Why the European
Union Cannot Do Foreign Policy
Josep Borrell’s trip to
Moscow confirmed the miserable state of European foreign policy, which lacks
strategy and direction. Starting with Germany, member states need to think
beyond their own national interests.
·
February 09, 2021
During the last four years, the European Union had a
rare chance to begin to act strategically. Then U.S. president Donald Trump,
who was dismantling American global leadership, had only scorn for the EU,
NATO, transatlantic relations, and multilateral institutions.
Dempsey is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in
chief of Strategic Europe.
This could have been such an opportunity for the
Europeans to try and fill the international gap created by the Trump
administration. Instead, they wasted it. They seemed to prefer criticizing, if
not mocking, the U.S. administration—rather than mobilizing European public
support behind constructing a more strategic EU foreign policy. This is what
French President Emmanuel Macron has tried but failed to do.
The visit by the
EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, to Moscow on February 4–6 confirmed
this miserable state of European
foreign policy. Miserable because it lacks strategy and direction.
Most of the member states, particularly Germany, see little interest in giving
Borrell the authority he needs to forge a strong foreign policy. His
predecessors endured the same weakness of a position that is beholden to
Europe’s capitals.
No wonder then that Borrell’s blog,
written upon his return from Moscow, was defensive. He went out of his way to
justify a visit which had already been opposed by a few member states. Comparing
his blog to the self-confident, partly
condescending statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov showed how Europe’s top diplomat travelled to Moscow with an empty
suitcase.
After the visit, which included an
“aggressively-staged” joint press conference that was followed by
Russia’s expulsion of
three EU diplomats, Borrell wrote that “the Russian authorities did not want to
seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue with the EU. While
not fully unexpected, this is regrettable . . . [and] we will have to draw the
consequences.”
But it’s the reverse situation. Moscow knows what it
wants from the EU: a relationship that is based on dealing separately with each
member state—which is exactly how it conducts its foreign, economic, and trade
policy toward Germany, for example.
In contrast, the EU and the member
states—collectively—don’t know what kind of dialogue or relationship they want with Russia. Germany’s stance is particularly
puzzling.
As leader of the EU’s most important country, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel has the authority to give Europe the foreign policy
that it sorely needs. But Merkel is no strategist.
If she were, she could have used Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline being built
between Russia and Germany, as leverage over Moscow.
This lack of a strategic thinking will not change
under the administration of U.S.
President Joe Biden, which is already moving fast on the foreign
policy front. Instead, and this refers to Germany again, it will only change
once Berlin makes the leap from defending national interests to defending
European interests and giving the union the authority it needs to project a
strong, common foreign policy. And one that combines interests with values.
As it is, even inside the EU, Germany is doing the
opposite. Merkel could have exerted her considerable influence in the European
People’s Party (EPP), the political bloc in the European Parliament that
represents conservative parties, to expel Hungary’s governing Fidesz party.
Yes, Fidesz has been suspended. But it still sits in
the EPP. Yet the damage that its leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,
has inflicted on Hungary’s democracy, checks and balances, media, academic
freedom, and civil society since 2010—while getting away with it all—erodes the values and interests of the EU as a whole.
Countries such as Poland and Bulgaria now know they too can get away with
undermining the rule of law and perpetuating state corruption.
This inability to collectively defend interests and
values inside the EU has repercussions for foreign policy. It plays into the
hands of China, Egypt, and Russia—to name just a few—whose leaders recognize
the EU’s weaknesses as a foreign policy non-actor. That allows them to pursue
their own interests with individual European governments.
Despite all the “deep concern” about Russian
opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s prison sentence, or the attempt to murder
him with a poisonous chemical substance, or Russia’s cyberattacks on the German
parliament, or China’s threats to impose embargoes on EU countries that openly
criticize its crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, or the repression in Belarus, Europe’s responses have not been
even half baked.
The fact that leaders of the EU institutions have not
managed to counter the 17+1 forum, in which
Beijing meets regularly with a group of Central and Eastern European and Balkan
countries to promote its political and economic interests, is a perfect example
of China’s successful divide-and-rule policy in Europe.
It is also a perfect example of how the twelve EU
member states involved in this format have thrown EU values to the wind. When
it comes to defending basic values, it makes it even more difficult for
Brussels to deal with Beijing—as the recent EU-China investment accord shows. Values
don’t get a look in.
None of the above makes Borrell’s role any easier.
Toward the end of his blog, he writes: “Locking
ourselves up behind walls and calling on others from the safety of that
position will not bring greater security to the EU,” adding that “we have to
face challenges, including meeting others in their home turf, just when
negative events are unfolding. . .”
He
has a point. But surely that means traveling equipped with a strategy that
combines values, common interests, and goals. Until now, national interests in
Europe have prevented that from happening. It’s hard to see that changing.
No comments:
Post a Comment