Mecca Pact lays bare disastrous consequences of Europe’s economic indulgence of Pakistan

Brussels: With the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, Saudi Arabia’s leadership forged an explicit collective defence pact with Pakistan — a deeply unstable state ruled by corrupt elites, nurturing radicalism and expanding its nuclear arsenal — alongside Turkey, an increasingly “rogue” NATO member that routinely plays both sides of geopolitical rivalries, a report has stated.

On August 7 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey entered into the landmark Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, formalising a mutual defence arrangement that bears clear parallels to NATO’s collective security framework. Under the agreement, an armed attack against any one of the signatories would be regarded as an attack against all three.

“While European foreign policy bureaucrats consume their precious time drafting sanitised press releases and holding hand-wringing summits, a seismic geopolitical shift is reshaping the broader Middle East, and exposing the total strategic bankruptcy of the European Union,” a report in Belgian news website ‘Brussels Signal’ noted.

The first major test of the pact came within weeks. In mid-September, Houthi drones and missiles attacked critical Saudi energy infrastructure, while drones launched from Iraq hit the East-West oil pipeline, forcing Riyadh to suspend its operations on September 11, it mentioned.

“Yet, as the new Sunni security alliance anchored by a nuclear-armed state is expected to take action on Europe’s immediate flank, Brussels remains a passive spectator. Consider the sheer absurdity of the dynamic. Saudi Arabia, profoundly disillusioned by years of shifting priorities and unreliable security guarantees from the West, and especially after the latest and ongoing Iran conflict, which began with US and Israeli strikes on February 28, has moved decisively to diversify its survival strategy,” the report detailed.

“Where does Riyadh turn? Not to European capitals, which possess neither the military projection nor the political spine to safeguard global energy corridors,” it added.

According to the report, European leaders are refusing to confront the glaring strategic contradictions of this new reality. It stated that NATO member Turkey has embedded itself in an autonomous, non-Western military alliance whose strategic ambitions could pull European nations into conflicts.

“If Ankara is bound to defend Islamabad or Riyadh in regional escalations, where does its commitment to Atlantic security begin and end? Brussels dares not even ask,” the report noted.

Second, and far more consequential, the alliance lays bare the disastrous consequences of Europe’s years-long economic indulgence of Pakistan. The European Commission has for years granted Islamabad duty-free access to European markets under its Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) trade scheme, with Pakistan emerging as its largest beneficiary, according to the Commission, ‘Brussels Signal’ stated.

“European taxpayer-backed trade preferences bankroll a state that persecutes its own minorities at home while offering its military and nuclear deterrence umbrella to the highest bidder abroad,” the report stated.

Highlighting the glaring contradictions in Europe’s approach, it said, “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s mechanism has created a dangerous strategic vacuum now filled by nuclear ambiguity and autocratic alliances. It is time for Brussels to face reality: Pakistan and Turkey should not enjoy European economic privileges while their militaries construct non-Western power blocs.”

IANS