ECFR calls sanctioning the UAE for its subversive policies

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) called for European sanctions imposed on the UAE due to its provocative policy and destabilizing regional activities.

In its lengthy study entitled: A Better European Approach to Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, the institute said that Europeans should be aware that some of their key regional partners, who provide them with legitimacy and credibility, are undermining regional stability.

“Europe regularly comments on Iran’s destabilizing regional activities, but it doesn’t have much to say about the UAE’s subversive activities,” it added.

The institute pointed to the UAE’s transfer of weapons and smuggling of mercenaries to Libya, violating the UN embargo and directly undermining the UN-led peace talks.

It also highlighted the UAE’s involvement in violations of the enforced disappearance of Yemeni children and their detention in black detention centres for allegedly financing the military coup in two banks in 2013.

“Europe should start talking more collaboratively about such regional activities,” it said. Doing so could be through ad hoc groups of like-minded cases” by imposing sanctions on Abu Dhabi.

The European Institute warned that the UAE used its financial resources to secure its political influence by supporting the activity of authoritarian partners in what could be described as a regional “counter-revolution.”

It noted that while the European Parliament had repeatedly called for an EU-wide embargo on arms sales to members of the Saudi-led coalition, the United Kingdom and France (unlike Germany and Italy, which had imposed embargoes or restrictions) continued to authorize arms sales.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) warned that the UAE was one of the largest customers of French arms throughout the Yemeni conflict.

And last February, the European Parliament recently dealt a solid blow to the UAE and exposed its violations in Yemen amid political indicators towards Abu Dhabi.

This was translated into the adoption by the European Parliament of a tough resolution against the Saudi-Emirati alliance on February 11th.

More than 90 per cent of MEPs voted in favour of the resolution, which spanned the entire political spectrum, and only a handful of far-right members opposed it.

The resolution called on European Union countries to stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE without distinguishing between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons.

For the first time, the resolution called for referring human rights violations in Yemen to the International Criminal Court.

MEPs also urged EU governments to use the newly adopted EU global human rights sanctions mechanism to target Saudi and Emirati officials.