|
|
|
CIAO DATE: 7/5/2006
Strategic Implications of the EU Crisis
Charles Grant, Jeffrey Gedmin, Timofei Bordachev
February 2006
Abstract
The French and Dutch rejections of the Constitutional Treaty have opened up a period of deep and protracted difficulties for the European Union. The strategic implications of the new situation are compounded by the fact that foreign and security policy was one of the areas in which significant innovations have been provided for by the treaty.
In presenting his paper on the American perspective, Jeff Gedmin disputed the notion of a ‘crisis’ in the literal sense of the word, preferring the word ‘malaise’. He underscored the limited extent of ‘Schadenfreude’ in Washington. According to him, there was now a good chance to move away, on both sides of the Atlantic, from moralising attitudes, to have a more dynamic debate on the future of Europe. The director of the Aspen Institute Berlin noted that the strategic glue between the US and Europe was not as readily provided as before by common values (but not ‘clone’ values) or common interests (we all have ‘sharper elbows’ and our interests don’t always coincide). But when addressing the question of transatlantic co-operation, his view was that it was necessary to think through the alternatives to sticking together.
Timofei V. Bordachev, from the Institute of Europe, put forward the proposition, in his presentation, that the EU crisis means the end of a ‘normative empire’. While emphasising the absence of mutual trust in the EU-Russia relationship, he considered that the future of the European integration project cannot be abstracted from the form of co-operation with Russia, in effect a European-Russian future. He added, in response to the chairman’s question about the nature of the glue binding Russia and Europe, that the aim was to extend ‘peace in Eurasia’ in the same way that the EU’s goal had hitherto been ‘peace in Europe’.
Charles Grant underlined the importance of interests in providing the glue between the US and the EU as between Russia and the EU. Pressed by the chairman on the issue of the ultimate limits of the European Union, the director of the Centre for European Reform defended the virtues of ambiguity within the context of existing treaty language (which mentions ‘Europe’ without defining it in geographical terms). Like Jeff Gedmin, he was wary of using the word ‘crisis’, which conveys the impression that European integration is essentially treaty-driven whereas recent examples (the Services Directive, the European Arrest Warrant) show otherwise. He considered that in the case of CFSP, political will is more important than institutions. In presenting the proposals made in his paper concerning variable geometry, he recalled the need to define those areas which would need to be common and not variable (e.g. trade, competitions, single market, fisheries, regional policy, elements of CAP, border control, environment). He added that his suggestion of “associate membership of CFSP” could include Russia.
