After Iraq: The EU and Global Governance

Abstract

One of the central motivations the Convention on the Future of Europe was to devise way the European Union (EU) to play stronger and more effective role on the world stage. In spite of the Union's leadership on Kyoto, the Doha Development Round, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), widespread feeling existed that the EU was still not pulling its weight. As the convention entered the home stretch in the spring of 2003, the Iraq crisis exposed deep divisions in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This prompted some critics to ask if the EU should continue with its pretensions. In this article, I suggest that the draft constitutional treaty produced by the convention provides only shaky basis more coherent external policy. However, the Iraq crisis, as with previous crises, is likely to galvanize the EU toward more prominent and effective role on the world stage, especially in strengthening the multilateral institutions of governance. This was clear as EU member states welcomed the security doctrine presented by Javier Solana, the EU's high representative CFSP, in June 2003. (1) A central theme was the need for effective multilateral Solana did not define global governance but emphasized the importance of a rules-based international system. (2) Long before Iraq, the EU was on an opposite track from the United States in this arena. Washington had dismal record with regard to UN financing, the rejection of the Kyoto protocol, efforts to destroy the ICC, and the refusal to ratify host of arms control treaties, notably the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The present Bush administration's a la carte at least has the advantage of truth in packaging. Partly because of its own history and constant intergovernmental negotiations. Brussels has been more willing than Washington and many other countries to work through multilateral institutions. The EU itself is an example of multilateralism at work. The United States has never learned to share sovereignty as Europeans have and is often suspicious of such arrangements. The importance of multilateralism was emphasized in the many contributions during the convention debates. The draft treaty contains number of proposals aimed at strengthening the EU's external representation. These include the new post of foreign minister, stronger role in international organizations, diplomatic service, and potential single voice the European Monetary Union (EMU, or eurozone). With the failure of the Brussels European Council in December 2003 to agree to the new treaty, there will be some delay before the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) is concluded. The EU faces the twin challenges of speaking with one voice whenever possible and nudging the United States back into the multilateral fold. As the former is necessary precondition European effectiveness in addressing the latter, this essay addresses the obstacles Europe confronts in its effort to build coherent foreign and security policy. It discusses the EU's multiple and overlapping lines of authority and then examines how the EU's complex mandates and decisionmaking structures play out within several key international institutions and functional areas. Underlying many of these other problems are continuing differences between member states on major issues before multilateral institutions and disagreements about the extent to which the states constituting the EU should transfer or retain their sovereign prerogatives. Who Speaks Europe? The EU's external representation varies depending on the policy area--CFSP, trade, financial, economic, environmental, and development affairs. (3) Every six months the U.S. secretary of state has new European interlocutor. It is little wonder, therefore, that Colin Powell knows Solana's telephone number better than that of whoever among the fifteen (soon twenty-five) foreign ministers is currently holding the presidency of the Foreign Affairs Council. …