EUROPEAN DIARY:Giving life to new EU structures was never going to be straightforward, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY
WHITE HOUSE to Brussels: no thanks. No matter how it’s explained, Barack Obama’s decision not to attend the annual EU-US summit this spring looks like a blow to European prestige.
Following the EU’s exclusion from the Copenhagen climate deal, it stands as a further example of the union’s relative weakness in the global arena.
Brussels aspires to more, of course. When Herman Van Rompuy was made president of the European Council a few weeks back and Catherine Ashton became EU foreign policy chief, one of the core objectives was to boost the union’s influence in the world.
It’s still early days, admittedly, but progress is slow enough.
Van Rompuy has called EU leaders to a special summit on Thursday week to discuss the economy, the first such gathering under his chairmanship.
Although he has been touring European capitals to introduce himself, he has done little so far to make an impression on the people served by the union or to step forward on the global stage.
The Belgian media aside, Van Rompuy has not yet accorded interviews.
Ashton has been more to the fore than Van Rompuy. While the Haiti earthquake presented an important first test for the new structures created under her office, she has conceded that improvements will have to be made to the way in which the union responds to disasters.
It is clear she is still coming to terms with the complexity of her mandate. She is charged with conducting the union’s foreign policy, presiding over meetings of foreign ministers and with being a vice-president of the European Commission.
With the incoming commission still not in office and the diplomatic service she will lead merely at the planning stage, the system is in a state of considerable flux. There has been little clarity as to the division of labour between Spain’s rotating presidency of the union and Ashton’s office.
“It’s like wading through treacle,” said a diplomat.
All of this was in many ways inevitable. After long years of institutional debate, giving life to new structures was never going to be straightforward.
Plans for the European Action Service, as the diplomatic corps will be known, should be finalised by April.
While it could take up to three years to bed down the service, the extent to which member states are prepared to yield ground to the new institution remains to be seen. The selection of Ashton herself – a low-key personality, new to diplomacy – points to modest ambition.
Still, the creation of the euro and the 2004 enlargement into the former Communist bloc show that the union is capable of decisive action to overcome significant political obstacles and complex technical challenges.
None of that, however, takes from fears readily expressed at high levels of the Brussels machine that the union risks being consigned to a mere regional role if it fails to harness its power in the wider world.
For some, this raises the spectre of European decline. In his stock speech, for example, Van Rompuy says the present economic malaise is so grave as to threaten the European way of life. If that is indeed so, then global marginalisation takes the union into risky territory.
If you’re not in the meeting, you can’t shape the outcome – European politicians learned that the hard way in Copenhagen. They are still smarting from the experience.
Obama’s decision to skip a summit that has been an annual fixture since 1991 implies his relations with the EU are not a priority. Notwithstanding strong bilateral links between many European states and the US, this is bad news for the union. Influence fades.
In a speech last year, British foreign secretary David Miliband said Europe faced a “simple” choice: “Get our act together and make the EU leader in the world stage, or become spectators in a G2 world shaped by the US and China.”
High-level European officials are inclined to dismiss this kind of blunt assessment, arguing that increasing antagonism between the world’s two pre-eminent powers is more likely than harmony. No matter how US- China relations evolve, however, Europe will still need to find its voice in the world.
EU members, particularly the larger ones, are inclined to hoard power and fight among themselves. They have learned, however, that they are stronger together than as individuals.
When the most powerful man on the planet declines your invite, it’s time for a rethink.