BRUSSELS, June 18: European Union leaders will get a first peep this week at a proposed security strategy aimed at making an enlarged 25-nation EU a bigger player in world affairs and a more equal partner for the United States.
The 10-page document drafted by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was commissioned to help avert a repeat of the bloc’s damaging split over the Iraq crisis by taking a coherent approach to security threats and foreign policy challenges.
But first indications after Solana gave EU foreign ministers an oral presentation on Monday are that its definition of Europe’s common interests and policy instruments may be so broad and general as to be of limited practical application.
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, raised expectations last month when he said the EU should aim for a document similar in scope to the controversial US National Security Strategy.
Solana is keen to dampen such ambitions, stressing that the EU is not a state with its own armed forces and cannot have a doctrine for using power equivalent to Washington’s.
But, raising the curtain on his plan, he told the European Parliament on Wednesday that tackling post-Cold War threats from terrorism, failed states, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction could not be left to one country.
“The European Union is a global actor,” he said. “If we want to make a contribution that matches our potential we need to be more active, more capable and more coherent.”
SOFT POWER: Unsurprisingly, the document focuses on how the EU can use its soft power instruments of trade, aid, diplomacy and technical assistance to promote international security more than the hard military power in which the United States is dominant.
But it does recognize the use of force may be necessary under the UN charter as a last resort.
“When incentives for countries to improve their behaviour fail, we should be ready to use sanctions,” Solana said. “Measures could include the use of force, in accordance with international law, when all other means have been exhausted.”
So the EU needs more defence resources and less duplication of its defence assets, he said, to give its now-fledgling crisis management force the capabilities to take on a wide spectrum of “new security challenges”.
The document notes that when its expands into eastern Europe next year, the EU will have twice the population of the United States and about a quarter of world economic output, giving it no choice but to be a major international political player.
The main buzzwords are promoting “effective multilateralism” — a clear alternative to alleged US unilateralism — and pursuing “preventive engagement” to try to anticipate and avert crises before military solutions become necessary.
The latter idea is meant to offer a different vision of pre-emption, the most controversial part of the US strategic doctrine, from the purely military version.
Solana argues that in the post-Cold War world, most security challenges are not strictly military and must be addressed with a full tool-kit of policy instruments before resorting to force.
Papandreou said the EU document, and a strategy for combating the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons adopted by foreign ministers on Monday, would provide a basis for launching a strategic dialogue with the United States at a summit in Washington next Wednesday.—Reuters
