Catherine Ashton’s no good, very bad day
Wednesday was a particularly difficult day for the always tenuous notion of a common EU foreign policy. First, Belgium foreign minister Steven Vanackere publicly criticized the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton of Great Britain. Via the indispensable EUobserver: "When I speak of impatience, I think chiefly about the Union’s capacity to speak with ...
Wednesday was a particularly difficult day for the always tenuous notion of a common EU foreign policy. First, Belgium foreign minister Steven Vanackere publicly criticized the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton of Great Britain. Via the indispensable EUobserver:
Wednesday was a particularly difficult day for the always tenuous notion of a common EU foreign policy. First, Belgium foreign minister Steven Vanackere publicly criticized the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton of Great Britain. Via the indispensable EUobserver:
"When I speak of impatience, I think chiefly about the Union’s capacity to speak with one voice," said Vanackere, describing the recent turmoil in Arab states as the "great test".
"In the absence of a central player that reacts, makes analyses and conclusions quickly, it is the Germans today, the French tomorrow or the English who partially take up this role … The result is centrifugal, not centripetal." [snip]
"We can accept that some react faster than Ashton, but with the condition that she can prove that she is working for the medium-term and long-term on very important issues like energy, for example. But I have not seen this either."
Then, in a major foreign policy address, UK foreign minister William Hague made clear his doubts that the EU will ever supplant key members in foreign-policy:
"I have never believed that the EU could or should act as if it were a nation state with a national foreign policy. Any attempt by EU institutions to do so would end in embarrassing failure," he said. "Over the last year we have placed a renewed emphasis on bilateral relations, alongside Britain’s role in multilateral institutions."
All this comes as the bureaucratic manifestation of a common EU foreign policy, the External Action Service (EAS), is taking final shape. How to reconcile this emerging–and quite expensive–bureaucratic instrument with the evidence (clearest right now on Libya) that major EU players are not ready to coordinate foreign policy on key issues? Perhaps the new procedures and bureaucratic structures will, over time, forge their own reality and gradually change the perceptions of British, French and German foreign-policy makers. The EU experience has largely been one of building common institutions that gradually acquire power and influence. The EU’s key foreign policy instruments, Ashton’s own position and the EAS, are still brand new.
Another possibility is that the EAS will functionally become the diplomatic service of the small EU states–those without the resources to maintain large embassies around the world and without the desire to have a distinct global foreign policy. Meanwhile, the EU heavyweights could continue to play their own game.
Whatever the long-term trajectory, look for Catherine Ashton to engage in some immediate damage control.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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