by Simon Robinson
It was supposed to be the moment Europe grew muscles. Last fall, after a decade of work to simplify policymaking and make the European Union more efficient at home and stronger abroad, the last
few holdouts signed a 1,000-page document known as the Lisbon Treaty. In November, the E.U.'s first real President and Foreign Minister were chosen. Europhiles dusted off their familiar dream: of
a newly emboldened world power stepping up to calm trouble spots, using aid and persuasion where it could, but prepared to send in troops when it had to. Brussels
would lead the fight against climate change. And Europe's economies would prove to the ruthless free markets of
North America and Asia that the social market still offers the best way out of an economic
crunch.
The dream didn't last a month. At the climate change
conference in Copenhagen in December, it was China and the U.S. who haggled over a final deal, while Europe sat on the sidelines. Instead of a foreign policy triumph,
2010 began with an unseemly squabble over whether or not to bail out Greece, whose debt has dragged down Europe's currency. At the same time, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he would be skipping an E.U.-U.S. confab in Spain
in May, frustrated, it appeared, with the endless summitry that goes with accommodating the E.U. Little wonder that Europe finds itself in one of its periodic bouts of angst-ridden self-doubt. And little wonder that the rest of the world is asking questions: What does Europe
stand for? Where does it fit into a world that seems set to be dominated by China and the U.S.? Would anyone notice if it disappeared?
Let's get one thing straight: Europe is a remarkably good place to live. Many of the E.U.'s member states are among the richest in the world. Workers in Europe usually enjoy long vacations, generous maternity leave and comfortable pension schemes. Universal health insurance is seen as part of the basic social
contract. Europe is politically stable, the most generous donor of development aid in the world. Sure, taxes can be high, but most Europeans
seem happy to pay more to the state in return for a higher — and guaranteed — quality of life. "The E.U. offers an attractive social, economic and political model," Charles Grant, director of the
London-based think tank Centre for European Reform, argued last year. "It is more stable, safe, green and culturally diverse than most parts of the world, which is why neighbors want to join and
many migrants aim for Europe."
(…)
The E.U. underwhelms on other big issues. "When it comes to
pressing international problems like Afghanistan, Pakistan or North Korea, the E.U. is either largely invisible or absent," wrote Grant in his essay, provocatively titled "Is Europe Doomed to
Fail as a Power?" Lucio Caracciolo, editor of Limes, one of Italy's leading foreign policy magazines, says the problem is a Cold War
hangover. The post-World War II period was a golden age for Western Europe, a time of reconstruction under the U.S. security umbrella, he argues. When it ended, Europe went into shock. "We're in denial," Caracciolo says.
"We see that the Americans are not interested — to put it mildly — in our interests, and we put our head in the sand." Europe "happily
decides," Caracciolo says, that Afghanistan, Iran, are American affairs. "Any major crisis
is something that is analyzed abroad. We are not up to the responsibilities of the time."
(…)
Critics point to the selection of Herman Van Rompuy and
Catherine Ashton as Europe's President and Foreign Minister as symbolic of a lack of vision. Van Rompuy, a former Belgian Prime Minister, is
known for his ability to balance local sensitivities — no small feat in Belgium — and cajole opposing camps towards a consensus. Useful
attributes, no doubt, but hardly the ones needed to make the E.U. count on the international stage. Ashton, a former British minister and European trade commissioner, has little experience in
foreign affairs. "Van Rompuy and Ashton give the impression of being chosen for their limits rather than their merits," says Dominique Moïsi, senior adviser at the French Institute for
International Relations. One senior European official frets that when it comes to the E.U. projecting itself, the choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton means the grouping will have to reconcile itself
to five years of underperformance.
It's early days for the new team, of course. Van Rompuy and
Ashton could surprise their detractors. "We should be ambitious," Ashton told TIME in late January. But for all that ambition, Europe is no
closer than it ever was to answering Henry Kissinger's famous question: "Who do I call when I want to call Europe?" So what explains the gap
between Europe's stated ambition in foreign policy and its performance? And how can that gap be closed?
No Europe: So What?
Start with history. The modern conception of a united Europe was born in the embers of World War II and rested upon the notion that
binding Germany's fortunes to those of France and the rest of Europe could end the violence that had regularly engulfed the continent for centuries. Judged by that measure — and notwithstanding the pathetic failure to
prevent or quickly end the wars of the Yugoslav succession — the E.U. has worked out fine. For most of that time, its leaders have been happy to concentrate on domestic policies: a single market,
a European currency, free movement of people. The E.U.'s defenders, moreover, would argue that in its immediate neighborhood, its success has had a "demonstration effect" that is not to be
underestimated. Just as Greece, Portugal and Spain
wanted to lock in their democratic rights by joining the E.U. in the 1980s, so when the Soviet yoke was lifted, the nations of Eastern and Central
Europe wanted to join the E.U. as fast as they could. By extending an area of peace and liberal government to the east, the E.U. has done much to calm a part of the
world that not long ago was the cockpit for murderous rivalries.
Beyond its neighborhood, however the E.U. has rarely punched
its collective weight. The main reason for that, of course, is that member states still like to defend and pursue their own national interests, rather than subsume them in a multinational body.
There's also a case — and plenty in Europe make it — that Europe is better off continuing
to aim low. "Very few European countries see the role of the E.U. as a power," says Moïsi. "They see Europe as a place — with a common
mark
(…)
Europe is right to think big —
both for its own sake and for that of others. Many in the rest of the world would welcome a stronger European voice. Capitals from Pretoria to Washington are constantly urging more from their European allies. As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian
Affairs Philip H. Gordon said to the House Foreign Affairs Committee after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty last year: "We hope E.U. member states will invest the post-Lisbon institutions
with the authority and capacity to make concrete contributions to the pressing global challenges we face together." In Africa, India, Latin America, leaders would fall over themselves to engage
more closely with a power that's neither the U.S. nor China — both nations that can come across as too powerful, too proselytizing of their own values, too prone to see their interaction with
others solely in terms of their own national interests.
(…)
Next, Europeans need to appreciate that ideals alone don't
bring you respect. You have to win others to your side. The reality of that hit home — or should have done — at Copenhagen. Europe had done much of the running on global climate-change policy, setting carbon-reduction targets, introducing the first markets in which carbon could be
traded, leading the way on exploiting greener energy sources. European leaders arrived in the Danish capital giving the impression that setting an example would be enough to persuade others into
making concessions. But the conference took a different turn. A group of developing countries threatened to walk out. With negotiations on the verge of collapse, Obama entered a room where
delegates from China were meeting those from Brazil, India
and South Africa. They struck a deal and then presented it to Europe and
other participants. "It was a global meeting hosted by a European country, in the E.U., in an area where the E.U. had something to offer," says the IMD's Lehmann. "But it was a huge
humiliation. Europe was out of the room." "The painful lesson of Copenhagen is that you cannot be taken seriously ... if you are not a
serious actor," says Moïsi.
Source :
www.time.com
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Bulletin adhésion 2012
Doménikos Theotokópoulos
La signature, le 8 avril dernier, par le président
américain B. Obama et son homologue russe D. Medvedev d’un