Bulletin Cathrin Schaer from Berlin

Thoughts and prayers and the vague promise of an exit visa. That was about all Europeans could offer while watching an era ending in Afghanistan this month, with dangerously hopeless young men clinging desperately to the underside of a giant, grey US military transport plane as it prepared to take off. That and shouting, “For God’s sake, somebody do something!” at the telly.

As ultra-conservative Islamist group the Taliban was taking over the Afghan capital, several European ambassadors, including British, French and German representatives, remained at Kabul airport as the city was evacuated. The diplomats were processing visas to facilitate the exit of Afghans in danger of punishment because they’d worked with foreigners.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that her country accept as many as 10,000 Afghans who had worked with, or for, Germany over the past 20 years.

Meanwhile, the man who may replace Merkel and lead the country after September’s elections seemed more worried about Afghan refugees making it to Europe. “Most of the people will flee to neighbouring countries,” Armin Laschet, who heads Merkel’s political party, argued. “Germany should push the European Union to help there.”

Laschet’s argument was immediately condemned as cynical. And in many ways, his critics were correct. It was. But in other ways, Laschet was right. There’s not much Europe can do about what’s happening in Afghanistan.

In fact, there’s not much Europe can do about anything. Consider what was described as an egregious “case of statesponsored hijacking” in May this year, by the EU-adjacent state of Belarus. A budget airline of holidaymakers travelling from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Belarus by a fake bomb scare, apparently so a Belarusian anti-government activist who had previously fled the country could be captured. EU leaders expressed shock and anger, then answered overt Belarusian aggression with their favourite form of covert retaliation: sanctions.

Because of its economic power – the EU is the secondlargest economy in the world and accounts for 18.5% of global GDP – sanctions are seen as the primary way of making life difficult for the EU’s enemies.

The EU is the regional organisation that imposes the most sanctions worldwide and their use has been increasing since about 2010. Targeted sanctions, which may directly deny individuals visas or businesses opportunities, are preferred because then a whole population isn’t affected. Currently, the sanctioned list of individuals and organisations is 539 pages long.

Sanctions are how Europe has responded to Russian provocations in Ukraine, to support pro-democracy activists in Myanmar and to censure Iranian human-rights violations as well as to, for the first time ever, punish cyber attackers from China and Russia.

But do sanctions work? Indirectly, yes. For example, although EU sanctions didn’t stop the conflict in Ukraine, they are considered to have reduced the growth of the Russian economy by several percentage points. Sanctions

There’s not much Europe can do about what’s happening in Afghanistan. In fact, there’s not much Europe can do about anything.

on Iran have had a major effect on trade there.

For the EU, an alliance without an army, born out of violent conflict and based on the idea that economic commonalities would prevent another world war, sanctions are “more moderate than an embargo, less dangerous than military retaliation … halfway between inaction and violent overreaction”, say researchers at Brussels-based think tank the Robert Schuman Foundation.

There’s an ongoing debate here about how the EU can and should defend itself and whether sanctions are enough. But there’s also already talk of sanctioning Pakistan for enabling the Taliban.

All very sensible. But hardly what you want to hear when you’re yelling helplessly at the telly. Or so desperate that you’re prepared to cling to the wheels of a military plane as it’s about to take off. l