How far will the EU expand?

Is internal incoherence in the EU hampering effectiveness in its foreign policy?

• Introduction We argue that the internal incoherence of the EU is a key in hampering the effectiveness of its foreign policy. We will focus on three dimensions of its external affairs - the CFSP, economic diplomacy and the failures associated with the promotion of democracy in the Mediterranean - and demonstrate how in each case, European Foreign Policy stumbles because of its inability to amalgamate member state interests into a common framework. 1. The Dimension of CSFP: We see that in many instances of EU’s conflict resolution, it is the individual member states that are taking the lead in resolving the conflicts and the reason being, they have vested interests in conflict zones and they want to maximize their own interest when solving the conflicts. One such example would be the EU’s attempt to solve the Greek-Turkish conflict. Turkey tried many times to gain accession into the EU but the attempts were all purposely hindered by Greece. The historical feud between Greece and Turkey caused the difficulties of Turkish accession because Greece was hard up on antagonizing Turkey. Situation almost broke out into a full fledged war in 1996. The issue of Cyprus was another problem between Greece and Turkey, and after Cypriot accession in 2004, it was Cyprus that was the lead antagonizer against Turkey in the EU. We can argue that apart from Turkey’s own problems, the hostile attitude of Greece and Cyprus (due to their national interests) are also reasons why the accession process was so difficult. Even in the case of the seemingly successful conflict resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis, we start to see in the latter parts of the episode, that an incohesion strategy also manifested due to the divergence of interest between France and Germany. Since 2007, Britain and France were advocating a tougher measure against Iran. What caused the change was probably the coming to power of Sarkozy, who has always been a hardliner. Perhaps it can be argued that the hardline approach of France was mainly ideologically based. On the other hand, we see that Germany was more cautious when imposing sanctions or a tougher stance against Iran. Germany has tried not to make itself look like a hawkish nation, a legacy that was passed down since the end of WWII. In the end, although the EU really imposed tougher sanctions against Iran at around  2009 and 2011, but we see that the tough stances did no good to the resolution of the conflict, as it is still an impasse till now. We can therefore argue that the tough stances by Sarkozy was only to shape his own ‘heroic’ image back in France, but it could not solve any problems.     2. Incoherence in economic diplomacy efforts A strength of the EU may be argued to be its ability to come together as a common market to conduct economic bargaining in multilateral organisations like the WTO. However, in issues like energy – where a diversity of interests prevail among EU states, and it is a strategic resource member states are unwilling to cede autonomy of - it is clear that its incoherence hampers the effectiveness of a joint EU position in bargaining   In this segment, we will focus on the EU’s negotiations with Russia in gas, and how its incoherence leads to its ineffectiveness. The EU’s inability to consolidate its position as a coherent trade partner in gas due to intra-EU divisions undermines the value of combining Member States’ clout as a single market in negotiations. The threat a joint EU position in bargaining poses to trade partners - which is its withdrawal as a major buyer of their gas – loses its credibility, and hence these partners lack motivation to submit to EU’s demands. This joint initiative is thus hampered from improving EU’s status as a gas importer. Member States have divergent interests in gas trade dealings. In EU-Russian negotiations, France and Germany take rational-economic perspectives due to dependence on Russia for gas, while some Central and Eastern European states which are anti-Russian due to their Soviet occupation experience adopt more emotional sentiments. As there exists a misalignment of interests between the EU or Member States versus gas and utility companies – which seek energy security or profit respectively - commercial interests sometimes prevents the EU from projecting a coherent external energy policy. Within the European Parliament, gas companies object to EU’s energy policy as it threatens to liquidate their gas transport facilities.  Indeed, the lack of credibility of the EU as an external actor in trade has reduced partners’ incentive to accede to EU demands. Russia tactfully exploited EU divisions, side-lining EU demands and instead arranging for separate bilateral gas contract agreements with Member States like Germany and Italy. It thus has been able to avoid EU’s preferred commercial, legal and political approach to energy. 3. Promoting democracy or securing nation-state/European interests in the Mediterranean? The outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring has had ushered in new developments in the field of Euro-Mediterranean relations. In light of the shortcomings that both the EU multilateral and bilateral frameworks had with the Mediterranean, this Arab pursuit of democracy has challenged and even contradicted the idea that the EU has the capacity and political will to effectively promote democracy globally. While reasons for the ongoing revolutionary wave of protests and demonstrations are often cited to be acknowledgements of the immense socioeconomic suffering of the people over the past decades and disenchantment with the authoritarian regimes, it cannot be said that the EU was thoroughly effective in promoting democracy in the Mediterranean from the outset.    The case of Tunisia in the Arab Spring exemplified the failings of the EU to nip the former’s domestic problems in the bud. Before the revolt erupted in Tunisia, the EU had disregarded the anger of the citizens over the issues of poverty, corruption and loss of freedom. Also, it had failed to back the activities of grassroots civil society adequately because it was more deeply concerned with other issues such as security and migration. Here, a failure to address such pertinent problems certainly indicates the lack of success and desire in dutifully promoting norms of democracy and human rights.    On another note, the EU has also often found itself having other interests that are necessarily in conflict to norms promotion. The case of Tunisia in the Arab Spring has already shown the EU to be a passive spectator at times, but it is also evident that there were nation-state interests at stake in matters regarding the country. France in particular, was backing Ben Ali’s regime until it was overthrown. Even when the majority of EU governments opted with a ‘wait-and-see approach, France offered material support and expertise on crowd control to the Tunisian security forces. Notably, there was a dichotomy between national and European interests and actions with regards to Tunisia. Yet, both were clearly instances of which the adherence to norms promotion was compromised in favor of achieving certain nation-state or European interests.   Case of EU-Egypt relations Recent events in Egypt indicate that EU foreign policy in the region is arguably determined by ‘hard’ economic considerations, notwithstanding being under the guise of norm promotion. Being the most populous country in the Middle East, Egypt is at the ‘heart of the Arab world’ and hence is of great importance from the perspective of EU. Security issues such as checking Islamic extremism, and in relation broader economic issues customarily takes precedence. In other words, any ideas of pushing a political reform in Egypt were forsaken in fear that a massive regime change would usher in instability for not just the country itself but also the region through the domino effect.   To ensure its security concerns are allayed, France, along with HR Catherine Ashton and EU President Hermann Van Rompuy were overtly supportive of Mubarak as a bastion against Islamic extremism and even considered that it was possible to have a democratic transformation with Murbarak at the helm. Again, the Arab Spring had great implications on EU actions wherein a complete policy reversal took place after Mubarak resigned. Thereafter, the EU “called on the Egyptian authorities to meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people with political reform and not repression”. From the support that the EU gave Mubarak, it was clear that the EU was willing to compromise democracy and human rights, at least in the short-run for security and strategic reasons. Regardless, the EU had publicly endorsed authoritarianism and that is definitely a big contradiction to its ethos of being a normative power. Conclusion: Therefore, although the EU claims to be the supranational, but we have seen from the cases that the individual member states have been rather selfish in times. For example, in the case of Greece and Cyprus against Turkish accession, they are vetoing against Turkish accession due to their own vested interests, rather than common EU interest. Very well, some may say that in terms of low politics, the EU walked in unison, however, we have seen in the case EU-Russian energy issue, that there were different stances between the different MS. Finally, in the case of EU-Arab relations, we see that the EU was not really interested in promoting liberty and human rights in the Arab world, they only wanted less illegal immigrants from there. As such, we could say that the EU not only failed to act in unison, but it is not practising what it preaches. Although Samuel Huntington said that nation states will diminish, but Jan Zielonka said that the EU will dissolve and be replaced by smaller, regional alliances and nation states. From what we see in the actions of EU member states, Zielonka is winning the upper hand.

• Answer:

  That's quite a lecture of a question. Yes, incompatible individual foreign policy stances make for a confused common foreign policy. To 'amalgamate' , as you put it , such diverse geo-political outlooks into a common framework is not so easy. EU foreign policy is a matter of integration like other subjects, common defense, etc. and will need time. Until then that is potentially a weakness,I agree. Where no common response is prenegotiated, there is room for foreign powers to play 'divide et impera' (see the American invasion of Iraq or the recent solar panel dispute with China). It potentially disables a common response, unless at least the French-German duo can find a common stance and pick things up if they stall. So there is at least an informal mechanism that keeps things going beyond formal agreements. But more aggressive policy stances have a problem of revealing core differences. See for instance the recent French military interventions. And that does not mean that the French won't get support at all, but it means the EU does not put it's full weight behind such initiatives, even if they are recognised as necessary or in the very least reacts too tentatively and slowly. Any eventual coherent EU policy though would be just as selfish and self-serving as anybody else's. It might have the slightly positive aspect that stabilisation of the periphery is also self-serving and soft power is preferred over hard. Even if EU policy were coherent it still could make wrong assessments and have to make a U-turn to adjust.