A bomb intended for former Colombian Interior Minister Fernando Londono instead killed two of his bodyguards and injured scores of bystanders in Bogota on Tuesday. According to media reports, the bombing was the first with seemingly political motivations to hit the capital in nearly a decade. Rebels from the guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are the most likely culprits behind the attack, but two experts who spoke with Trend Lines warn that the Colombian government must not react by focusing too much of its attention on the FARC while ignoring the many other threats to Colombia’s security.

While the prospect of a country withdrawing from the eurozone was once considered unthinkable, the possibility of a Greek exit from the economic monetary union has now become a focus of the European Union debt crisis. The success in recent parliamentary elections of parties opposed to the austerity measures that Greece must enact to receive EU bailout payments has left Athens in a political impasse. As a result, some observers have begun to take seriously a scenario whereby Greece will be forced to exit from the single currency and default on its debts. And as no country has ever left the eurozone and there is no legal provision for this process, the consequences of such a move are not yet clear . Speaking with Trend Lines about the possible scenarios, Domenico Lombardi , a senior fellow for the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, underscored the fact that a Greek exit might compel a larger country like Spain or Italy to follow. “If Greece pulls out of the eurozone, the same could happen for other eurozone countries, and that would trigger a systemic meltdown,” he said. “There is really no precedent for a situation like this, and once you open the Pandora’s box of a member leaving the eurozone, it sparks an unprecedented wave of uncertainty whose consequences no one is able to predict.” Greece, Lombardi said, exerts a level of market pressure that extends far beyond its relatively small share of the eurozone’s gross domestic product. “Greece only accounts for 2 percent of the EU GDP, so in that sense, the country is not a systemic player,” he said. “Whether it stays within the eurozone should not have any systemic impact by definition. And yet, what we are seeing is that the Greek crisis has triggered an unprecedented wave of market pressure.” The greatest consequence of a Greek exit would be the domino effect it might have on other highly indebted eurozone countries, with Spain, Italy and Portugal figuring high on that list. Investors, concerned about this possibility, might decide that these other economies are too risky and stop buying their bonds, which could lead to a global drop in lending as well as a downturn in economic activity. Lombardi, who said it would be in the interest of both Europe and the global financial system for Greece to remain within the eurozone, explained that key next steps for the EU will include stabilizing the situation in other countries such as Italy and Spain. “There is substantial uncertainty and unprecedented potential for contagion should Greece exit the eurozone,” he said. “The key is to safeguard the eurozone and these larger sovereigns that could trigger a systemic crisis by leaving.” The possibility of Greece returning to the drachma, its former currency, has made headlines this week after none of the leading parties emerging from the May 6 parliamentary elections was able to pull together a majority coalition willing to meet Brussels’ bailout conditions. Lombardi calls the failure yet another example of “a continuing inability to form a government with the full mandate to tackle the economic crisis.” For their part, European leaders have begun to take the possibility of a Greek exit from the euro seriously, as part of a bargaining strategy to put pressure on Greece, Lombardi said. But Lombardi said he does not think a Greek exit from the eurozone is by any means an immediate possibility, pointing to Greek public opinion polls indicating that the majority of the country wants to remain within the eurozone. “This is something that might arise at some time in the future, if at some point down the road there is still no light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, adding that the EU will have to prepare for this possibility, no matter how distant, by figuring out “a procedure whereby a member that does not abide by certain policy standards may leave the eurozone.” Photo: Euro coins and banknotes (European Central Bank photo).

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Political Impasse in Greece Puts Possibility of Euro Exit in Spotlight

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, which together account for 20 percent of global GDP, will meet in Beijing this weekend for their fifth annual trilateral summit. The summit is intended to enhance cooperation in a wide range of areas, including security issues, but it will focus mainly on trade. Before leaving for Beijing, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda expressed his hope that the three leaders would announce the start of negotiations for a trilateral free trade agreement. But Claude Barfield , a resident scholar and international trade policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, and Richard C. Bush III , director of Brookings Institution’s Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies, both told Trend Lines that such deal is a long shot. “The problem with the free trade pact will be all the exceptions that the three try to carve out to protect domestic interests,” said Bush, who added that in trade and other issues among the three, “the obstacles to greater cooperation are conflicting nationalisms, with each country having problems with the other two.” Barfield explained that the summit has been the basis for discussions leading toward a trilateral trade agreement. “And it comes from a common sense that there is a potential commonality of interest among these three nations,” he said. “Each of them has different reasons for wanting to go forward with it.” The Chinese, for example, have “been pushing for the past 10 years for a vision of intra-East Asia trade,” he added. And while Japan and Korea are concerned about China’s rise and military buildup, they are aware of its value as an economic partner.

Yulia Tymoshenko’s hunger strike to protest her alleged assault in the prison where she is serving a sentence on charges of abuse of power returned the former prime minister to the center of growing tensions between Ukraine and the European Union . Her case has further damaged already strained ties between the EU and Ukraine, a member of the Eastern Partnership initiative that the EU launched in 2009, in part to promote human rights in six post-Soviet states. In addition to Ukraine, the other participating states are Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. For Nicu Popescu and Jana Kobzova , both experts on Russia and Europe at the European Council on Foreign Relations, the tensions over Ukraine’s treatment of its former prime minister highlight the limits to each side’s leverage over the other’s behavior. “The case of Yulia Tymoshenko shows the limit of what the EU can do as an actor in some of these Eastern European countries,” said Kobzova. “There is a lot of irritation and frustration around Ukraine at the moment, and the EU has a number of tools they can use, but the tools are ultimately not effective, in part because Ukraine does not see them as in their interest.” The EU has been applying pressure on Ukraine, with some European leaders announcing a boycott of the upcoming Euro 2012 soccer tournament in Ukraine and others pulling out of a summit of Central and Eastern European leaders scheduled to take place in Ukraine later this month . Germany has also threatened to block the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, a political and trade deal that was recently finalized between the two sides, if conditions do not improve for Tymoshenko. Kobzova and Popescu explained that the EU has in the past held leverage over Ukraine because Ukraine has expressed interest in joining the EU and also because the former Soviet republic does not want to be, as Kobzova put it, “swallowed by Russia.” But now, she said, it seems that Ukraine, or at least its new leadership, is changing its mind. “Ukraine is a country that still officially wants to join the EU and be associated with the EU as much as possible, but at the same time, the leadership is not doing anything or acting in any way that would make the EU believe that Ukraine means what it is saying,” Kobzova said. She explained that while Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych has promised further EU integration, “the new leadership continues to crack down on civil liberties and the opposition.” But through its actions, Ukraine is losing leverage over the EU as well. “More and more EU states are asking why should we want the Ukraine closer to the EU when its political system is increasingly incompatible with the values the EU preaches?” said Kobzova. “Yanukovych is mistaken in thinking the EU will still do everything possible to keep Ukraine out of the Russian orbit, because the appetite is decreasing for that.” Popescu pointed out that Ukraine is not the worst human rights offender in the post-Soviet space. Belarus, for example, has a far worse human rights record. “But Ukraine is the biggest source of disappointment and bad news in terms of human rights because no one expected it to go down the path of human rights abuses so quickly.” Popescu added that Ukraine’s backsliding on democracy and human rights points to the larger difficulty of the Eastern Partnership’s human rights plank. “There is not much that external actors can do if there is a really strong government preference for abusing human rights in a country,” he said. “If you have an assertive assault by an authoritarian government on the opposition, like in Belarus, then unfortunately, more often than not, the government has enough power to ignore the EU.” For Vytis Jurkonis , the head of political analysis at the Eastern Europe Studies Center, the Eastern Partnership’s broader problem is that the EU has failed to tailor specific policies toward each country separately. “Belarus is a perfect example. President Alexander Lukashenko was able to conduct his balancing policy between Russia and the West, while the EU was drifting between a policy of sanctions and engagement, while never fully implementing any of them,” said Jurkonis. “The EU needs not only to acknowledge that the ‘Eastern Neighborhood’ is important, which was done by the Eastern Partnership initiative, but also to be more engaged there,” he added, “because neither the public interest nor the expertise in the region is satisfactory so far.” Popescu explained that Belarus is much more authoritarian and centralized than Ukraine, which still has political parties and some media freedoms. “Ukraine is just an unstable democracy with a government that tries to assert a more authoritarian regime, but it is not yet there,” he said. Popescu believes the EU and Ukraine will continue going back and forth on the human rights issue, working to assert their influence as long as they still can. “It is often a game of who blinks first,” he said. “And this time, the EU seems to be determined not to blink first.”

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Increasing EU-Ukraine Tensions Reducing Both Sides’ Leverage

Over the weekend, tens of thousands Malaysian demonstrators took to the streets to demand electoral reforms from the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Najib Razak. The rally, which ended with Malaysian police arresting more than 450 people amid charges of police brutality, raised questions about whether the government might delay its plans to call early elections. Although elections do not need to be held until April 2013, Najib, who has been working to improve his image and bolster public support for his ruling coalition, was expected to hold the polls as early as June. “The enormous turnout indicates that there is strong opposition to the government,” John Funston , a Malaysia expert at Australia National University, told Trend Lines. “Najib must secure a majority that is not less than his predecessor in the 2008 election, and one that preferably gives him a parliamentary majority of at least two-thirds.” While the 2008 elections allowed the National Front, which has governed Malaysia since its independence from Britain in 1957, to retain power, they provided the opposition with major gains. And Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who preceded Najib as prime minister, lost his position after he failed to obtain a two-third majority in 2008. Experts say the recent rallies have rattled Najib’s confidence, particularly because of the 2008 results, and also because similar demonstrations staged in July 2011 led to a decline in his popularity.

Immigration has been a key issue in the French presidential election, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy promising to drastically reduce immigration inflows , as well as to withdraw France from the European Union’s open-border internal Schengen zone unless the EU tightens its own border controls by the end of 2012. Both measures are widely seen as an effort to win over the first-round voters of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. But according to Saskia Sassen , a professor at Columbia University and an expert on European immigration, Sarkozy is simply the latest in a long line of European presidents and prime ministers to suggest that he has far more power than actual EU treaty law grants him. “Treaty law is difficult to change,” said Sassen. “There is a limit to what Sarkozy can do.” Moreover, Sassen said, the French elections, combined with the ongoing economic crisis, threaten to reverse progress made on harmonizing EU member states’ immigration policy. The economic crisis has impacted immigration policy, Sassen explained, because those who push for tighter border controls often draw links between immigration and unemployment. “Some of the added options that national governments within the EU have are often part of emergency law, predicated on a crisis of sorts,” she added. The French elections, and especially Sarkozy’s threat to pull out of the Schengen accord, which Sassen said is all “part of a performance,” further pushes immigration policy toward what she calls an “emergency mode.” “I think Europe right now is really in a moment of transition,” she said. “The push is not toward reasonable policy, but rather toward more emergency measures. And so it actually derails the progress made on reasonable immigration policy.” The EU’s ongoing effort toward a common immigration policy is daunting, Sassen said, because of the constant tension between national sovereignty and EU integration. But it becomes all the more difficult when such a sensitive issues takes front and center of an election. “What I fear,” she added, “is all the lessons we have learned of what can and cannot be done will be lost and that we will have to start from scratch.” The Amsterdam Treaty, said Sassen, introduced shared responsibility between the member states and the EU to regulate immigration, rather than leaving it to the exclusive authority of member states. And more recently, she said, the EU has partnered with Africa to fight illegal immigration and work to improve migrant and refugee rights. “The EU recognizes that it is essential to work with ‘sending governments,’ and Africa became the core continent with which they wanted to deal,” she said, adding that while there are individuals who migrate to Europe from China and elsewhere, “what has created the most debate and what the politicians have really focused on is immigration from sub-Saharan Africa.”