European Integration: Sharing of Experiences

5. THE EUROPEAN UNION’S ROLE IN THE WORLD

316 European Integration 316 5 THE EUROPEAN UNION’S ROLE IN THE WORLD INTRODUCTION The European Union has gradually built up a role for itself on the global economic and political stage. From forging bilateral agreements strictly of an economic nature that emphasize trade and development assistance, it has moved on to a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The pursuance of the European Union’s interests has been supplemented by an effort to shoulder responsibility for global economic and political development. The guidelines are the principles shaping the European integration and the foundations for the individual nation states. Some observers confine the European Union’s foreign and security policy to so-called soft policy instruments (economics, trade, culture, persuasion, and appeal to common sense/moderation plus political maturity). This is, to a certain extent, correct as Afghanistan, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean illustrate. The European Union does not possess the military capability to project power abroad, unlike the United States. Shortcomings are visible, almost glaring, in cases where the European Union has encountered opponents that neither share these principles, nor wish to play on the basis of compromise, consensus, and conciliation. The European Union plays a vital role in global trade policy. There are three reasons for that of which one is about substance and the other two rest on institutional/procedural grounds. 05 Euro Integration Ch 5 4/8/08, 9:21 AM 316 The European Union’s Role in the World 317 Firstly, the European Union is the world’s largest trading partner. Secondly, the European Union was originally built around economics and trade; sovereignty was pooled and exercised in common, allowing the European Union to represent member states in the trade area. Thirdly, it acts on behalf of all member states. If no mandate for the Commission is agreed, no member state can act on its own. Absence of an EU decision does not open the door for individual action by member states, but leads to no action at all. The exact opposite is true for foreign and security policy. The ambition is to act in common. The European Union takes action and the individual member states do not. But in case of disagreement preventing an EU common position, the door is open for individual member states to act — which they do. The classic — negative — example of the European Union as a foreign and security policy operator is the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The European Union, tried unsuccessfully to play a role as “an honest broker”. The parties fighting each other did not respond to soft measures and only came to the negotiating table after being threatened with combined U.S./ European military enforcement. Faced with the Iraq war in 2003, the European Union failed to even sketch a common position, leaving it to individual member states to act independently. The European Union mainly profiled itself through public national announcements, which underlined the schism among member states. The classic — positive — example is the enlargement of the European Union with ten Central and Eastern European countries. It is probably the most successful peacekeeping and stability operation undertaken since the end of World War II, ensuring that these countries did not slide into authoritarian rule after seceding from the Soviet Union. The so-called Barcelona process — EURO-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) — illustrates how the European Union managed to open a dialogue with countries around the Mediterranean basin, based not only on economics and trade, but also culture, and foreign and security policy. It has grown out of the European Union’s original agreements with Western (Maghreb) and Eastern (Machrek) countries, plus Israel. The initiative was launched in the mid 1990s, but has not fully lived up to expectations, despite continuous and useful meetings. A major reason for disappointment was that the vision of Israel integrated into a multilateral framework with Arab countries did not materialize or rather, did not work in practice. Another reason was that the economic downturn at the time diminished the European Union’s attractiveness as a 05 Euro Integration Ch 5 4/8/08, 9:21 AM 317 318 European Integration market and investor. It underlined — again — that the European Union is most successful as a foreign policy operator when it is able to bring economic strength into play. The observer can choose between being impressed that the European Union, despite the conflicting interests among member states, has been able to...