The Arab Spring

Edward McMillan-Scott was the first democratically-elected politician to get to Cairo, the day after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. He has long advocated democratic and other reforms in the Arab world and has championed Egypt’s secular liberal party since 2004: “Egypt is the most important country in North Africa in strategic, economic and population terms. Now it is leading the region into democracy.” says Edward, who visited Cairo again two weeks later with Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal group in the European Parliament.

Edward is a member of the European Parliament’s monitoring group, which has been set up to coordinate support for the reforms now taking shape across the wider Middle East.

He is a relation of Lawrence of Arabia, the British officer who gathered the Arabs together to rebel successfully against Ottoman rule during World War I. In the preface to his account of this campaign, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence writes to an anonymous friend “I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands, and wrote my will across the sky in stars, to earn you Freedom, the many-pillared worthy house…” Edward commented at the time of the Iraq invasion “Whose stars? The EU’s 12 stars represent a better model for freedom in the Arab world than the Stars and Stripes.

Edward first went to North Africa as a young tour guide and has since has visited all countries in the Arab world - except the Gulf - to meet their dissidents and reformists. He has worked with Egypt's liberal, secular El Ghad party since 2004. He is pictured here with one of its founders, Wael Nawara in 2005.

He has also pressed in Brussels to enhance the EU’s pro-democracy support. As the founder of the EU’s €160 million Democracy and Human Rights Instrument (EIDHR) in 1992, he visited Jordan in 1993 to meet the president of its reforming parliament and dissidents. In 1996 he established the ‘Meda Democracy Fund’ as part of the EU’s Mediterranean policy.

The EIDHR finances all EU election observation missions, which are conducted by the EU Commission. Separately, the European Parliament sends short-term missions. In 2003 Edward observed the presidential elections in Algeria and in 2005 the parliamentary poll in Egypt, both of which he defined as rigged.

He represented the European Parliament at the Cairo funeral of Yasser Arafat (above) in November 2004. In 2005 and 2006 he chaired the largest-ever parliamentary observation missions, to the Palestine presidential and parliamentary elections respectively.

In 2004, Edward attended a conference in the Yemeni capital Sana’a held to encourage Arab countries to sign up to the Rome Treaty, which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC) – itself part-financed by the EIDHR -in the Hague in 2002.The conference, also supported by the EIDHR, was chaired by President Saleh, who then signed the Rome Treaty.

In 2005, Edward chaired in Cairo the inaugural meeting of the EuroMed Parliamentary Assembly, a body which brings together parliamentarians from the Arab world and Israel with MPs and MEPs from the EU. He secured the immediate release of Dr Ayman Nour, leader of the secular El Ghad (‘The Future’) party, who had been imprisoned after he stood against Mubarak in the presidential election.

Nour later wrote to MEPs “thanks to Edward's and your persistence in requesting to visit me in prison and calling for my release, the Egyptian Authorities announced my release. When I was sent back to jail after the elections, Mr. McMillan-Scott and all of you continued to support my case. I owe Edward, and I owe all of you, part of my freedom today.”

CASE STUDY: Arab Spring - liberal leadership in action

A snapshot of activities by the international community following the changes in the Arab world. See how 'liberal' leadership - from Barack Obama to Jerzy Buzek - shaped the reaction. Read the Case Study here

Edward's activities in the Arab world

For the last decade Edward has been one of the most prominent politicians to campaign for democracy in the Arab world.

12.03.03 MEP calls on the West to free the Arabs

17.06.03 Iran: EU should back USA

28.11.03 Make Arab democracy number one priority

09.01.04 2004 will be the year of Arab change

23.01.04 Europe's Arab world dilemma

27.02.04 MEP takes democracy message to Arab MPs

05.03.04 Democracy in the Arab world: EU must do more and better

05.10.05 Political funds: MEP poses "Hamas" question

01.12.05 MEPs likely to boycott Egypt polls

09.11.05 Egyptian parliamentary elections come under unwelcome scrutiny from MEPs

11.11.05 Yorks MEP in Egypt polls scuffles

28.12.05 EU expects fair appeal for jailed Egypt politician

25.01.06 EU observers say Palestinian election running smoothly

26.01.06 Yorks MEP "regrets" Hamas result

27.02.06 Hamas: MEP to assess Arab MPs' opinion

15.03.06 EU urges end to Palestinian violence

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