Two interesting articles in the Financial Times about how changes in internal EU politics are likely to affect the transatlantic relationship. First, Wolfgang Munchau (sub required) talks about how US policy towards Europe can’t just consist of “picking your favourite partner for your favourite mission, and playing one country off against another” as it used to. As Munchau says, there’s a real sense in the capitals of Europe that the EU is becoming a more coherent foreign policy actor - and that the US needs to wake up to this. Stefan Wagstyl’s article on how the countries of central and eastern Europe are adapting to EU membership should be of even greater concern to the divide and conquer school of US policy towards Europe. As Wagstyl says, not only do mass publics in former Warsaw Pact countries seem much keener on EU membership than anyone would have anticipated a year ago - membership is substantially affecting these countries’ foreign policy outlook. Countries like Poland, which many expected to act as an advocate for US interests within the EU, are going native.
The best defence is closer integration with the EU, including on foreign policy and security issues, central Europeans are concluding. Officials say Nato, as a military alliance with an increasingly global responsibility, may be less useful than the EU in confronting non-military threats in Europe. That could imply less reliance on the US as a security partner and more on EU states - even in Poland, often seen as Washington’s strongest central European ally.
Polish officials consider the country received little in return for its support of America in the Iraq war. Warsaw is to bring its peacekeeping unit home from Iraq this year. Marcin Zaborowski, a Polish foreign policy expert, recently published a paper for the EU’s Institute for Security Studies, arguing that “Poland’s Atlanticism is likely to be toned down in future”.
This can also be traced back to the EU’s successful role in supporting democracy in the Ukraine - and the realization by countries like Poland that their membership of the EU is a valuable foreign policy resource.
the Ukrainian crisis was a lesson in the EU’s political clout, as national leaders from the newly expanded club persuaded Mr Kuchma’s side to accept defeat. Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Valdas Adamkus, his Lithuanian counterpart, worked with Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, to secure that outcome. But Polish and Lithuanian officials are the first to acknowledge that their presidents’ influence was based primarily on their roles not as local national leaders but as representatives of the whole EU.
None of this is exactly surprising to scholars of the EU, who are acutely aware that it’s more than a traditional international organization, if less than a state. But the ways in which member states become socialized into the “EU club” are poorly understood in the US, where foreign policy experts usually see the EU as just another multilateral institution like NATO. This may have interesting long term consequences. Part of the reason that the US has advocated Turkish membership of the EU is its hope that Turkey will help pull the EU in a more Atlanticist direction. If Poland’s example is anything to go by, the pull may well go the other way - as Turkey becomes more enmeshed in the EU, it’s likely to start identifying more with the European project than with its trans-Atlantic ties.
Very interesting- it’s at least a good sign that Bush realizes that Europe needs to be taken seriously at all!
J.S.
http://voicesofreason.info
We seem to recall there was a great deal of “Serves ‘em right!” from the wingnut chorus when all the juicy Iraq contracts were being unawarded to France and Germany, and a conspicuous absence of calls to “spare some gravy for plucky Polandland!”
Does the US push for Turkey in the EU to make the EU more “Atlanticist” or just to make it weaker? (or is that the same difference?)
I think this is largely right- but that it also highlights how the older EU members are shooting themselves in the foot in now allowing full, or at least more, free movement between the new and old members- I don’t see how the new members can find the restrictions as anything but affirmation of second-class membership status, and it’s pretty clear that the free movement of workers and students is one of the most important aspects for the development of a “European” consciousness.
“As Munchau says, there’s a real sense in the capitals of Europe that the EU is becoming a more coherent foreign policy actor - and that the US needs to wake up to this.”
If only it were becoming a coherent foreign policy actor. The real fear is that it is becoming a coherent foreign policy inactor.
At a conference in the Netherlands last year I argued that, given the kinds of structural conditions that facilitate divide-and-rule policies, it makes no sense for the US to be trying to pit “Old Europe” against “New Europe.” My co-author, in the process of revising our paper, argues that if you look at changes at State, it is pretty clear that the US has decided that policy won’t work and is abandoning it.
On the other hand, one should never underestimate the ability of the Europeans to screw up policy coordination in security and foreign affairs. Just saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard that before. Europe is getting bigger and bigger, so it thinks it is getting stronger and stronger. But bigger isn’t always better. More members mean that decisions will be harder to reach. The E.U. Constitution hasn’t been passed and, even if it does come into being, it does not look to create the clear decision-making that a state as big as the E.U. needs. Maybe the E.U. will pull the rabbit out of the hat. But the best we can say at this point, is the jury is out.
By the way, the U.S. gets some credit for the Ukraine as well - it wasn’t just an E.U. show.
Also, a good indicator of the Polish heart will be which it buys: Airbus or Boeing? Stay tuned.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sent a letter to the Polish government recommending it purchase planes for the national airline from French company Airbus, Blair’s official spokesman confirmed Tuesday. The spokesman said the three leaders recommended that the Polish government buy new passenger planes for national carrier LOT from Airbus, rather than from U.S. rival Boeing Co.No power politics or new/old division in the EU, no sireee!
Cranky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard that before. Europe is getting bigger and bigger, so it thinks it is getting stronger and stronger. But bigger isn’t always better. More members mean that decisions will be harder to reach. The E.U. Constitution hasn’t been passed and, even if it does come into being, it does not look to create the clear decision-making that a state as big as the E.U. needs.
Is this criticism essentially that the EU is more federalist than the US, and thus weaker?
If anything, Europe is becoming more Atlanticist, not less. Two Atlanticists are steering the EU’s external policy - Javier Solana and José Barroso - the ruling French centre right has been making friendly noises to the US, the reaction to Bush’s visit this week is conciliatory.
The accession of countries like Poland has woken Europe up to the idea that America isn’t impossible to deal with; in any case they were never likely to sit on the sidelines and say they weren’t joining in with the EU’s foreign policy.
It would be nice to think that all this loving feeling would lead to an ethical foreign policy by the EU, rather than the greedy self-interest we see at the moment. But let’s not hold out breath when there are weapons to be sold or cocktail parties where you can slime up to Cuban officials.
Regards,
From across the Atlantic it looks like the EU is trying to become more like the US. The system being put in place is giving to much unaccountable power to the bureaucracy. Just hoping it keeps the nations in the EU from killing each other.
None of this is exactly surprising to scholars of the EU
Not to go wisdomofthecrowds-ish all over the place, but joe european seems as unsuprised as his fellow scholar. I suppose it’s the same kind of fuzzy, unclarified approbation that greases the wheels of the enlargement process.
From across the Atlantic it looks like the EU is trying to become more like the US.
[…]
Just hoping it keeps the nations in the EU from killing each other.
No it’s not th… It’s not the wa… There’s a diff… You can’t reall… Erm. Fuggedaboutit.
Interesting post, thanks. And a nice anecdote to certain doofuses I need not name. But let’s not get carried away. There’s probably lots of evidence of the opposite effect if one cares to look. This morning I read Arthur Chrenkoff’s post about how new Eastern European members of the EU are making their voices heard, in ways that sometimes tilt American. Chrenkoff quotes another source:
“In their first foreign-policy victory since joining the EU, Czech officials in Brussels have blocked a proposed ban on inviting Cuban dissidents to receptions at European embassies in Havana.“The ban would have suspended a 2003 resolution that called on EU countries to support anti-Castro dissidents by inviting them to parties celebrating national holidays.
“Spain proposed the ban as part of a package of measures — including the resumption of EU missions to Cuba — designed to ease tensions with Havana. It became a sticking point when the Czechs threatened to use their veto in the 25-member Council of Foreign Ministers, where unanimity is required on policy decisions.”
Plus, these sorts of analyses always remind me that American foreign policy is more complex than almost anyone, left or right (or me) fully understands. For instance, it may be true that
Part of the reason that the US has advocated Turkish membership of the EU is its hope that Turkey will help pull the EU in a more Atlanticist direction
but that’s not the only reason, nor even in recent years a very strong one, as Turkey has diverged significantly from the US on certain points (like Iraq). More importantly, US support for EU membership for Turkey predates much current geopolitics — including Bush, Iraq, the EU Constitution and the “Transatlantic Rift.” The Americans have more fundamental concerns: the relative economic and political stability of Europe would be better for Turkey and its 70 million Muslims (and the rest of the world) than the pathologies of the Communist world (in years past) or the Arab world today.
“The system being put in place is giving to much unaccountable power to the bureaucracy.”
What specifically do you mean, james - that’s too vague for me to follow.
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