The strategic prizes of EU external action

Overview

The external action of the European Union lacks a sense of strategic purpose. This is problematic because the prosperity of its member states and citizens depends on its ability to represent their values and interests in the world effectively, and sometimes aggressively. Such purpose, however, should not be sought in classic diplomacy, hard security or geopolitics. This is best left to the EU’s member states for the time being. Instead, the EU should leverage its unique nature and experience to inspire more inclusive governance, set the global framework for economic competition and lead international development efforts.

Introduction

The current debate concerning the nature of the European Union’s (EU) external action and the functioning of the European External Action Service (EEAS) is so procedural that it barely touches what its strategic objectives should be. Yet, this question must be answered in order to deliver on the foreign policy ambitions that EU leaders have expressed time and again. It must also be answered to resolve many of the issues of organizational design, recruitment and operational procedure that continue to plague the EEAS in the years after its creation.

In discussing this question it is important to bear in mind that the EU is not a federation with a unified bureaucracy in which foreign policy is a centralized competency. Instead, the EU has 28 national foreign services that are unlikely to give up their competences anytime soon. In addition, the military strategies, capabilities and foreign policy priorities of many of the EU’s members differ so substantially for historic, geographic and political reasons that offensive military operations under EU flag are, simply, fantasies of the imagination. In view of the blowback of a long decade of US-led global securitization, this is not necessarily problematic. It does mean, however, that the EU’s external action should not focus on classic diplomacy, hard security or geopolitics if it is to succeed. Instead, the EU should leverage its unique nature and experience to inspire more inclusive governance, set the global framework for economic competition and lead international development efforts.

The procedural nature of the debate on the EU’s external action is well illustrated by a number of events. For example, in December 2011, the foreign affairs ministers of 12 EU member states sent a joint letter to the EU’s High Representative with a polite list of mostly procedural and administrative complaints about the functioning of the EEAS that was newly established on 26 July 2010. Also, the July 2013 review of the EEAS’s performance tallies 35 recommendations that are all about organization, functioning and staffing. Both documents concentrate on the nuts and the bolts of a single institution, namely the EEAS, and are largely silent on the strategic purpose of the EU’s external action writ large.

The procedural focus on the EU’s external action is also well illustrated by the baffling absence of intense political debate on the strategic interests and role of the EU in the wake of the Arab Spring, the quasi-failure of both the Doha round and the international climate negotiations, as well as an increasing Chinese assertiveness on the global stage. The deliberations of the EU’s General Affairs Council of December 2013 by and large stayed within the remit of the EEAS review. It endorsed action on a number of the short-term administrative issues the review raised, but postponed action on its medium-term issues into 2014 and review of the Council Decision that is the legal basis of the EEAS[1] into 2015 (EU, 2013). In short, it was largely a missed opportunity to set out a few strategic markers for the direction of the EU’s external action.

This article seeks to inform and encourage debate about the purpose of the EU’s external action.[2] It suggests governance, economics and development as three broad areas that are appropriate to guide EU external action because they fit the organization’s history, strengths and current situation. It also outlines more specific strategic objectives in each area that the EEAS can pursue together with relevant parts of the European Commission and the EU’s member states to make the EU more relevant to its citizens, more vibrant as a region and better reputed – and understood - in the world.

On the Strategic Purpose of External Action: Three Prizes

At face value, it’s a no-brainer. In a globalizing world, strength lies not in diversity, but in numbers and in unity of purpose. Estonia is relatively powerless in relation to Russia, yet the EU is a force to be reckoned with. The same can be said for Germany in relation to China, and so on. A strong external diplomatic service, backed-up by joint military force and significant development funds would - acting on behalf of its member states - represent a formidable asset. Kissinger would finally have his number to call and pundits would stop lamenting the lack of EU hard power.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is fatally flawed and, if followed, reality will continue to disappoint. The trouble is that this perspective conveniently ignores that the EU is neither a federation with a unified bureaucracy and foreign policy as a centralized competency nor an entity with a collective desire to act militarily ‘out of area’. Instead, there are 28 national foreign services with much longer histories and deeper networks.

Yet, this does not relegate EU external action to irrelevance; it merely suggests that two parameters should guide the future of EU external action - and the EEAS in particular. They will give it a different focus than its classic diplomatic counterparts: less on interstate relations and more on the consequences of globalization. Firstly, for the next few years, the EEAS should compliment the external action of its member states in areas where such states lack the required level of interest, resources or skill. In other words, focus on adding value and avoiding direct competition. Second, it should resist the classic Foreign Service reflex of wanting to cover everything. Instead, a more promising strategy would be to select a few niches and grow around those. Close examination of the nature and history of the EU[3] makes it relatively easy to point to three broad strategic areas of external action where the EU has value to add and can build a profile that is largely complementary to those of its member states.

1. Inspire as a case-study of the dilemmas of governance

At heart, the EU is a practical experiment in governance. While the key questions this experiment aims to resolve have changed over time[4], responses have consistently required new arrangements, structures and tools of governance. This has generated a continuous process of experimentation and ‘creative destruction’. The Lisbon Treaty and the creation of the EEAS itself provide only some of the latest examples. While this has at times been a bureaucratic and inefficient process, it has nevertheless created significant, practical innovations, such as the Single European Market (SEM), the Euro and a whole range of specialized agencies that facilitate common standard setting in many areas, which has benefited both stability and prosperity. The nitty-gritty of this experiment is of relevance to the wider world for three reasons.

First of all, it shows how deep and divisive political arguments can be incrementally overcome at negotiating tables and in conference rooms. While this experience has little persuasive power in today’s EU where domestic audiences face high levels of unemployment, budget cuts and social tensions; however, violence, conflict and crime dominate many other parts of the world. Examples of, and support for, how culture, institutions and practices can enable peaceful negotiations and compromise are highly relevant in a world that faces a growing number of collective action problems, such as the failing ‘war on drugs’ (Global Commision, 2010), as well as thirty-two active conflicts in 2012 (UCDP). Effective external action will require grassroots diplomacy and innovative out-of-the-box thinking. These are not typical Foreign Service activities, but then again, that’s the point.

Second, EU governance debates have nurtured a set of values that have gradually increased levels of accountability, tolerance and solidarity in the political systems and social cultures of its member states. Evidence hereof is visible in the form of incipient pan-European social safety nets, a decreasing tolerance of the abuse of public office for private gain and the wide acceptance of pluralism in society, media and politics as non-negotiable standards. A good demonstration of this dynamic in action is the recent spat between the EU and Hungary over the latter’s controversial constitutional changes on which it eventually, and in part, had to back down. Thoughtfully enabling and encouraging such peer-to-peer discourse elsewhere is both in the EU’s and the world’s interest.

Finally, European integration has stimulated civic culture across the continent. It is not of the kind that centers on popular identification with flags or national anthems - that would mistakenly elevate the symbols of nationhood to the European level as indicators of support and legitimacy. Rather, it is of the more practical sort that builds tolerance and appreciation for neighbors through working, travelling, loving, making money and collaborating across borders. The weekly meetings of senior national civil servants in the Coreper, or the thousands of students that participate each year in the Erasmus program, are only the most obvious examples. Because the EU is a continuous work in progress, it has become as much a social experiment as a political one.[5] We know that civic culture matters for the durability and the quality of results that governance structures produce.[6] Cultural and public diplomacy can tailor these experiences to places like Kashmir or South-East Asia. It will be sensitive and slow work, but centuries of power politics have arguably not yet produced a better record.

In short, the EU has the ability to inspire as a case study in the dilemmas of governance in a globalizing world.[7] While a self-congratulatory approach, or worse, attempts to export ‘democracy to the world'[8], are not exactly recipes for a successful foreign policy, tailoring some of its mechanisms, practices and programs to the global context could be a powerful lever for generating long-term advantage, as well as a source of inspiration for others. From this perspective, the EU’s response to the Arab Spring has been a huge missed opportunity to influence the developments in North-Africa with a generous package of opportunities for education and training for its youth bulges and perhaps ‘Interreg’ type investment deals across the Mediterranean, funded in part by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Regional Development Fund, for its fledging economies.

2. Shape the framework for global economic competition

If joint governance is at the heart of the EU, economic integration has so far been its most effective method to move it along. The EU as a single entity is the world’s largest economy. It makes up about 20% of the Gross World Product with the US, China, Switzerland, Russia, Norway, Japan and Turkey as its main trading partners (all over 3% of total trade).[9] The economic performance of the EU as a bloc contributes significantly to its output legitimacy. However, significant hurdles to greater economic performance remain, not in the least the completion of the SEM (for example trade in services) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The EU will need to make continuous efforts to compete effectively in the global economy. External action can play a vital role in making this possible under conditions that match the political and social interests of its member states and their citizens. It can help advance three issues in particular:

First, in the process of creating the EU’s internal market, many warned of a race to the bottom. Social security and labor conditions would be sacrificed on the altars of corporate profit by governments greedy for more foreign investment. This image of social doom has not come to pass so far – at least not in the EU. On the contrary, standards have been harmonized to the extent that UK businesses complain that the regulation of working hours limits their ability to respond nimbly to changes in demand. The more socialist and corporatist parts of Europe can breathe a sigh of relief.

Yet, at the global level there remains an important job to be done in creating decent working conditions with provisions for sickness, invalidity and old age, as well as ensuring the safety and quality of production. Here, EU values meet with EU interests: a humane and safe working environment is both right in itself and benefits our ability to compete. It lessens the inevitable disruption that results from low-added value industries in the EU having to close their doors. The task for EU external action here is twofold. First, diplomacy needs to work with business to ensure supply chains are transparent, clean and adhere to minimum worker, production and safety standards. The EU has the economic clout to make this happen. Second, there needs to be a sustained diplomatic push to improve the governance regime of the global economy, either on a case-by-case as part of new trade agreements (like the TIPP) or on a structural basis through existing institutions (such as the International Labor Organization) to set high global practices and standards.

Second, it has become abundantly clear that the global response to the challenge of climate change has run aground on the reefs of NIMBY[10], which makes it of vital importance that local responses are reinvigorated. The sum of their parts may yet exceed what the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was not able to achieve. As a result, future economic growth needs to be as green as possible. This requires that putting to rest the idea that the luxury of greening the economy can wait until old-style, dirty industrial growth has generated sufficient wealth first. It’s a recipe for global disaster. A key question is how this debate can shed its colonial overtones by which developing countries accuse their OECD counterparts of ‘green’ imperialism after they first got rich in the ‘brown’ way themselves. Helpfully, recent work is starting to show that green growth does not have to be more expensive (OECD, 2013). EU external action can help build the evidence base for green growth, lobby the global agenda and support innovation through its trade policy, development and investment funding.

Third, in times of budget cuts and austerity, effective taxation of savvy multinationals has once more become a topic that gets leaders out of their chairs. While expectations of short-term replenishments of empty treasuries will likely have to be tempered, addressing the underlying questions of social justice and legitimacy are critical for a balanced, long-term recovery. EU external action can deliver a significant contribution to revising the mechanisms and procedures for international taxation because this is slow, technical work that requires diplomatic weight, staying power and deep expertise. The EU has excelled at this sort of technical-diplomatic work away from the headlines. As to the existence of a permissible environment, even Prime Minister Cameron has weighed in on this agenda (G8, 2013) despite the existence of important British offshore tax havens like the Virgin and Channel Islands.

3. Show compassion in a violent and unequal world

The third and final strategic area in which EU external action has value to add is in development cooperation. It is neither justifiable nor sustainable that hundreds of millions of people live in dire poverty, in daily fear of conflict and violence or next to unimaginably rich neighbors without being able to send their children to school. It is not right because the world is rich enough to give everyone a chance. It is not smart because it feeds poor governance, crime, migration, terrorism and exploitation. These problems are at their most extreme in fragile states where governments tend to be illegitimate, exploitative, incapable, or all three. Sadly, a number of these countries are utterly ignored by the world if they don’t pose a direct Afghanistan-type- threat to its commercial or political interests. Think of Chad, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Yemen, but also of Guatemala, Honduras, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.

As these countries are largely out of the geopolitical limelight, EU external action is well suited for a long-term engagement with its diplomatic and development resources. Some will argue that this is already being done. Unfortunately, for EU external action to have real effect, two difficult changes must be made.

To start with, missions and actions at the behest of the EU’s foreign and security policy remain almost completely disconnected from the Commission’s work as the world largest donor. These instruments need to be linked much more strongly at both the strategic and operational level. Moreover, the extremely technical approach and glacial slowness with which the Commission programs the many billions it has to spend on aid is so fundamentally at odds with the political and operational realities in fragile states that not much can be expected from them in terms of results.

So there is huge scope for those in charge of the EU’s external action to improve the quality of its development efforts. Redesigning procedures for inter-institutional collaboration, joint strategy formulation and programming regulations is slow work and not sexy, but can make a big difference. Were the EU to use the window of opportunity opened by the New Deal for International Engagement in Fragile States in earnest, it has the potential to become a real innovator in this area. And the member states may actually allow it.

Conclusively Moving Into the 21^st Century

In summary, EU external action will not be of the glamorous Foreign Service type anytime soon. It should probably stay away from the headlines where geopolitical interests dominate. Syria, Afghanistan, Russia, Israel, Mali, China and Brazil are simply a size too tall for the EU to play an effective role outside of its core remit as guardian of the internal market.[11] It should also stop wasting energy on creating a more coherent defense and security policy, let alone joint defense procurement or actual intervention. It is highly unlikely that the member states will ever arrive at the level of consensus that will allow the EU to fulfill a meaningful role in these core areas of sovereignty. Instead, John Locke’s ‘under-laborer conception’ seems a better fit for EU external action. To paraphrase: ‘And in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-laborer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge’ (Locke, in: Winch, 1999).

There is much that can be achieved by sharing the EU’s governance record, and struggles, with the world to encourage such development elsewhere, by building a framework for global competition that safeguards human dignity and social justice, and by showing compassion with those who struggle to make a living under the threat of violence and poverty. These are prizes that reflect the spirit, interests and practice of Europe.