11:51, 12 March 2010
By Sven Biscop
In his recent speech at the College of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, likened the European Union to a convoy of twenty-seven ships, each flying both the Member State and the European flag. If the image is apt, some Member States’ ship seems to be a submarine though, for it is not always evident that all Member States are part of the European convoy. Even a submarine is useful however, provided that it does not go off on its own initiative, but acts in co-ordination with the rest of the fleet, co-ordination to be provided by the Admiral – or President.
That, as Mr. Van Rompuy rightly emphasised, requires a common strategic vision. He simultaneously stressed the role of the European Council in generating this strategy. Again, he probably is right that in the intergovernmental arena which the Common Foreign and Security Policy still is only the Heads of State and Government can create the political drive that is required to force the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the twenty-seven into – joint – action. It was the European Council that adopted the first European Security Strategy (ESS) in 2003; it should now be the European Council that, with the input of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, completes the ESS by defining more concrete objectives in the priority areas that are key to Europeans’ position in the world. The resulting “sub-strategies” will be the mandate for the Foreign Affairs Council, chaired by the High Representative.
Mr. Van Rompuy himself already mentioned one key area: to review and strengthen our relationship with key partners – the United States, Canada, Japan and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). As the President stated, the European Union needs more than conviction to win them over to its proposals; it needs to reflect what it can do together with them. The European Union has so-called strategic partnerships with all of these, but they are often void of content and lacking in coordination. It is never quite clear who on the European Union side is driving these partnerships. A European Council strategy to guide a really strategic use of the partnerships would therefore be more than welcome.
The European Union could identify shared interests with each strategic partner, in order to establish in a number of priority policy areas (climate, energy, non-proliferation…) effective practical cooperation with those partners that share European objectives in that specific domain. Overlapping clusters will emerge, with the European Union co-operating with certain strategic partners on one issue, and with partly the same, partly others on another issue. Gradually, these forms of co-operation can be strengthened, institutionalised and linked up to the permanent multilateral institutions, notably the United Nations. Such a pragmatic approach of coalition-building and co-operation, on very specific issues to start with, can expand into broader areas, including with regard to values. If e.g. it is unlikely that we will see China at the forefront of democracy promotion, it has an economic interest in promoting the rule of law, if only to ensure that the mining concessions that it acquires are not simultaneously offered to someone else. Through cooperation on shared objectives, the European Union can gradually and consensually convince the other global actors of the validity of our policies and values.
Other areas as well demand a more strategic view from the European Council. What is the desired end-state of the Neighbourhood Policy? Can only democracy create a consensual value-based community and thus safeguard our interests, or will democratisation create such upheaval that our interests would be damaged? Only when our interests and red lines are clear can a true strategic partnership with Russia be pursued. What is the future of enlargement? A successful instrument so far, further enlargement is determining for relations with Russia and for the geopolitical position of the European Union – and cannot proceed therefore without strategic debate.
Further, before making room for the BRICs, the European Union must sharpen its view about the desired multilateral architecture, reconciling reform with increased effectiveness of European representation. Last but not least, European strategic thinking about conflict resolution and crisis management remains weak. A Common Security and Defence Policy sub-strategy should define Europe’s ambition as a security actor. Regardless of whether in a specific case Europeans deploy under the flag of the Common Security and Defence Policy, the Atlantic Alliance or the United Nations: which types of operations must European forces be capable of, which priority regions and scenarios require intervention, and which is the scale of the effort to be devoted to these priorities?
Once the European Council defines strategic guidelines on all of these issues, coordinated fleet action will be possible.
• A version of this article was originally published in Global Europe on 4th March 2010.
