This month's Arab summit in Tunis is the last chance for habitually impotent Arab governments to stand united in addressing the challenges facing all Arab peoples, writes Hassan Nafaa* The results of the Arab foreign ministers meetings held in Cairo last week are still cloaked in mystery. One of these meetings was extraordinary and held to discuss the proposed Arab League reform bill. The second convened to discuss items on the regular agenda of the 121st session of the foreign ministerial summit. Following the meetings, officials announced that participants had agreed on the wording of a joint bill for the reform of the Arab League, which will be brought to the forthcoming Arab summit in Tunis for ratification. Unfortunately, no official statement fed insight into the substance of the proposed reform bill. This unprecedented muteness may have two possible, if contradictory, explanations. The first presumes a degree of good will towards Arab governments and supposes that by their silence the foreign ministers seek to protect the reform bill from public positioning and media gambits that would only foster a new bout of inter-Arab dissension in advance of the summit. The less optimistic alternative, stemming from an ingrained lack of confidence in Arab governments, holds that the silence is merely a cover-up for a weak and essentially insubstantial text over which the foreign ministers declared their "full and wholehearted" agreement, in the hope that Arab leaders will use the time left before the summit to rally all the diplomatic ruses at their disposal to prepare the necessary façade for the failure to produce anything more important. Whichever is the case, Arab leaders will need to take a number of facts into consideration before they put their signatures to whatever resolutions their summit in Tunis produces. They need to bear in mind, firstly, that the Arab people sense a grave threat of unprecedented proportion looming over the Arab world, and that confronting this threat demands new and unconventional plans of action. Secondly, the Arab peoples have come to hold all the Arab regimes, without exception, as the agencies primarily responsible for the deterioration and decay in the Arab order. These people, moreover, are deeply sceptical over the ability of these regimes, even supposing best intentions, to do what is necessary to rescue the Arab order from its current predicament. Thirdly, the people know that the problem of reforming the Arab League involves much more than an agreed upon resolution, however finely composed, especially if the function of this eloquence is to disguise deep rifts in opinion which will eventually resurface to obstruct the immediate and tangible progress Arab peoples are hoping for. For the preceding reasons, the Arab people regard the forthcoming Tunis summit as a last chance for their regimes. If participants fail to produce results commensurate to the challenges facing Arab nations, if they content themselves with the all-too-familiar hollow resolutions they have fed the public for over half a century, the people will have no doubt left in their mind that all hope is lost in current governments, that the Arab League which represents them is in its last death throes, and that change can only come about through a popular storm or uprising that will sweep aside the accumulated corruption that obstructs the path of progress and creativity. I am certain that it will be extremely difficult this time to pull the wool over the people's eyes with a fervently worded resolution that has no substance. This time, the public will settle for nothing less than the forging of the practical conditions necessary to set into motion a process of regional integration capable of welding the currently chaotic and fragmented Arab world into a cohesive and smooth-running whole, within the framework of higher goals and mutual interests. However, for the Arabs to lay the concrete foundations for a proper process of regional integration, they must rid themselves of a number of illusions. One is that common cultural and historical bonds are sufficient grounds for the political unity the Arab countries must attain, sooner or later. Political unification is a deliberate, multi-phase and multi-level project. It requires specific plans and programmes to which Arab states will only subscribe if these serve their individual interests at the same time they serve the interests of the whole. This means that the path towards unity must be forged by and for the existing states, not on their ruins. A second illusion to be dispelled is the belief that investing in collective Arab action is a waste of time and effort because the Arabs are somehow doomed "to agree not to agree". The fact is that Arab countries, whether they like it or not, share the same fate. No Arab country, however powerful it becomes, will be able to achieve security, development, democratisation and social stability on its own. The wolf always lurks for the sheep that strays from its flock in the dark, and the wolf is ever ready to lure into its sights the sheep that abandons its "backwards" peers in its rush to join the "civilised" set. It is also a common fallacy that it is possible to separate the economic from the political domains in order to better promote inter-Arab cooperation. Inter-Arab economic cooperation requires the "political umbrella" to protect it -- if only to prevent political disputes from undermining it. Given how frequently political disputes have not only hampered, but halted economic cooperation altogether, the imperative is to develop effective diplomatic or judicial mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of such disputes. Nor is it the case that regional integration or assimilation necessarily diminishes the national sovereignty of member nations. It is true that the successful integration project compels member countries to give up an increasing element of their sovereignty as the project moves forward. However, we must bear in mind that this sovereignty is only conceded to a higher collective authority created by the member nations and in the decision-making processes of which the member nations are full and active participants. There is a vast difference between the voluntary relinquishment of an element of national sovereignty to such a collective authority than, say, to a foreign power, for in the case of the former the benefit that accrues to the member nations as a whole strengthens their power collectively and thus enhances, rather than diminishes, their ability to exercise their sovereign rights individually. Finally, the Arabs must disabuse themselves of the belief that regional integration requires all countries to climb aboard at once and that it must engage all sectors of activity simultaneously. The successful experiences we see in the world today began small. The EU, for example started with a handful of countries concentrating on a few sectors, such as coal and steel, before expanding vertically to include the other sectors of economy and finance and horizontally to comprise 15 countries, which by the end of this year will expand to 25 and in the near future to more than 30. Nor is there any reason why regional integration should not proceed at varying paces to accommodate the diverse energies and capacities of member countries. For example, not all EU members have adopted the unified currency yet or joined the visa system of the Schengen states. Disabusing ourselves of the above-mentioned illusions, or fallacies, is only one indispensable prerequisite for stimulating an effective regional integration progress. Another is to furnish a sturdy institutional structure capable of resolving the dilemma that faces all multi-national organisations: striking a balance between the principle of equality among all member nations and the disparities in their strategic power and material capacities. The EU's solution was to distinguish between those areas in which decisions would be taken by a unanimous vote and those in which decisions would be taken by simple majority, or another set ratio. Towards this end, too, they established certain branches or bodies in which the number of seats accorded to member nations reflects their strategic weight. On the EU Council, for example, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain are accorded two seats each while the remaining EU members have one. Similarly, in the European parliament allocations to member nations vary from 99 for the largest state (Germany) to only six for the smallest (Luxembourg). Still further, the relative weight of member states is reflected in their voting power. In EU ministerial committees, Germany, Britain, France and Italy are entitled to 10 votes each while a country as small as Luxembourg is entitled only to two. The EU system also provides for a number of checks and balances between the various branches of government. The executive consists of the EU Commission and Council. The EU parliament is elected by direct ballot by the citizens of member states and has the power to withdraw confidence from the commission. Another autonomous body, the European Court of Justice, whose rulings are binding and enforceable, represents the judiciary. In addition, a number of regulations and autonomous agencies are in place to ensure financial transparency and probity. Another important facet of the EU experience is its success in bringing various interest groups into the decision-making process. Certain interest groups, for example, may be accorded membership status on the ECOSOC and consultative committees, and measures and procedures have been instituted in order to ensure that at some phase of the decision-making process the approval of relevant interest groups is obtained in order to pass certain types of decisions. Clearly, therefore, it is possible to come up with technical solutions to what initially seem like the most intractable organisational problems. This is the true challenge before the participants at the forthcoming Arab summit in Tunis. If that summit fails to create the effective institutional mechanisms to stimulate and sustain a viable regional integration project, it will have effectively brought about the demise of the Arab League with no death certificate needed. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
