This article is an analysis of Qatari influence in Europe and why the influence Doha it poses a strategic challenge to EU open societies. However, one must first comprehend Qatar´s strategic plan and how it acts (and its foreign policy history) internationally.
Qatar has consistently made use of its vast resources and stable autocratic Islamist regime with vast amount energy resources that produce great wealth to expand its influence on a political, economic and cultural way throughout the world with the primary strategic purpose of influencing the Islamic world and more specifically the Middle East to its goals of advancing Islamist or pro-Islamist regimes throughout Arab societies.
Its influence is felt through its donations and political support throughout the Middle East, with Doha having played a central role in financing and supporting politically the toppling of secular authoritarian leader Muamar Gaddafi to support various pro-Sunni Islam movements throughout the Arab world like the Islamic Brotherhood unstable government that rose during the Arab spring in Egypt.
In consequence of its continuous incursions of political influence that not always is welcome and often creates more instability, multiple Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, officially cut their ties with Doha.
Qatar has consistently played a role in multiple topics that influence great power politics, involving itself with the Palestinian cause where its government has provided support for Hamas, the Iran-allied Islamist political terrorist organization that currently governs Gaza, providing also medical and financial support for poor Palestinian families in Gaza, mediating also between Hamas and Fatah, the other Palestinian authority that is in a conflict with Hamas since 2007.
It has also been a key negotiating partner of cease-fires between Israel and Hamas, having also a strong influence as mediator and of conflicts in Africa, notably in Chad where it has served as a mediator between the rebels of the military junta in the ongoing civil war and the conflict between Kenya and Somalia over several issues with one of the main ones a territorial conflict between water boundaries over oil recourses.
Consequently, it has put much of its resources also in controversial influence campaigns throughout the region, from political support to Islamist factions, some of the using violence for their political end and also through its soft power with its use of its media state-owned news Channel Al Jazeera.
Through its latest project of grand influence, being the host for the World Cup, where it actively bribed decisions makers in the Football world cup committee to choose Doha as the winner, Qatar has used football as a means of soft-power influence in European societies as well as political bribing and lobbying in the EU with the objective of influencing European politics and foreign policy to its favour.
It has also helped normalize the Taliban government even before the Taliban took over Afghanistan from the US backed Kabul secular government by holding a Taliban diplomatic mission in its country and mediating meetings between the US and the Taliban. And on the other has it also gave logistical support to the US when its troops and diplomatic personnel went into retreat, also holding meetings to try to mediate negotiations for the nuclear deal between Iran and the US.
These are prime examples that has a security guarantee it has actively promoted closer ties with the US through supporting some of its strategic security causes in the region, holding the US´s Central Command Military base for the Middle East as well as great portion of the US navy stationed in the region in its territory, with its diplomacy being one where it feeds both sides, the Western liberal societies and Islamist illiberal ones, in a cynical power game to advance its interests while actively safeguarding itself from getting attacked.
Recently, in the advent of the Russian military operation of annexation of Ukraine and the consequent energy and financial war between Western Europe and the Russian Federation, resulting in the cut of supply of Russian gas by Gazprom to European countries, Germany has reached out and officially established energy ties with Qatar, in desperation for the reestablishment of the supply of much needed gas to its society, overlooking the active disrespect of human rights and anti-liberal nature of the Doha regime due to Qatar possessing high amounts natural gas.
The Qatari government has consequently put its current strategic foreign policy focus on capitalizing its international fame with the world cup to deepen its tentacles of influence through legal and illegal means in Western organizations and states while betting also in its large gas reserves and on the high demand and dependence of European governments for them to further of influence western European countries for its political games the Middle East.
Consequently, Qatar is only interested in Europe´s societies and states in so far as it relates strategically to the role Western European countries play in the Middle East, using all methods to influence European societies and being a danger due to its corruptive and illiberal agenda.
Although it should be taken into consideration that Qatar and its Western European partners engage in extensive cooperation on many issues besides energy, with trade and defence two important geo-strategic ones, Europe is not in Qatar´s priority on the grand scale, with other states such as Turkey and Russia playing a bigger role in its foreign policy agenda, since the qualities of importance for Doha to establish a relationship of influence are based on three characteristics.
The 1st one being its ability to shift the paradigm of the current balance of power in the Middle East, the 2nd is it capacity to support the Qatari government on the international stage, in particular the UN Security Council, and the 3rd and final one is the countries capacity to establish security and defence partnerships that increase Qatar´s overall geo-political power and protect its national security.
Qatar holds Europe with little respect and regards European states as having little defence and security power both on the individual level and on the collective level in regards to the balance of power and commitment to security issue in the Middle East. Turkey by contrast has a strong role in the Muslim Middle Eastern world having a string role in the Syrian and Libyan conflicts and has also proven to demonstrate its value to Qatar through its support for Doha in the intra-GCC crisis.
In short, Doha regards Europe collectively has too divided and weak in terms of military means and commitment to be regarded as a serious player on the world stage, since its ineffective way it treated the migrant crises and its lack of resolution for the withdrawal of support by the US for the nuclear deal during the Trump presidency as signs of weakness.
It sees however certain key strategic states of western Europe and the EU are a special focus given their strategic importance, with the UK, Germany and France along with the EU being a focus for Doha, with Doha seeing the lack of support by any European major power of the blockade done by multiple Arab countries on its economy and the cut of relations with its state done by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
This happened in great part due to its energy resources of Qatar being seen as more valuable for them, as a sign that the EU can be manipulated into siding with Doha in multilateral regional order initiatives that deny its opponents in the region to shape the events decisively through coercion through its energy dependence among other factors.
From Qatar´s strategic vantage point, the government of Germany, a strategically critical piece of Europe, is by far one of the countries it wishes to actively invest more in manipulating besides the EU as a whole, with Germany having been the first EU state to stand by Qatar´s side in the intra-GCC crisis.
Despite the potentially negative repercussions this could have for its relationship with the Saudi government and the UAE, another country that has actively been involved in financing extremist movements in EU politics and European countries, having donated millions to Front National, the hard-right populist nationalist pro-Russia party of Marine Le Pen.
The latest campaign of influence by Qatar on the EU has been caught and it already caused great shock revealing to type of level Doha is willing to go to influence institutions in Europe.
With the Belgium authorities having started a sweeping operation to detain five individuals, including former and current members of and bureaucratical employees of the EU Parliament the authorities in Belgium have started a sweeping operation to detain and question five people as part of a bribery scheme of influence done by Qatar.
Among the individuals taken for questioning by the Belgian authorities being is the now infamous Eva Kaili, a Greek politician that was one of the persons holding the office of the Parliament´s vice presidents, that was found to be in the position in her apartment of large bags of cash given as corruption money by Qatar officials.
Europe must thus be more concerned from now on from Qatari influence and corruptive tactics, and although being strategically important to develop policies to protect itself from corruptive influences coming from the United States. in the short term one must be highly sceptical that anything might actually change.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
