KARACHI, April 19: The American unilateralism, invasion of Iraq and its divisive impact on the European Union, US quest to become a formidable military power and its future global role were the main subjects on which the participants of a workshop expressed their serious concern.
The workshop titled “Perspectives for CFSP (common foreign and security policy) in the light of imminent EU enlargement: With focus on EU’s relations with Russia, East Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia” was organized by the Area Study Centre for Europe on Saturday under its Jean Monnet project.
The questions raised were the future role of the United Nations; whether Europe would remain the same after Iraq; the possible impact of the EU enlargement; and role vis-a-vis other regions and countries.
It was also emphasised that in the changed political and geo-strategic environment, Europe should play global role if it wanted to protect its overall common security and foreign policy.
They also discussed the implications of US policies on France and Germany in view of the inclusion of new East European members in the Union with certain new comers supporting the US policy of unilateralism.
They noted that EU expansion had forced Russia to reconsider its present policy vis-a-vis EU and decide whether it wanted to remain the centre of the Central Asian States’ focus.
S. M. Taha, in his paper on EU’s Strategic Challenges in Central Asia: Responses Under Paradigms of Normative Economics, Development and Governance maintained that the American unilateralism, aimed at securing the US national interest, had become pervasive in world politics ever since the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.
Its ongoing aggression against Iraq, in defiance of world opinion, is a case in point, he added and pointed out that it had become apparent that no regime or country was indispensable for the United States, not even its European allies.
The prolonged US physical presence in Iraq, which seemed certain, posed a new set of threats to the Middle East as well as neighbouring regions. Central Asia is one of them, he maintained.
Mr Taha’s contention was that among the former republics of the former Soviet Union, the Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), despite their tremendous natural resources and strategic significance, were under-developed and hence vulnerable to external and internal threats. Central Asian states’ economic and political independence, stability and macroeconomic stability was of great concern for the European Union. Dollarization and dependence of the region on foreign assistance, including that on the Russian Federation, would be detrimental to the EU’s interests in the region, he claimed.
He dwelt on the question as to how should the EU respond to these challenges. What kind of non-military initiatives should the EU take in Central Asia to deter the ongoing “battle for control?” etc.
Ms Uzma Shujaat, Senior Research Fellow at the Area Study Centre for Europe, in her paper on The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy: A Balance Sheet of Successes and Failures; Future Prospects, opined that the new entrants to the EU from Eastern and Southern Europe would bring with them not only greater socio-economic and cultural diversity, but also differing, and sometimes clashing, foreign policy perceptions.
She pointed out that the Yugoslav crisis, the Kosovo war and now Iraq, were the real tests of the EU’s common foreign policy. These crises reveal that the EU states lacked the collective political will to formulate a common foreign and security policy. This, she said, had become evident during the Iraq crisis when the East and Central European aspirant states appeared more eager to please the US than their future fellow member states — Germany and France. The sharp differences on the issue between Germany and France, on the one hand, and Britain as camp follower of the US on the other, was an embarrassment for the EU, engendering doubts about the future of EU itself.
Prof Tanveer Khalid’s presentation was on The EU’s Political and Economic Interests in East Europe and the Caucasus Region. She pointed out that the international system of Europe had fundamentally changed after the end of the Cold War. One of the results was that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which had previously been satellites of the Soviet Union, were now striving to be accepted as part of Europe.
Ms Khalid also pointed out that the Security threat emanating from the neighbouring Caucasus region was perplexing for th idea of a post Cold War Europe struggling to become “whole and free” once again. The Caucasus region, she said, was on the periphery of Europe.
The EU’s role and contribution to international peace and security is yet to be defined.
The eastward expansion of the EU, which would begin in May 2004, poses complex problems for the European institutions that must deal with the accession of the new entrants, she pointed out adding that the EU itself presented a far from coherent image specially in its foreign and security policies.
Ms Tasneem Sultana’s paper was on The EU’s Expansion Towards East and Central Asia in which she argued that the EU’s forthcoming enlargement had brought the European Union’s single market on Russia’s doorstep with a single set of rules and norms.
She said that the EU was the sixth largest trading partner of Russia and which had granted Moscow the most favoured nation (MFN)status.
Ambassador (r) Birjees Hasan Khan, who presided over the workshop was of the view the evolution of a common foreign and security policy of Europe was far fetched, though conditions in Europe had radically changed.
He did not agree with a questioner that the UN would be reduced to an NGO and was of the view that the world body still had a major role to play in Iraq’s reconstruction and rehabilitation.
Earlier the Centre’s Director and the Jean Monnet Professor, Dr Naveed Ahmad Tahir, welcomed the guests and informed them about the EU-sponsored Jean Monnet Project.
