European Geostrategy | 16:36, 10 March 2010

By Christos Katsioulis, Christoph Pohlmann and Borja Lasheras

One Vienna-based Spanish diplomat likes to describe European Union’s security and defence policy in action as a ‘jazz band, not a classical orchestra: musicians with different abilities and instruments participating in a permanent jam session, with a basic tune and a general idea of the kind of music they want to produce [. . .] a band which finds it hard to agree on a specific arrangement, but which can eventually sound harmonious – though not necessarily completely homogeneous.’ The band is well known among music connoisseurs, while the general public either ignores it or is bemused by the strange sound. Other – more successful – bands, on the other hand, praise some of their individual qualities, as well as the fact that they do play (some kind of) music, despite all the problems, whilst grinning at its lack of success. That is a fairly good description of the European Union’s overall performance as an actor on the global stage during the rather unstable decade we are about to leave behind: some tactical achievements, the valuable experience of learning on the job as a European Union twenty-seven, but with a pervading sense of a lack of direction.

The Treaty of Lisbon should put an end to the European cacophony or to put it another way: make the very richness of European pluralism in foreign policy an effective added-value element for the European Union as an actor – and not a permanent hindrance. The new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, should conduct the idiosyncratic music group. A chorus of the best diplomats throughout Europe should support her in the demanding task to produce some music: the European External Action Service. But the post-Lisbon reality is different: the Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council as well as the Member States haggle over personnel and finances, trying to get hold of that future backbone of European foreign policy. The only ray of hope is the role of the European Parliament. It has used the current power vacuum in Brussels and seized its way into the realm of foreign and security policy, not formally and through legal novelties, but by adeptly using its budget powers as well as the expertise of the parliamentarians. In fact, this revamped Parliament carries with it the potential to energise the strategic culture among Europeans, and, not less, building a strong democratic legitimacy to the European Union’s developing security policy.

Accordingly, the European Union is (again) dealing with inner-European issues – the self-centred approach, we all complained about over the last years. The problem is only, that the world moves on, even if the European Union is not yet ready to face that. Transatlantic relations serve as a vivid example: Barack Obama skipped the European-American summit to be held by the Spanish presidency in Madrid in May 2010. It became known that the president regarded this meeting with twenty-seven heads of states and governments (plus the representatives of the European Union) as boring and non-productive. From a certain point of view, this could be taken as a snub. However, it may be just seen as a wake-up call. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reaffirmed the message just a few days ago , and emphasising the great expectations the United States pins on the new so-called Common Security and Defence Policy. She offered the European Union direct partnership with the United States in security-related issues – something that until now has been the exclusive realm of the Atlantic Alliance. Probably even this call will trail off unheard and unanswered, because the European Union still does not know exactly, who could be speaking for the Union: the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso? The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy? Or the High Representative? Apart from that, there is also no guidance at the European level, in terms of overall priorities and means to achieve them, apart from the brilliantly formulated but rather fuzzy European Security Strategy from 2003 (plus the Implementation Report of 2008).

This is not enough for a European Union, which is widely regarded as a global actor. Nor it is up to the responsibilities Europe as a whole has towards the international system; as the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, put it in Munich, both the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance are seen by the international community as providers of security. How can the European Union contribute through its civilian and military capabilities to maintain peace and security in an increasingly unstable environment – and thus make Europeans safer?

Yet there still is a huge strategic vacuum in the Common Security and Defence Policy: there is no ‘Grand Strategy’ and there is not even any operationalisation of the Security Strategy. Nonetheless the European Union has already conducted more than twenty missions worldwide. We therefore lack an ambitious but realistic policy orientation for the European Union as a global actor; we have not yet undertaken a Strategic Defence Review or – to use the continental term – a White Paper on Security and Defence. Such a White Paper should lay down our ambitions as a relevant power in security policy as well as a road map on how to achieve these ambitions:

1. A European White Paper should first contain clearer messages on why and how to intervene abroad – a sort of common European lines on interventions, combining tactics with strategy – as well as on the possible and necessary balance of civil and military means.
2. The White Paper should clarify the Post-Lisbon institutions and their interactions, to enhance coherence of the different policies of external action (from enlargement, to the neighbourhood policy, to security and defence policy); it should also pave the way for global visibility of the new High Representative, as the face and telephone number of global Europe.
3. There should be strategic guidelines for European partnerships with main global powers, like the United States, Russia, China, India, as well as NATO, and so on. These partnerships need to serve European norms and interests.
4. The White Paper should clearly spell out the necessary means a global Europe will need. Until now, there are many different frameworks and headline goals, without explaining the purpose of the capability building process.
5. The European defence and technology industrial base is a precondition for an efficient use of means especially in the military field. Therefore the White Paper needs to lay down the consequences of a Common Security and Defence Policy for the national defence industries.

Catherine Ashton, the new ‘conductor’ of European foreign and security policy, has quite a hard task. The European Union’s difficult worldwide challenges, the constant disunity of the Member States, as well as the huge footsteps of Javier Solana she is following, are demanding beyond description. By initiating a European process towards a Security and Defence White Paper, she could provide a consistent policy orientation and thus build on the rather successful achievements on the nearly eleven years of European Security and Defence Policy. This policy orientation could be used as a ‘sheet of music’ for her Jazz band. She will probably never transform it into a chamber orchestra, but maybe they would produce eventually one or two smash hits per year. And this will be in the interest of Europe as a whole, although some governments are slow to grasp the realities of the modern world, and try to get with their own music into the chart list.