TTP fighters away from regions bordering the country.
At the very least, the EU and member states should seek to temper Islamabad’s deportation drive by ensuring it protects the rights of vulnerable Afghans, particularly women, girls and rights defenders. Pakistan should be urged to work with UNHCR to identify those most at risk so that they are issued PoR cards. The EU should call on Pakistan to extend the validity of these cards beyond 30 June, at the very least for another year.
Even as EU member states call on Pakistan to refrain from deporting Afghans, they, too, should fulfil their responsibilities to protect at-risk refugees. Relocation and resettlement to European countries – particularly of women, girls, rights defenders and journalists – should be fast-tracked. While calling on Islamabad to facilitate the provision of the EU’s humanitarian assistance to Afghan refugees, asylum seekers and host communities, the EU should also enhance its gender-responsive aid, including to returnees and host communities in Afghanistan. The need of the hour is a more humane approach by both Islamabad and Brussels toward a refugee population that is desperately in need of international support.
Defining a New Approach to the Sahel’s Military-led States
Following a wave of coups triggered by dire insecurity, the three countries in the central Sahel – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – continue to combat jihadist insurgencies that are wreaking havoc, particularly in rural areas. All three regimes have embarked on reforms under the banner of a sovereignist revival, purportedly to restore public order and robust state institutions. They have formed a three-country alliance and aligned themselves more closely with Russia, which provides support for their security forces and political propaganda. Even so, security conditions continue to deteriorate as the countries’ rulers openly take on authoritarian garb. Military rule has shrunk the space available for civil society and pushed many political opponents and journalists into self-imposed exile. Elections seem a long way off. In late March, Niger’s military leader, General Abdourahamane Tiani, dissolved all political parties after a stage-managed national conference and began a five-year mandate as transitional president. Malian authorities also dissolved all the country’s political parties in May, claiming they needed to overhaul a fragmented party system. Burkina Faso’s rulers have suspended all political activity since the country’s last coup in September 2022.
Given its geographical proximity to Europe and its role as a transit zone for migrants and illicit drugs, the central Sahel remains strategically important for the EU. Following the collapse of almost a decade of European security cooperation in the central Sahel after ties with the new military rulers broke down, the EU is struggling to chart a pragmatic course that reconciles its interests and diplomatic priorities with political realities on the ground. In September 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen charged EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas with developing a “renewed approach” to the Sahel, citing “the growing risks of insecurity and instability in the region”.
But with few easy solutions to the Sahel’s dilemmas, and with other priorities jostling for attention, progress has been slow. Unless it takes bolder steps, the EU risks becoming a marginal player in a dangerously restive region on Europe’s doorstep that has become a stage of intensifying competition for geopolitical influence, with Türkiye, China, Russia and the Gulf states all seeking to assume a larger role. A Europe-wide strategy to the Sahel will need to blend lessons from the past decade with a renewed commitment to European foreign policy principles regarding peace, democracy and human rights.
In order to rebuild influence in the region, and help prevent further instability and violence, the EU and its member states should:
Develop a new EU narrative for engagement in the region that incorporates shared interests with the three Sahelian countries, acknowledges the limits of past cooperation, avoids an explicitly anti-Russian posture and accepts the region’s sovereignist shift, without abandoning core EU principles.
Provide full political backing to the EU special representative for the Sahel, João Cravinho, as he pilots the effort to engage with Sahelian states and strengthen the role of EU delegations in the Sahel.
Maintain a focus on civilian protection in possible future security assistance to the region, while urging the Sahel’s new authorities to explore non-military solutions to insecurity, including dialogue with disaffected communities and groups.
Support efforts to ease simmering regional tensions, with the goal of preventing the spillover of instability from the central Sahel to neighbouring states through the restoration of regional dialogue and a regional security framework.
Encourage Sahelian states over the long term to tackle the root causes of violence and embrace policies that improve the lives of their citizens, especially by promoting the economic opportunities and political participation of women and marginalised groups.
Heads of state of Mali’s Assimi Goita, Burkina Faso’s Captain Ibrahim Traore and Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani walk together during the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niger, 2024. REUTERS / Mahamadou Hamidou
The Sahel’s Political and Security Shift
For close to a decade, and until the first of the recent spate of coups in the region in 2020, the EU and its member states worked closely alongside democratically elected governments in the central Sahel as they struggled with rising insecurity, caused in great part by jihadist insurgencies. European authorities provided training to or supported the countries’ armed forces, while also adopting a holistic approach to the region’s insecurity, including funding for economic development and community-based projects. The EU’s support for security systems, as well as military training missions and development assistance, were all part of a collective European effort led largely by France, but which also involved an array of like-minded foreign partners, including the U.S. and UN. Together, these partners endeavoured to stabilise the central Sahelian countries and reinforce good governance, though public perceptions of democracy were tarnished by corruption and mismanagement in state institutions.
Coups in Mali (2020 and 2021), Burkina Faso (two in 2022) and Niger (2023) hastened the demise of French-led military assistance, which had been unable to temper violence in parts of the region or arrest the slide of democratically elected leaders’ popularity. Little is now left of EU security cooperation in the region, either. Following the revocation by Niger of its two civilian and military EU missions in December 2023 and the termination of the military training mission in Mali in response to Russia’s growing presence, only the EU’s civilian mission in Mali and a small regional advisory cell on security matters remain in place.
Despite having come to power in part on the back of promises to restore security quickly, the military regimes have been unable to curb rising violence.
Meanwhile, coup leaders’ anti-Western rhetoric as well as their rejection of democratic norms, heavy-handed crackdown on media and civil society and excessive use of force against civilians create recurrent tensions with European delegations. As well as being harsh and authoritarian, these methods are also failing to achieve the desired results. Despite having come to power in part on the back of promises to restore security quickly, the military regimes have been unable to curb rising violence. Geared toward treating conflict as a predominantly military matter, the three governments have invested in drones and Russian mercenaries, to the exclusion of political approaches such as dialogue with the insurgents or governance reforms.
Security conditions continue to deteriorate, however, especially in Burkina Faso, contradicting governments’ self-satisfied rhetoric about supposed military victories. In rural areas, the jihadists still control swathes of territory and continue to grow. More worryingly, they are now able to put pressure on urban centres that, until recently, were relatively unaffected by fighting. Major attacks have hit large cities, including Mali’s capital Bamako in September 2024 and Djibo, in northern Burkina Faso, in May 2025. Meanwhile, violence has continued to move southward, toward Benin and Togo, with jihadist groups regularly conducting attacks on civilians and military positions in the northern areas of these coastal countries.
Diplomatic Stresses and Strains
As the political tide has turned across the Sahel, diplomacy has also become more complicated, with relations often plagued by mistrust and mutual criticism. Alongside the withdrawal of EU military missions noted above, development assistance has been hard hit. The EU froze its direct budget support to the three governments soon after their respective coups – authorities in Mali later rejected an offer of fresh direct assistance from the bloc, citing the strings attached – and closed numerous projects involving central state authorities. Instead, the EU has shifted to funding projects in areas such as community support, communication and media, and humanitarian aid with the aim of bypassing close working relations with central authorities. Funding cuts have nevertheless been sizeable. In Niger, for instance, about 80 per cent of existing EU programs was suspended following the coup.
Sahelian authorities now set their own terms when negotiating future cooperation, even as some Sahelian officials signal discreetly that they are ready to turn the page on recent tensions with Europe. Relations with the EU remain delicate in all three countries, but particularly in Niger, which demanded in November 2024 that the bloc replace its ambassador on the grounds that it was “unilaterally” disbursing aid to ease the impact of flooding.
The governments of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in late 2023 formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a mutual defence pact known by its French acronym AES.
Regional cooperation is increasingly fraught, too. The governments of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in late 2023 formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a mutual defence pact known by its French acronym AES. The alliance has now turned into a confederation of states, which has split from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the main regional bloc, while each country has been drawn into spats with neighbouring states. In April, Mali clashed with Algeria, prompting the three countries in the alliance to freeze ties with Algiers. Burkina Faso’s leadership regularly accuses counterparts in Côte d’Ivoire of trying to undermine them, while Niger’s generals make similar accusations against Benin. Meanwhile, the G5 Sahel, the regional organisation that had grouped together Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad – and had been a pillar of the EU’s regional strategy in the Sahel – has virtually ceased to exist since the AES was created.
Faced with these difficulties, EU member states have been pulling in different directions, albeit with signs that their viewpoints may finally be converging. France, which retains a shrunken diplomatic presence in the region, no longer officially opposes EU re-engagement, but rejects the three Sahelian governments’ anti-French rancour and maintains that the bloc should distance itself from fragile authoritarian regimes. Denmark and Sweden have closed their embassies, with the latter citing Mali’s alignment with Russia as the main reason. Other member states prefer to stay engaged, mainly to work on curbing migration. Italy in particular views the Sahel as strategically important and is prepared to keep dealing with the coup leaders regardless of their politics and rhetoric. It has maintained its security cooperation as well as a small military mission in Niger.
Yet others, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, are trying to build consensus around a new EU strategy, but recognise that they have limited financial aid to offer and struggle to find common ground with the Sahel’s military regimes. The new EU special representative for the Sahel, João Cravinho, has been trying to reconcile the different perspectives so as to craft a new EU outlook. Despite the gradual consolidation of a consensus among most EU member states around the need to remain engaged – largely for security, migration and geopolitical reasons – it is still hard to convince those member states that are reluctant to reconnect with what they see as hostile regimes espousing values deemed incompatible with those of the EU.
Building a Common Strategy
Establishing a new policy toward the Sahel involves charting a difficult course between principles and pragmatism, and it will inevitably depend on a degree of compromise. While recognising that the EU’s impact on political and security trends will likely remain circumscribed in the near future, Brussels should make use of small openings that allow it to work with state authorities and local communities to tackle the region’s instability and its root causes. But to do that, the EU needs a clear and convincing account of how its interests converge with those of the Sahelian authorities and the region’s people. It will need to abandon the stance that portrays European intervention in the Sahel as a form of assistance to failing states or a way to counter Russian influence. Instead, the EU should elaborate an approach that recognises the interests and values of each side as it defines the scope of engagement with the central Sahel.
Creating a new bedrock for cooperation with the region will mean acknowledging past missteps and developing a narrative that is adapted to the new realities. In doing so, the EU should take into account the three governments’ turn toward a credo of national sovereignty that has undoubted popular appeal, especially among young people, even when accompanied by authoritarian clampdowns. While the EU views a return to constitutional rule as crucial to mitigating political upheaval and improving security, many young people have lost faith in Western-style democracy, which they believe gave succour to predatory elites whose corrupt practices produced conflict and unrest. The EU’s support for democracy remains central to the bloc’s ethos and its values-driven foreign policy, but in the Sahel’s case, it should focus less on promoting a discredited version of democratic governance and more on supporting local demand for political representation and preserving civic space where possible. European support should recognise that democracy can grow only from the ground up, not when imposed from outside.
The EU should also seek agreement on how its future security cooperation with the Sahel will operate. While security remains Europe’s top concern in the region, options for meaningful engagement, especially when it comes to military cooperation, are limited for now. Sahelian authorities have lashed out at their past partnership with Europe, rejecting the EU’s more holistic approach and opting instead for arms deals with Türkiye and military backing from Russia. Yet dependence on overwhelming military force has already shown itself to be ill suited to bringing stability. As the limits of the Sahelian regimes’ strategy become more conspicuous, they may eventually have to change tack. Conditions may soon become ripe for the EU to advocate a return to its multi-dimensional security doctrine and its argument that protecting civilians, as well as economic development and governance reforms, will be more effective in the long run than military offensives.
The EU ... should support efforts to ease simmering regional tensions, reactivate economic partnerships and rebuild a regional security framework.
As the EU and its member states forge their new approach to the Sahel region, they should also take into account the broader regional context. Stabilisation of the central Sahel will remain elusive without broader regional consultations and economic cooperation, while preventing the spillover of instability from the central Sahel to neighbouring states will not be possible without tackling the challenges in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The EU cannot play a leading part, but it should support efforts to ease simmering regional tensions, reactivate economic partnerships and rebuild a regional security framework.
On all these fronts, the EU will then need to identify who can design and diffuse the new strategy. EU Special Representative Cravinho and EU delegations in the three countries could play a critical role. Full EU backing for Cravinho, as well as political support from EU member states, could enable constructive exchanges with the three countries as a deeper level of engagement is explored, especially now that several member states are scaling down their diplomatic missions. Moreover, while some EU member states have closed embassies or reduced personnel, the EU should compensate by maintaining the size of its delegations in the region where feasible.
Finally, as Crisis Group argued in the 2024 EU Watch List, the EU and its member states should reorient their investments in the long term around issues that affect both Europe and the Sahel. There are well-documented links among economic hardship, conflict, climate change and migration. Focusing on long-term development and climate resilience not only serves local needs but also core European interests. While the EU cannot, and should not, substitute for national governments (not least because the EU and member states are increasingly reducing their aid budgets), it can play an important role in encouraging them to move beyond military action toward policies that improve the lives of their citizens, address the region’s inequities and promote the economic opportunities and political participation of women and marginalised groups. At the same time, the EU must recognise that its first duty is to a build a relationship with the Sahelian states that does not reproduce the resentments of the past.
A Helping Hand for Post-Assad Syria
Since overthrowing the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have both made important gains and encountered mounting challenges as they attempt to steer the country toward recovery. In March, they passed two important milestones, forming a new, more diverse transitional government and promulgating a declaration that will serve as the interim constitution. Separately, they also reached an agreement with Kurdish leaders in the country’s north east to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group that has controlled most of that region since 2015, into the new national army and to extend the central state’s reach to those areas. A diplomatic charm offensive helped the new authorities build support in European and other capitals, culminating in a meeting between President Ahmed al-Sharaa and U.S. President Donald Trump on 14 May; at that time, Trump promised to lift Washington’s sanctions, which have been strangling a Syrian economy in dire need of resuscitation. The European Union has since made a corresponding commitment of its own.
But the new authorities also face enormous problems, some of their own making. Outside partners remain wary of whether Sharaa and his inner circle, who have kept the reins of power close, are open to truly representative government. In March, central and coastal regions saw outbreaks of sectarian violence, which highlighted tensions that could derail efforts at state consolidation and underscored the central government’s lack of command and control over too much of the security apparatus. Seeking to protect its northern flank, Israel has destroyed much of Syria’s military capability, occupied a buffer zone across the country’s south and staged continuing attacks on a wide range of Syrian targets. Until the pledges to lift them are translated into reality, moreover, the sanctions will continue to pose a huge impediment to the post-Assad transition.
To support a peaceful transition in Syria, the EU and its member states should:
Urge Damascus to make the government more genuinely representative, with greater participation by women, and encourage it to work with the UN as it proceeds to draft a new constitution;
Help shore up confidence in the security forces and the state more broadly, including by nudging the new authorities to consider accepting vetted police who served under the Assad regime and pressing for accountability for the atrocities committed by state-aligned forces in March; continuing with plans to scale up support for Syria’s socio-economic recovery; and providing technical assistance to strengthen institutional capacities at various ministries;
Support efforts to integrate the SDF into state security forces; de-escalate conflict between the SDF and Turkish-backed forces arrayed under the Syrian National Army (SNA); and accelerate the repatriation of EU nationals held in SDF-guarded detention camps on suspicion of association with ISIS;
Engage in coordinated diplomacy to first, discourage Israel from actions that may further destabilise Syria; and secondly, prevent an escalatory spiral between Israel and Türkiye in Syria;
Swiftly implement the EU member states’ political decision to lift the remaining economic sanctions on Syria and provide information and incentives for businesses to invest in Syria.
Women raise placards as they demonstrate against the new constitutional declaration, recently announced by Syria’s interim government, in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishly. 15 March, 2025. AFP / Delil Souleiman
Political and Security Dynamics
In the six months since Assad’s downfall, the new authorities in Damascus have worked hard to consolidate power, stabilise the country and launch a political transition, though with mixed results. On 29 January, al-Sharaa was declared interim president at a “victory conference” attended exclusively by the armed factions that had assisted Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in toppling the old regime. HTS and the other factions then dissolved themselves, along with all the Assad-era security forces, clearing the way for assembling a new security apparatus. In February, the interim government held a national dialogue conference, which was aimed at kickstarting an inclusive political process but fell short of expectations.
Most consequentially, interim President al-Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration on 13 March, establishing the legal framework for a five-year transitional period and cementing his grip on power. In drafting the constitutional declaration, the authorities were receptive to suggestions made by the UN, particularly those relating to human rights. Meanwhile, al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani embarked on a whirlwind campaign of diplomacy with foreign counterparts, including in the Arab world and Europe, making significant strides toward international acceptance, the last of which was the landmark meeting between al-Sharaa and Trump in Riyadh on 14 May.
The announcement of a new government on 29 March signalled the new leaders’ willingness to include a wider swathe of Syrians in governance. The new cabinet features representatives from the country’s Alawite, Christian, Ismaili, Kurdish and Druze minorities, along with civil society figures, technocrats and people who served as ministers in Assad governments before the civil war. Yet while the broader composition appears promising, close confidants of al-Sharaa got the interior, foreign affairs, defence, justice and energy portfolios – ie, those with the most executive power – indicating that former HTS senior figures remain in charge in most respects. The appointees included only one woman (Hind Kabawat, who will serve as minister of social affairs and labour), despite al-Sharaa’s pledge to promote women’s participation
The lack of security [in Syria] remains an urgent concern.
The lack of security generally remains an urgent concern. The legacies of civil war, including economic ruin and a torn social fabric, create conditions ripe for recurrent violence. At the same time, overstretched government forces have struggled to respond effectively to killings, kidnappings and looting. Attacks on Alawites perceived to have been associated with the old regime, and more recently fighting between Sunni and Druze armed groups, have left minorities feeling increasingly sidelined and endangered.
The violence in coastal and central Syria in early March set back the government’s standing both within the country and on the international stage. On 6 March, pro-Assad insurgents staged coordinated attacks on the government’s newly minted security forces in coastal towns and targeted civilian cars on the highway running from Latakia, a Mediterranean port city, to Idlib in the north-western interior. High casualties prompted Damascus to send reinforcements as part of a counteroffensive, including armed factions that had nominally merged into the new army but retained autonomous command and control. Bands of vigilantes also joined the fray. In the days that followed, undisciplined elements among the latter two groups went on a killing spree in villages and neighbourhoods in Latakia, Tartous and Hama provinces, reportedly in revenge for the Assad regime’s crimes, for which some Syrians hold Alawites collectively responsible.
By the time order was restored, almost 900 Alawite civilians had been killed, including over a hundred women and children, while over 30,000 more had fled to Lebanon. Many coastal residents, who denounce the pro-Assad elements, fault the government for failing to protect them. Following the violence, al-Sharaa vowed to hold those responsible to account. He appointed a fact-finding mission tasked with documenting the violations and recommending accountability measures. The results of this investigation are due to be submitted by July.
The atrocities committed by state-aligned forces highlighted major gaps in Damascus’s control of allied armed factions.
But the government’s challenges go far deeper than ensuring accountability for the crimes committed in March. The atrocities committed by state-aligned forces highlighted major gaps in Damascus’s control of allied armed factions. They also highlighted that by dissolving the old security forces, the new government had created a new problem – casting thousands of aggrieved men with combat experience and easy access to arms out of work. With few job prospects, they formed a ready-made pool of recruits that former regime loyalists could tap into for would-be insurgencies and rebellions. Yet integrating these undisciplined elements, now part of the state security forces, into a coherent force subject to appropriate discipline will be difficult as long as the state, hamstrung by sanctions, is struggling to cover public-sector salaries, leaving many men with guns dependent on other sources of income.
The lack of decisive command and control in government-affiliated armed elements could too easily generate new waves of violence. In late April, attacks by pro-government armed groups on Druze-majority suburbs of Damascus – sparked by a voice note cursing the Prophet Mohammed allegedly posted by a Druze leadership figure – rapidly escalated into deadly fighting. Clashes reached the Druze-dominated Suweida province in the south, killing more than 100 over three days. While the unrest eventually subsided, the turn of events highlighted how quickly local tensions can spiral into large-scale violence.
The security situation creates particular challenges for women, whose mobility is often restricted, and who are subject to rising incidents of arbitrary detention and harassment. In the absence of an effective government response, families often resort to social media to plead for the return of missing daughters. Yet these public appeals can expose both the women and their relatives to further harassment. Some local officials have also acted autonomously to introduce measures that restrict women in certain public and work spaces or separate men from women in buses, hospitals and courts. On most occasions, the authorities reversed such measures in the wake of a public outcry.
The North East
When Damascus struck an agreement with the SDF on 10 March, many hoped it would be a big step toward Syria’s stabilisation. While light on detail, the accord commits both sides to integrating the SDF’s armed forces and civilian institutions into the central state before the end of 2025. For Damascus, it offers an opportunity to restore state authority in the north east, where most of Syria’s oil is located, and regain credibility after the early March violence. For the SDF, it reduces the threat from Türkiye, which treats it as an extension of the PKK – a group designated by the U.S. and EU as a terrorist organisation that Ankara has fought for decades and which recently announced it would be disbanding. It also gives the SDF a path toward political relevance in the post-war order. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved, notably the degree of decentralisation the future Syrian state will accommodate and the mechanisms through which integration will occur.
The two sides have appointed committees to begin the difficult work of fleshing out details in what will likely be a complex, months-long series of negotiations. The initial agreement has thus far succeeded in de-escalating fighting between the SDF and factions of the Turkish-backed SNA, which killed hundreds – mostly combatants – between December and February. In April, continuing talks between Damascus and the SDF focused on flashpoints in northern Syria. In Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, the two sides agreed on partial steps toward demilitarising the SDF-held neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafieh, as well as increasing reintegration between them and the rest of Aleppo. Talks over the contested Tishreen dam on the Euphrates River have yet to produce a clear agreement, but they are at least reducing risk of a fight over the facility, which is vital for the country’s electricity and water supplies. The two sides have also begun discussing the education sector, though the main hurdle will be narrowing the gaps related to merging governance, security and military structures.
Meanwhile, the SDF is guarding facilities housing detained ISIS militants and their families, including some 40,000 people in al-Hol camp. Thousands of these are foreigners, including European citizens or children of European citizens. While Washington has taken a more proactive approach to repatriating its citizens, most European countries have been slower to act, leaving the local authorities with the burden of securing the detention facilities. Should conditions in these camps deteriorate in light of recent aid cuts or a precipitous U.S. troop withdrawal, there is a risk of unrest, including mass riots and escape attempts.
In the eastern desert, ISIS cells have been hiding out in a largely ungoverned space, using their ability to manoeuvre to boost their capacities in preparation for future attacks. Residents report that the group has been actively attempting to recruit new followers, while sources among the former and current security forces say it is drawing on experienced leadership figures freed from the Assad regime’s prisons. For now, the anti-ISIS coalition led by the U.S. is still helping keep the jihadists at bay.
Israel’s Debilitating Interventions
Israel has emerged as the most destabilising external force in post-Assad Syria. Its strategy seems to be to pre-empt the possibility of a future security threat on its north-eastern border. Israel has also expressed concern about the burgeoning influence and leverage of its regional rival Türkiye over the new Syrian government. It has maintained this posture despite assurances from al-Sharaa and others that they have no hostile intentions.
Israel has been highly active militarily. Immediately after Assad fell, the Israeli army moved into the demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, which was established in 1974, and declared a buffer zone stretching across southern Syria that Syrian forces cannot enter. Senior Israeli officials have said Israel will keep forces stationed there indefinitely. In the meantime, Israeli warplanes have conducted multiple air strikes, destroying much of Syria’s air force, navy and heavy weaponry. Most recently, Israel’s air force struck near the presidential palace in an apparent message to the government that Israel will not allow Syrian forces to deploy south of the capital. In parallel, Israel has sought support from the Druze minority in Syria’s south west, promising these people protection. In so doing, it is both courting local allies and potentially driving a wedge between this population and authorities in Damascus.
Thus, as the new government in Damascus has tried to find its footing, Israel’s actions have weakened Syria’s new leaders and risk pushing Syria toward one of the very scenarios it says it wants to avoid: either fostering chaos that jihadist militants could exploit or nudging the new government in Damascus closer to Ankara.
The Sanctions Burden
While relief is on the horizon, Syria’s economy continues to be choked by a vast array of sanctions imposed by (among others) the U.S., the UN and the EU. U.S. sanctions are the most consequential, but all are harmful. These sanctions would have spelled disaster for a country in which over 90 per cent of the population is living in poverty and no lifelines are available. The old regime could count on Iran and Russia for budgetary subventions, as well as on the revenue generated by the Assad family’s multi-billion-dollar illicit drug empire, but the new authorities in Damascus have no such source of easy money. They are facing mounting pressure to meet the population’s basic needs, from paying public-sector salaries to securing adequate supplies of fuel and electricity. Should they falter in these tasks, they could lose legitimacy, to the benefit of both internal and external spoilers.
There has been progress toward relieving Syria of this burden. On 20 May, six days after Trump’s announcement, the EU followed suit with a decision to lift the bulk of its remaining economic sanctions, maintaining only those related to the Assad regime or to arms and technology that might be used for internal repression. Brussels emphasised both that these steps were reversible, and that it would keep monitoring Syria’s situation closely, including progress on accountability with regard to recent outbreaks of violence. The focus now needs to be on implementing this decision, as well as on ensuring that countries lifting sanctions are taking appropriate complementary steps to encourage the investment that the Syrian economy so desperately needs.
What the EU and Its Member States Can Do
The EU and its member states can and should be Syria’s partners during its recovery. Though Damascus has made less progress than hoped in fostering a politically inclusive transition – concededly a tall order for a country emerging from more than a decade of devastating civil war – the EU should continue to nudge it in that direction. The new Syrian leaders have shown responsiveness to such prodding in the past, both during their time governing Idlib (their de facto autonomous enclave during the war) and since assuming power in Damascus. As part of this effort, the EU should keep supporting Syrian civil society groups and amplifying opposition voices that have highlighted the authorities’ exclusionary tendencies and called upon them to do better. It should also underscore the importance of women’s inclusion in leadership. Critically, the EU should encourage the interim government’s continued cooperation with the UN, especially in drafting the new constitution.
Secondly, the EU should invest in both a shored-up security sector and greater state capacity across the board. To quickly bolster the security forces’ ranks, the EU could encourage Damascus to take back vetted former regime police. It should also advance with plans to scale up its development assistance programs – especially in support of Syria’s economic recovery, eg, by supporting job creation, health care and education. It should also explore the possibility of supporting the state’s ability to pay public-sector salaries, both to keep current staff and to recruit new personnel, in close coordination with other international actors. The EU should carefully balance the inclination to condition support on progress on political or security matters with the reality that state capacity itself is a necessary condition for achieving such objectives. In parallel, the EU should also continue to explore what technical assistance it can offer to rebuild state capacity, for example in the security and bank sectors. It should also stress the importance of the government fulfilling its pledge to investigate and ensure accountability for the March atrocities.
Thirdly, in the north east, the EU and member states should continue to promote the SDF’s integration into the state and encourage steps the parties are taking to de-escalate the SDF-SNA conflict, including by nudging Ankara to send a corresponding message to the groups it supports in the area. Meanwhile, the persistent threat of an ISIS resurgence makes it essential that coalition forces stay in the country until the agreement is fully implemented, to prevent the group from becoming a destabilising factor. To lighten the burden on the SDF, particularly in managing detention facilities, EU member states should accelerate both the repatriation of their ISIS-associated citizens and the process of determining undocumented children’s citizenship.
EU diplomats should communicate to Israel a coordinated message that its actions are undermining Syrian stability and thus its own best interest.
Fourthly, concerning Israel’s actions, EU diplomats should communicate to Israel a coordinated message that its actions are undermining Syrian stability and thus its own best interest. The EU and member states should also use their channels to help avoid an escalatory spiral between Israel and Türkiye on Syrian soil.
Fifthly, Brussels should swiftly implement the 20 May decision to lift all economic sanctions on Syria. Brussels should also provide support for reconstruction and encouragement for European private investors to return to Syria, helping them overcome barriers in sectors like finance and energy, and providing incentives where appropriate. Targeted support for early involvement in the energy sector could offer a practical entry point: European companies with past involvement in Syria’s energy infrastructure are well placed to help restore the power grid. The EU should also work with member states and financial institutions to reduce overcompliance, which can persist even after sanctions are lifted, including by providing regulatory guidance.
In the end, reconstructing Syria after decades of dictatorship and horrific strife will be up to the new authorities in Damascus, Syrian civil society and the Syrian people. But the EU and other outside powers can and should lend them the helping hand that they richly deserve. Failure to do so could doom this promising experiment in rebuilding a society broken by civil war.
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