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European Affairs
European Integration
An EU 'Advance Guard' Should Lead the Way
By Philippe Lemaître
The Iraq crisis has also been a European crisis. Indeed, on the diplomatic front, Europe was among the first to sustain heavy collateral damage. The crisis has shone the harshest possible light on the divisions that have put a brake on the construction of Europe since the very beginning. These divisions have to do with the nature of Europe's relations with the United States – that is to say with the extent to which the European Union should be able to take a genuinely different stand from its American ally on sensitive issues. What lessons will EU governments draw from this – particularly the "Old Europe" trio of Germany, Belgium and France, which firmly opposed Washington's decision to resort to force?
With the conclusions only just beginning to be drawn, a number of different scenarios are possible. But it would be unwise to attach too much importance to the calming calls for cohesion that most European leaders, with French President Jacques Chirac in the forefront, are now issuing to reassure themselves. Nothing will be as it was before, and, in a way, everyone will have to choose sides. The reshuffling of the cards that is now likely could take some time, because the positions of those involved are not set in stone, and no one wants a dramatic upheaval. But it appears inescapable.
Recent expressions of confidence in the vitality of the European-American friendship are perfectly sincere. But, behind these worthy words, several European governments and, above all, a growing portion of European public opinion are increasingly mistrustful of many aspects of the Bush administration's policies. The issue is what Europeans call "American unilateralism." Europeans see this at work in the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and of the International Criminal Court and in American obstruction of the agreement to allow poor countries free access to medicines. They would also cite the Bush administration's extreme militarism, its whole-hearted support of the repressive policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the way it seems ever more strongly tempted to mount a crusade against Islam.
This mistrust has reached such heights in some governments that it will surely lead them to distance themselves from Washington to a degree that is unacceptable to other EU countries, whose prime concern is to preserve the Transatlantic relationship. If divorce seems unavoidable, there remain many unknowns as to where exactly the break will fall and how permanent it will be. After all, the Bush administration will not be around forever, and even though the very existence of the American "hyper-power" poses problems for Europe, relations with a Democratic administration could rapidly become harmonious again.
In the short-term, the EU member governments will strive to prevent the Union's internal difficulties from worsening. Politically speaking, this means as far as possible avoiding recriminations and other verbal knife-thrusts. Apart from Mr. Chirac's outburst deploring the behavior of the EU candidate countries, this non-aggression pact has been more or less generally respected up to now. It is as if EU leaders have learned from the past and realized how badly their respective public opinions would react to a new outbreak of high-level tension.
In the television interview in which he announced that France would veto any Security Council resolution that automatically led to war, Mr. Chirac was careful to stress that his differences with British Prime Minister Tony Blair over Iraq had not prevented the two men from making progress in other areas, and particularly on defense, at the Franco-British summit meeting in Le Touquet a few days earlier. Perhaps it is a happy result of their experience working together in the Union that European governments appear divided but nonetheless tolerant of one another! Apart from the British popular press – in which the Australian-American magnate Rupert Murdoch has a large stake – the European media generally adopted a restrained tone during the crisis.
With the risk that the Iraq war could cause the international economic situation to deteriorate from mediocre to horrendous, it is right that the EU countries should momentarily forget their political differences and close ranks to save what they have already achieved, which is essentially the single market and their monetary union. That means accelerating the pace of reform and working as far as possible in a coordinated manner.
With a full-blown crisis under way, now is not the time for audacious projects. The constitutional convention that has been considering the future of Europe and its institutions since last winter will have no choice but to limit its ambitions, whatever its chairman, former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of France, may say. The brutal division of Europe into two that has just taken place has destroyed, probably forever, the pipe dream of a politically integrated union of 25 countries. It has also given an air of surrealism to the bolder proposals for a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). After what has just occurred, who can believe that any EU country will accept that foreign policy or defense decisions be taken by qualified majority.
Without being overly pessimistic, it is reasonable to expect that the institutional reforms adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference that will follow the convention will be modest or, worse, mere window dressing. For instance, what would be the use of replacing the High Representative for the CFSP with an EU minister of foreign affairs if the new minister did not have any more real powers than those already exercised by Javier Solana, the current High Representative? Despite all the speeches that have been made on the need to overcome differences and ensure that Europe henceforth speaks with a single voice, the degree of integration in foreign policy will probably remain the same as it is now. The Iraqi experience has shown that it is useless to try to force Europe's destiny.
The EU countries manage to act collectively when their interests are similar and there is no, or not too much, American interference. They have accordingly learned to act together in the Balkans. The experience could be repeated without too much difficulty in relations with the European Union's immediate neighbors: Turkey, Ukraine, Russia. This would already be a vast undertaking in itself. As for more strategic areas, in which there is a risk of conflict with American interests, it would be wise to proceed cautiously and to pursue a policy of slow diplomatic rapprochement inside the current EU institutions.
The pressure of public opinion could accelerate the pace: in the case of Iraq, the citizens of Europe, except in the East, were clearly against the war. This was not so much because of pacifism or weakness, but because after due consideration they rejected a use of force that they thought to be unnecessary and dangerous. The European Parliament and the Commission took the same position. Sooner or later, the Spanish, Italian and British governments, which supported the war, will have to take these feelings into account if they wish to avoid being punished by their voters.
Proceeding cautiously when it comes to foreign affairs and defense certainly does not condemn the convention to failure. The convention could take due note of the many infringements of budgetary discipline that have shaken the euro zone in its early years and that are now impeding economic recovery and propose quite substantial reforms to improve the coordination of national economic policies. A simplification of the decision-making process by extending the use of qualified majority voting into all economic areas, including taxation, would be an important step forward.
The vast domain of police and judicial cooperation also remains to be explored by the convention. On the eve of the admission of ten new members, and with conflicts in Asia and the Middle East causing an agonizing increase in the numbers of refugees, this is a key area in which better ways can be found to deal with immigration and to fight organized crime, money-laundering and terrorism. Far from eliminating terrorism, Europe believes that the war in Iraq will only further encourage it. To combat this scourge, the 15 EU member states, soon to become 25, have less need of over-equipped army divisions than they do of the right judicial arsenal, especially a European prosecutor, an effective intelligence network and police services trained to cooperate intensively. The United States, which also participates in this effort, has every interest in Europe developing the resources it has mustered.
Such a program would in no way be negligible, but it would nevertheless fall far short of the hopes that arose in the early days of the convention, particularly in the federalist camp. There is no reason, however, to expect much more from the 25-member European Union for a long time to come. The immediate and spontaneous espousal of the American position by the candidate countries shows that enlargement will not help to advance the thesis that the Union needs its own common viewpoint. Budapest, Prague and Warsaw are the only big European cities where there were no major protests against the war.
Does this mean that Europe will be absent from the most sensitive international debates in the years to come? That is by no means certain. The Germans, the Belgians and the French have shown the way. This advance guard is showing that it is determined to pursue an independent policy based on the United Nations in a multi-polar world, distancing itself from the United States if necessary, but without calling any alliances into question. This three-nation grouping will probably have its ups and downs, but everything suggests that it is not just a product of special circumstances and that it will continue to develop. The debates over the Iraq crisis have certainly shown that the stance adopted by three countries conforms broadly with the deep-seated desires of the public.
For the countries of "Old Europe," there is now a three-part challenge: 1) To avoid tensions on minor subjects in order to remain united. Now is not the time for the Germans and the French to argue over the reform of the common agricultural policy or the future of the EU budget. 2) To keep the advance guard active without compromising the development of the Union as a whole. This cohabitation between the Union and an advance guard will not be a real problem unless an EU country opposed to the idea tries to torpedo it. One thinks naturally of Britain, the only country capable of mobilizing a coalition to do so. But that would be forgetting that Mr. Blair is the most European Prime Minister the UK has known since Edward Heath in the early 1970s, and that the brusque treatment the British have received from the Bush administration could also lead them to distance themselves a bit from Washington. 3) To expand their base, in other words to convince other EU members to join them. That will not be easy, even though on many occasions in recent weeks the citizens of Europe have expressed views that would seem to favor such a development. There is in fact an element of European tactical maneuvering in the way the Spanish and Italian governments have rallied around the ultra-Atlanticist position of Mr. Blair. It was useful in their eyes to create a counterweight to the newly affirmed ambitions of Paris and Berlin. Franco-German cooperation is certainly central to the progress of Europe. But it must learn to be less blatant, less arrogant, if it is to succeed. o
Philippe Lemaître is the Brussels correspondent of European Affairs, and a member of an advisory committee appointed by the government of France to lead the debate on the future of Europe. Now retired, Mr. Lemaître was for 35 years the EU and NATO correspondent of the French daily Le Monde.