When plans for a summit between the European Union and the Arab League were first hatched last year, it was envisioned as the start of a new friendship across the Mediterranean. What a difference a few months makes.

The EU hopes that improving ties with its Arab neighbors would help advance its policies, not least its aim to fight illegal immigration from the Middle East and North Africa.

But after the murder of a journalist in a Saudi consulate last October, European officials helping to prepare for the Feb. 24-25 summit in Egypt say they are now focused mainly on limiting the awkwardness.

“The idea was to give them red carpet treatment and start engaging with them more, see what we can do on migration,” said one European diplomat. “But now we are in an unlucky spot as some of the [Arab League] national leaders are not our favorites.”

With barely three weeks to go before the summit, top EU leaders have yet to confirm their participation.

A lower-level meeting of Arab League and EU foreign ministers intended to set up an agenda for the summit ended on Monday in Brussels with no agreement on a joint statement.

As top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini was explaining to a news conference why they had failed to agree, she was interrupted by her co-chair, the Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

There were “more complications on the European side than the Arab side,” Aboul Gheit said. In a friendly but public sign of disagreement, Mogherini snapped back: “I would say the contrary.”

The EU wants to focus at this month’s summit on migration, but that is a fraught area in which EU member states disagree sharply among themselves. Hungary, led by an anti-immigration hardliner, vetoed Monday’s joint declaration over the subject.

“This summit has been very difficult to organize, to find a date, nobody really wants this,” another EU official said of the top-level talks later this month. “For the EU it is all about migration, but there are so many other touchy subjects that people would rather not address.”

Saudi, Sudan and Syria

A key change in the European-Arab relationship in recent months has been the collapse in the global standing of the wealthy and influential Arab leader, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The West’s relationship with Saudi Arabia — the world’s biggest exporter of oil and second biggest importer of arms — has been the bedrock of its ties to the Arab world for decades.

But the de facto ruler has been shunned since U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. Riyadh initially denied the killing, then gave conflicting accounts. It now accepts that its agents killed him but says its leadership had nothing to do with it.

Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, arrived at Monday’s meeting in Brussels speaking as if little had changed: the sides faced common challenges “like countering extremism and terrorism,” he said. “There are also big offers related to trade and investment.”

But relations are not what they once were. Attending an event with the crown prince is tricky for some European leaders who were already accused by rights groups of rubbing shoulders with him at a meeting of the G-20 industrialized countries in November, European sources said.

Nor is Crown Prince Mohammed the only potentially awkward guest for the EU. In recent weeks, Arab states have been showing solidarity with Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, who has been facing the most sustained anti-government demonstrations at home of his 30 years in power.

Bashir, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, is persona non grata for some Europeans.

“We don’t deal with him directly, but we deal with Sudan,” an EU official said. “They could send somebody else.”

A guest even more unwelcome to the Europeans will not be invited to this summit, but could be at a future one soon: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Hostility to Assad has long been an issue on which European countries agreed with the leading Arab states, which suspended Damascus from the Arab League in 2011. But with Assad’s future now all but secured by Russian and Iranian forces, some Arab countries are pushing to readmit Syria. Most EU countries are not ready to rehabilitate him.

“We are not in a situation today to renew a normal relationship with Syria,” Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said Monday.

However, Austria and the Czech Republic are more amenable, hopeful that restoring ties with Assad would help Syrian refugees return home.

“Preparations for the summit are going very slowly, it’s all rather uncomfortable,” one EU diplomat said, but stressed there were no plans to call the whole thing off. “There are plenty of embarrassing traps to avoid, like sitting at one table with the Saudis, Sudan’s Bashir, or even Assad returning.”
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A former lawmaker who is openly gay launched a progressive party in Poland ahead of two elections this year, presenting a program Sunday that includes phasing out coal production and liberalizing the abortion laws.

At an inaugural convention in Warsaw, Robert Biedron announced the new party’s name, Wiosna, or “Spring,” and vowed to work to unify the bitterly divided country. 

“The last years were cold and gloomy. Instead of conversations we got constant conflict; instead of the good of the community, party interests,” Biedron told a crowd of thousands. “Let this finally come to an end. We need a spring that will renew this gloomy landscape.” 

Biedron, 42, has long been the hope of many progressive Poles, thanks to his charisma, energy and relative youth. He got his start in politics as an LGBT activist during the 1990s and became the first openly gay member of parliament in 2011. He most recently served as mayor of Slupsk in northern Poland.

The left-wing political scene in Poland since communism fell in 1989 has been dominated by ex-communists who are now aging and in some cases, have been discredited by corruption scandals. Many of those hoping for a party focused on progressive mainstays like green energy and women’s rights eagerly anticipated the launch of Biedron’s party.

It remains unclear how much support he will be able to muster in an era when right-wing nationalists have gained popularity in Europe. Some of Biedron’s positions also could prove unpopular. 

In a country heavily dependent on coal for jobs and energy, he said he would focus on fighting the associated heavy smog by phasing out coal production by 2035. 

Biedron’s unapologetically secular program included ending the teaching of religion from public schools, a direct challenge to the Catholic Church that holds great sway in Poland. 

Biedron said he wants to give women in the country with Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws the right to terminate pregnancies to the 12th week. Some conservatives already have accused him of trying to make Poland a “civilization of death.” 

“Poland is a woman,” Biedron said. “Her suffering is our suffering.”

At the convention, Biedron presented himself as an alternative both to ruling right-wing ruling party, Law and Justice, and the main opposition party, the centrist pro-business Civic Platform party. He portrayed the new party as a chance for change after years of hostility between the two political camps.

Civil Platform governed from 2007-2015 and oversaw fast economic growth, but Biedron faulted it for ignoring growing economic equality and struggles of many Poles. 

He said his party would raise the minimum pension to 1,600 zlotys ($425) per month, noting some older Poles now get only 1,000 zlotys ($270).

Some activists and critics of the Law and Justice-led government have accused Biedron of further weakening an already divided opposition with poor prospects of unseating the ruling party. 

Biedron told the convention crowd he would continue the legacy of Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, a supporter of women and minorities who was fatally stabbed in mid-January amid the heavy ideological animosity.

“We do not want any more of this Polish-Polish war,” Biedron declared. 

However, he also vowed to form a Justice and Reconciliation Commission to hold Law and Justice’s leader and others to account for allegedly violating “the freedom and rights enshrined in the constitution.”

Among those at the convention was 18-year-old Jakub Przybysz. He said he liked Biedron’s goal of separating church and state and legalizing same-sex partnerships that confer some rights. But he sees Biedron confronting an uphill battle.

“Perhaps the time hasn’t come for this yet, but even the smallest change in this direction would be good,” Przybysz said.
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Turkey has maintained low-level contact with the Syrian government, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, even though Ankara has supported rebels who fought for years to topple President Bashar Assad.

Erdogan has described Assad as a terrorist and said several times during Syria’s eight-year conflict that the Syrian leader must go. But with support from Russia and Iran, Assad had recaptured large parts of Syria from rebel fighters, driving them from most of their former strongholds.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in December Turkey and other countries would consider working with Assad if he won a democratic election, and last month said Ankara was in indirect contact with Damascus via Russia and Iran.

Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey also had direct contacts with the Syrian government.

“Foreign policy with Syria continues at a lower level,” he told broadcaster TRT in an interview, adding that intelligence services operated differently to political leaders.

“Leaders may be cut out. But intelligence units can communicate for their interests,” Erdogan said. “Even if you have an enemy, you should not break ties. You may need that later.”

 
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Pope Francis has made dialogue with Islam one of the cornerstones of his papacy. Since he became pope in 2013, he has visited several countries with large Muslim populations. On Sunday he will become the first Pope to go to the Arabian Peninsula when he visits the United Arab Emirates.

Pope Francis was invited by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to take part in an interfaith conference. The pope will spend less than 48 hours in the United Arab Emirates and is due to make only two public addresses during his visit.

Pope Francis released a video message last week ahead of his visit.

He paid tribute to the UAE as “a land that is trying to be a model of coexistence, of human brotherhood, and a meeting place among diverse civilizations and cultures, where many find a safe place to work and live freely in the respect of diversities.”

The pope will celebrate an open-air mass in Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City on Tuesday. The stadium can hold 43,000 people but 135,000 tickets have been handed over so thousands are expected to also follow the mass from outside the stadium.

About 10 percent of the population in the United Arab Emirates — nearly one million — are Catholics, most of them foreign workers from Asia.

On Monday, the pope’s day will be entirely dedicated to inter-religious dialogue. He will first visit a mosque, one of the biggest in the world, where he will meet privately with the Council of Elders, an organization based in Abu Dhabi, which aims to promote peace and tolerance among Islamic communities. The Council of Elders organized the Human Fraternity Meeting and Conference where the pope will speak.

The pope said, he is pleased with this meeting offered by the Lord to write a new page in the history of relations among religions and confirm that all are brothers despite our differences.

Pope Francis also said that, “Faith in God unites and does not divide, it draws us closer despite differences, it distances us from hostilities and aversion.”

Since his election, the Pope has already visited half a dozen predominantly Muslim nations. He has condemned using violence in the name of God and urged inter-religious dialogue.

The war in Yemen, in which the UAE is involved as part of a Saudi-led coalition, could cast a shadow on the trip.

 
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Pope Francis, the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, is making the first-ever trip by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.

Francis arrives in the United Arab Emirates Sunday for an interreligious conference. He returns to Rome Tuesday.

Before leaving the Vatican, Francis said he had been following the humanitarian crisis in Yemen with great worry and urged all sides to respect international agreements and ensure food reaches suffering Yemenis.

‘Human Fraternity Meeting’

Francis and Sheik Ashamed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Islam will speak Monday at the “Human Fraternity Meeting.” Attending that meeting will be Muslims, Christians, and hundreds of Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and other faith leaders.

The conference and the pope’s appearance are all part of the Emirates’ Year of Tolerance and its effort to show its openness to other faiths.

“It’s something new for the Muslim world, that within the discussion of dialogue, they’re talking about interreligious dialogue across the board, beyond basic Christian-Muslim relations,” Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant’Egidio Community, a Rome-based Catholic organization told the Associated Press.

Mass in Abu Dhabi

On Tuesday, the pope will celebrate mass in Abu Dhabi.

The Catholic Church believes there are as many as one million Catholics in the UAE. Most of them are from the Philippines and India and have left family behind to come for jobs in the Emirates where they can face precarious work conditions.

The mass is expected to draw around 135,000 people in what some people say will be the largest show of public Christian worship on the Arabian Peninsula.
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