EU and Pakistan

President Asif Ali Zardari’s summit meeting with the EU’s current presidency is expected to open a new chapter in Pakistan’s relations with Europe.

The statement issued after the summit in Brussels spoke of kick-starting a strategic dialogue covering security, aid, trade and measures to promote democracy. This is most encouraging. As Mr Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for the 27-member bloc’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, wrote in this newspaper, a secure and stable Pakistan is essential for the people of Europe.

Therefore the EU perceives Pakistan’s war against terrorism to be a joint endeavour. This will be widely welcomed because Islamabad is well aware that its fight against the Taliban cannot be undertaken single-handedly, given its limited resources. In this context, the EU’s offer to help Pakistani police in their fight against militancy should be of enormous practical value since this is an area where Pakistan is on weak ground. Similarly, the EU’s offer of 72m euros as humanitarian aid for the IDPs should boost Islamabad’s relief and rehabilitation efforts for the war-affected people.

The summit in Brussels also signals the broadening of relations between the EU and Pakistan. As Mr Solana observed, this relationship that was mainly about trade has moved towards a strategically focused partnership. This is not simply because of Pakistan’s changed circumstances. The EU has also developed from a regional grouping for economic cooperation into a major political entity under the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997. But this should not detract from the EU’s role as a global economic power and how it can use this potential for promoting peace.

Thus the EU is Pakistan’s major trading partner which accounted for 20 per cent of its trade in 2007 when it imported 3.8bn euros worth of Pakistani goods. Yet at Wednesday’s summit some Europeans concerned about their own industries resisted moves to offer tariff concessions to Pakistan as an incentive to stimulate its economy. In the end, all it received was a vague offer of a free-trade agreement some time in the future. It is time the industrialised world understood that Third World countries can benefit more from trade incentives rather than having aid poured into their coffers.