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domestic clampdowns. The risks for individual Islamists increase with the 
potential public repercussions of contacts with the West.
10
 Outlawed 
movements such as the MB therefore increasingly ‘outsource’ these 
interactions to their European branches, which are well connected and 
maintain regular contacts, for example, with parliamentarians across 
Europe. On the domestic front, some troubled Islamist leaders say that they 
will now prioritise direct engagement with European NGOs and think 
tanks, which are somewhat less of an anathema to the regimes, hoping that 
this will eventually sway Western public opinion in their favour.
11
 
EU institutions: Hitting a brick wall 
Common EU policy lines regarding engagement with opposition groups in 
general, and Islamists in particular, are hard to discern. The EU member 
states’ lowest common denominator in this regard is the EU’s list of 
terrorist groups and individuals.
12
 The inclusion of a group or individual 
on this list is being mentioned by most of the member state representatives 
as the one absolute criterion inhibiting any sort of political contacts. Indeed, 
much of the debate on engagement with Islamists in the MENA revolves 
                                                      
10
 For example, the Muslim Brothers in Cairo rejected European embassies’ offers 
to meet in the direct run-up to the 8 April 2007 local elections, stating that they 
“did not want to give the regime extra reason to clamp down” on them. MB leader 
Khairat el-Shatir was arrested in 2005 following his publication of an article in the 
Guardian, in which he encouraged the West to trust in and engage with the 
Brotherhood (K. el-Shatir, “No need to be afraid of us”, Guardian, 23 November 
2005). 
11 
In an attempt to balance engagement interests with a reconciliatory course 
towards the regime within the margins of the law, the Egyptian MB has often 
stated that while it would not meet with foreign government representatives in 
secret, it was open to meeting with foreign officials at any time in the presence of 
an Egyptian foreign ministry representative. Notwithstanding that the Egyptian 
authorities are unlikely to allow (let alone attend) such a meeting, the failure of 
Western governments to ever respond to this offer is being interpreted by 
Brotherhood members as confirmation of the West’s persistent choice of stability 
over democracy.
 
 
12
 See the EU’s list of persons, groups and entities subject to specific measures to 
combat terrorism, last updated by EU Council Common Position 2008/586/CFSP 
of 15 July 2008. 

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around the listing of Hamas as a terrorist group. Incidentally, the vast 
majority of European diplomats interviewed for this chapter judge this to 
have been a mistake committed too hastily, as it not only paralysed the 
EU’s role as an actor in the Arab–Israeli conflict but also ‘poisoned’ the 
general EU debate on engagement with other Islamist actors.  
Engaging with and strengthening non-violent, non-revolutionary 
Islamist actors in order to prevent radicalisation has become a common 
notion in European policy discourse. EU policy documents in recent years 
have been replete with explicit and implicit calls to engage more actively 
with moderate Islamist organisations both within and outside Europe. The 
EU’s 2005 strategy document on Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to 
Terrorism states: “We need to empower moderate voices by engaging with 
Muslim organisations and faith groups that reject the distorted version of 
Islam put forward by al-Qa’ida and others. …We must ensure that by our 
own policies we do not exacerbate division.”
13
  
According to Commission staff, the idea of engaging with moderate 
Islamists “flashes from many EU documents”, but these implicit allusions 
and vague hints of non-exclusion are “nothing coherent and too vague to 
be taken as a clear policy”. A notable exception is the May 2007 European 
Parliament resolution on reforms in the Arab world, drafted by former 
French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, which recognises that “the 
moderation of Islamism depends on both the stability of the institutional 
framework in which they evolve and the opportunities which the latter 
offers to influence policy-making”. The resolution calls upon Europe “also 
to give visible political support to…those political organisations which 
promote democracy by non-violent means, excluding sectarian, 
fundamentalist and extremist nationalist forces but including, where 
appropriate, secular actors and moderate Islamists…whom Europe has 
encouraged to participate in the democratic process, thus striking a balance 
between culture-based perceptions and political pragmatism”.
14
  
                                                      
13
 Council of the European Union, The European Union Strategy for Combating 
Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism, 14781/1/05 REV 1, Brussels, 24 
November 2005, p. 4. 
14
 European Parliament, Resolution on reforms in the Arab World: What strategy 
should the European Union adopt?, 2006/2172(INI), 10 May 2007. 

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Yet, action on demands for a proactive inclusion of Islamists has been 
negligible. Engagement has been undertaken by EU member states mostly 
on a decidedly informal, bilateral, low-key and ad hoc basis. There is no 
common EU policy line on engagement with moderate Islamist 
interlocutors in a general sense. In early 2006, following on the heels of the 
elections in Palestine, an ad hoc Task Force on Political Islamism was set up 
within the Directorate-General for External Relations in the European 
Commission. The ad hoc task force aims at overcoming the EU’s lack of 
information on Islamism worldwide. Since 2007, the task force has also 
organised internal training programmes on Islamism, which have now 
become part of the Commission’s mainstream training. Furthermore, some 
efforts have been made in the Council to foster an EU consensus regarding 
definitions and categories (for example, adopting a common ‘lexicon’ of 
relevant terminology and ‘mapping’ Islamist movements). 
The Commission task force drafted a discussion paper arguing in 
favour of the EU’s and member states’ engagement with non-violent, non-
revolutionary Islamist groups, which was eventually submitted to the 
Council and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner for 
her consideration. According to one civil servant, one of the main goals of 
the paper was to “uncramp” relations with these groups by agreeing on a 
set of general principles of action. The paper was well-received by the 
commissioner, who even suggested developing specific staff capacities 
within the Commission, especially with a view to preparing for the launch 
of the new External Action Service. However, the Commission failed to 
gain the necessary support from member states for a common approach, 
some of which showed “quick opposition” to the paper. Several adjusted 
and modified versions of the paper likewise failed to obtain the necessary 
support, and the idea of developing a common EU line on engagement 
with Islamists ended up on the backburner for the time being.  
Commission and Council Secretariat staff report an “emotionally 
charged debate” and “a huge amount of ignorance and prejudice” both 
within the Commission and among member state representatives, many of 
whom have “no differentiated views on Islamism” (with one of the newer 
member state representatives reportedly comparing the rise of Islamism at 
large with the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin). Some advocates of the 
common approach felt they had “hit a brick wall” in their efforts to lobby 
for a consensus on this matter. They also attribute this failure to the EU’s 

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