Global Europe

Ahmadinejad orders uranium enrichment. The NY Times reports:

Iran’s president ordered his atomic scientists on Sunday to begin enriching their stockpile of uranium in order to power a medical reactor, a move that accelerated Iran’s brinkmanship over its nuclear program by moving the country closer to producing weapons-grade fuel. (…)

United States officials, who said they were not surprised by the announcement, said they believed that it would help President Obama win more stringent sanctions against Iran, and particularly against the Revolutionary Guards, who run the nuclear program and have protected Mr. Ahmadinejad and other leaders by moving to crush Iran’s domestic opposition movement. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, reacting to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s announcement, said during a visit to Rome that sanctions could still work “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government.”

Focus of Chinese leadership has shifted from the US to the domestic audience, says Newsweek’s Melinda Liu:

It’s not that Chinese leaders no longer care what the Americans think. They’re just so much more worried about what ordinary Chinese think. Growing prosperity and greater communication with the outside world have made the country’s more than 1.3 billion people much harder to manage than they used to be. Now it’s a matter of basic survival for party bosses to keep a close eye on public opinion. (…) Senior leaders’ staffs now devote huge amounts of time and resources to monitoring public opinion. They commission social surveys and even assign undercover researchers to unearth what ordinary Chinese really think.

Ukraine’s presidential elections: Yanukovych likely to be the winner, but Tymoshenko might challenge results. The NY Times reports:

By early Monday, with more than 80 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Yanukovich had 48 percent, to 46 percent for Ms. Tymoshenko. Turnout was 69 percent of registered voters. (…)

In his remarks on Sunday night, Mr. Yanukovich called on Ms. Tymoshenko to accept the election and resign as prime minister. (…) The question now is what Ms. Tymoshenko will do next. She had contended last week that Mr. Yanukovich’s campaign intended to steal the election, saying that she would call for mass protests in response, in a repeat of the Orange Revolution. If Mr. Yanukovich wins by the slim margin suggested by the exit polls, she could still contest the election. “It is too early to draw conclusions,” Ms. Tymoshenko said at a news conference after the polls closed. “Everything will depend on how our team defends the results. I ask everyone to fight for every result, every document, every vote, because a vote can decide our fate.” (…)

A Yanukovich victory would be “a triumph for Moscow”:

If the count confirms the exit polls, it will amount to a rebuke of the Orange Revolution, which was supposed to serve as a post-Soviet model, moving the country toward a European-style democracy, but has instead given rise to political and economic turmoil.

A victory for Mr. Yanukovich would also be a triumph for Moscow in its struggle for influence with the West in the former Soviet Union. While Mr. Yanukovich, with the assistance of an American political consultant, has tried to remake his image so that he is not considered a favorite of Russia, he advocates policies that it welcomes. The Kremlin has been infuriated by Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, saying that the West is infringing upon Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence, and Mr. Yanukovich is vowing to abandon the plan.

Ukrainian political analyst Yevgeny Kiselyov comments for the Moscow Times:

Although the official results of the second round of Ukraine’s presidential election have not been announced, it is clear that the country’s next president will be Viktor Yanukovych. Over the past three weeks, Yulia Tymoshenko failed to close the 10-point lead Yanukovych has held since the first round of voting. Every attempt to convince voters that as president she would take the country along a new path of development didn’t convince people who asked themselves, “If Tymoshenko wasn’t able to move the country in the right direction after being prime minister for two years, how will she be able to do any better as president?”

Tymoshenko’s failure proved that it is impossible to win a presidential race after serving as prime minister of a country that was hit harder by the crisis than any other nation in Europe. Since the crisis started, the budget deficit, inflation and the government debt have soared to dangerously high levels, and the standard of living of Ukrainians plummeted.

One of the biggest factors that crippled Tymoshenko’s ability to close the gap in the past three weeks was her failure to win the support of Sergei Tigipko, a successful businessman and former Central Bank chairman who came in third place in the first round with 13 percent of the vote. (…)

And what a bizarre campaign it was. The presidential candidates never focused on the most urgent problems facing the country. There was very little discussion about how to overcome the crisis and little attention was paid to the issue of reforming the constitution, making Ukraine the only country where the ruling power is shared simultaneously by the president, the parliament and the Cabinet. Keeping this terribly unwieldy political arrangement in place guarantees that the government will be crippled by political infighting, chaos and an inability to carry out its basic functions. But instead of focusing on what Ukraine needs the most, the candidates engaged in a mud-slinging fest, accusing each other of everything from hypocrisy, lying and corruption to betraying Ukraine’s national interests.

One of Tymoshenko’s campaign strategies was to try to portray Yanukovych as Moscow’s puppet. But Yanukovych countered by making a number of statements toward the close of the campaign that were clearly intended to show that he is willing to stand up to Moscow by demanding lower prices in gas contracts and opposing the South Stream pipeline project, which will bypass Ukraine. More important, however, Yanukovych went further by questioning the sacrosanct issue of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol, saying the current rental price for the base is far too low.

Are these just empty words intended to deflect accusations by the opposition that Yanukovych was too pro-Russian, or is there a real chance that he means what he says? Once Yanukovych becomes president, we will be able to answer this question.

The Washington Post has a backgrounder about Ukraine’s relations with the West:

Ukraine today is a fragile and dysfunctional democracy, with free but sometimes corrupt media, courts vulnerable to bribes and political pressure, and weak political parties and policymaking institutions. Yevgeny Bystritsky, director of the pro-democracy International Renaissance Foundation in Kiev, said U.S. and European leaders made the mistake of romanticizing the Orange Revolution leaders as democrats resisting Russian authoritarianism and did not pressure them to pursue political reforms. “The problem is our politicians,” he said, noting that Washington paid for experts to help craft a sweeping judicial reform bill only to see it stall in parliament because political leaders were unwilling to give up control of the courts. He argued that the West should attach more conditions and demand results in exchange for aid.

Others say there are limits to what Europe and the United States can do. “Conditionality almost never works, and I’m not sure more money is going to make the difference either,” said William Taylor, who pressed Kiev for reforms as the U.S. ambassador from 2006 to 2009. “I don’t think you can bludgeon them to do things for their own good.”

Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria said a “real possibility” of European Union membership for Ukraine would have done more to spur reform than any additional aid. He linked the success of democracy in neighboring Eastern European countries to the E.U. accession process. “That strong anchor was and is absent for Ukraine,” he said. Still, he acknowledged that Europe was waiting “to see Ukrainian leaders who are serious” about reform.

Armenia and Turkey: The truce is in need of a rescue, Henri J. Barkey and Thomas de Waal are arguing in the Los Angeles Times:

But this great truce is already in need of a rescue, and if it breaks down, we will end up in a worse place than where we started. In January, Turkey showed signs of having cold feet. Its foreign ministry objected to a judgment by the Armenian constitutional court supporting the protocols on the grounds that they are consistent with the founding principles of the state, which commit it to pursuing recognition of the 1915 killings as genocide. The endorsement of the court, which the U.S. government welcomed, actually opens the way for the Armenian parliament to ratify the protocols. Turkey’s move was a fairly transparent device to put the brakes on the process.

Why the EU needs more snubs. Justin Vaïsse, director of research at the Center on the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution, hopes, in a NY Times op-ed, that Obama’s decision to skip the EU-US summit will be a wake-up call:

It’s a great service that Barack Obama rendered to Europeans. This humiliation probably convinced a few more of the obvious need to finally get their acts together and be more united on foreign policy if they want to have a say in the world — or just be taken seriously. (…)

In fact, much of Europe’s progress in foreign policy in the past two decades came after similar moments of frustration, humiliation and antagonism. The various failures of Europe in the Balkans throughout the 1990s spurred a more united foreign policy and the creation of Europe’s common security and defense capabilities. The Iraq war led public opinion to briefly coalesce against the Bush administration and allowed Europeans to feel more European, and the painful divisions it engendered led leaders to adopt the common security strategy and to be more united and firm on Iran’s nuclear program.

In truth, if Europe is to ever rise to the status of great power, it will need not only more brush-offs from America, but also more antagonism from Russia and China. The problem, right now, is that Moscow and Beijing have fine-tuned their policy of divide and rule and play this card to the perfection. Russia calibrates its provocations and knows exactly how far it can push without triggering a meaningful reaction from Europeans or encouraging a sudden leap in unity and resolve. China never snubs the European Union as such, but makes sure to maximize divisions among member states who are all too happy to break ranks in exchange for temporary economic favors.

Of course, ideally, Europe would not need “enemies,” crisis or painful challenges to coalesce its forces. But let’s face it: Europe will never be a meaningful player without some sort of external spur. It will take more than fine arguments and patient education to shake off complacency and overcome the go-it-alone and free-ride tendencies of national policies.

In this sense, the current world is not stable and peaceful enough for Europe to simply be Europe — the multilateral normative paragon, the non-aggressive and herbivorous power, as the European Council on Foreign Relations once labeled it. But it is not multipolar and competitive enough, or not yet, to compel it to become more coherent, assertive and hard-headed.

Ever closer union. The current debt crisis could ultimately lead to a more integrated EU, says Newsweek’s Stefan Theil:

Working out these problems could leave Europe stronger as a political institution. Just as the Great Depression forced the U.S. to impose a tighter federalism, today’s economic crisis will likely force Europe into a closer union. Already last week, the EU Commission began pushing reforms on Greece. Through the back door of an economic crisis, the euro zone might then get the kind of political governance that skeptics always warned was necessary for a currency union to work. At the end of the tunnel could be a more integrated Europe, reformed problem economies, and ultimately a more competitive Europe.

Catherine Ashton gave a solid speech on EU foreign and security policy at the Munich Security Conference, read it here (PDF).

Read today on Global Europe: Farcical events. Let’s not waste time on summits that have no substance. By Fraser Cameron, Director of the EU Russia Centre.

To receive the Global Europe Morning Brief every weekday by email, send an email to globeurope@gmail.com

Populism popular in Davos — By David Ignatius, Wash Post

The Death of Global Warming — By Walter R. Mead, AI blog

Obama’s Halfway House — By Roger Cohen, NY Times

Desperate for a Taliban Deal? — By M.O’Hanlon, H.Sherjan, Daily Beast

We need a new capitalism to take on China — By Anatole Kaletsky, Times

Again, the China arms embargo issue — By François Godement, ECFR

Who Lost Ukraine? — By Ivan Krastev, WAJ blog

Europeans have missed an opportunity — By Hugo Brady, Independent

The Cure Appears Worse Than The Disease — By Ahto Lobjakas, RFE/RL

China’s indignation over US arms sale to Taiwan “largely for show”, the Economist concludes. And on the American side, there is no change of attitude towards China:

The transfer had to be announced at some time, and this, said a senior official, was “one of those issues where the timing is never right”. Indeed, one way to read the timing is that it was intended to minimise friction. (…)

One reading of the timing of the Taiwan deal is that America intended to show its annoyance over China’s reluctance to join the rest of the members of the UN Security Council and Germany in imposing new economic sanctions on Iran. Now that the deadline Mr Obama set for talking round the ayatollahs has expired, Iran is certainly one of America’s main foreign-policy worries. But the notion that America was punishing China by way of Taiwan looks wide of the mark. If anything, the administration appears to have been eager to avoid forging any linkage between Iran and Taiwan in Chinese eyes. (…)

It is true that China is now the odd man out on Iran in the Security Council. But that, says Nina Hachigian of the Centre for American Progress, a think-tank close to the Obama administration, is because Russia has become more alarmed by Iran and co-operative with the West, rather than because China has changed its own stance. More to the point, America may not yet have given up on the possibility of China playing a constructive role in dissuading Iran from seeking nuclear weapons. (…)

All in all, the evidence suggests that neither the American arms package nor China’s reaction to it was intended to disturb a relationship that is often fraught but in which both sides have made a big investment.

China continues to be reluctant on Iran sanctions. The Washington Post reports:

China on Thursday threw a roadblock in the path of a U.S.-led push for sanctions against Iran, saying that it is important to continue negotiations as long as Iran appears willing to consider a deal to give up some of its enriched uranium. “To talk about sanctions at the moment will complicate the situation and might stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution,” Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at a conference in Paris.

Trouble ahead at Sunday’s election in Ukraine? On Thursday the Ukrainian election law has been changed, giving Yanukovych a potential advantage over Timoschenko and possibly putting into question the legitimacy of the elections. The EU Observer reports:

A last-minute change to the country’s electoral law, signed into force on Thursday morning, has seen Ms Tymoshenko threaten to declare the poll invalid and to bring thousands of her supporters onto the streets on Monday. The legal change means that local election commissions in charge of the country’s 38,000 or so voting stations will be able to sign off on the results without the approval of commission members nominated by Ms Tymoshenko. The new law was pushed through parliament by a coalition including Mr Yanukovych’s party and MPs loyal to the outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, who has become a bitter personal enemy of Ms Tymoshenko over the past five years.

“It is not in line with good practice to make last-minute changes to the electoral law, unless this is based on a broad political consensus,” Jens Eschenbacher, the spokesman for the ODIHR monitoring mission, told EUobserver. “But in reality, it will not change much if the election officials show up on the day and do their work professionally and in good faith, as they largely did in the first round.”

After Obama’s “snub”, discussions about the Lisbon structure. Tony Barber writes in his FT blog that the EU “struggles with its Lisbon new look”:

Whether it’s climate change, foreign policy or the increasingly alarming fiscal crisis, the European Union’s difficulties can be summed up in one word: disunity.  After December 1, when the EU’s Lisbon treaty came into force, disunity was supposed to be a thing of the past.  Instead, disunity has proved to be very much a thing of the present.  What’s more, the Lisbon treaty may – at least in the short term – be making matters worse.

Disunity on foreign policy is just as obvious as it was before the Lisbon treaty came into effect.  It was painfully visible this week as a squabble broke out over who was responsible for Barack Obama’s decision not to travel to Spain in May for a US-EU summit. Officials close to Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s full-time president, said it was nothing to do with him.  They implied it was the fault of Spain, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency. It does not seem to have occurred to the Europeans that Obama decided not to go because he couldn’t figure out who speaks for Europe – even after the Lisbon treaty - and how the summit would produce practical results in terms of Europe’s contribution on Afghanistan, Iran, Bosnia and so on. Meanwhile, Spain is also getting flak for floating the idea of lifting the EU’s arms embargo on China.

The fact is, multiple contests for influence are going on inside the EU, some old and some triggered by the Lisbon treaty: i) between the full-time presidency and the rotating presidency; ii) between the rotating presidency and the office of the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton; iii) between national governments and the European Parliament; iv) between national governments and the European Commission; v) between political groups in the Parliament, a struggle that seeps its poison all over Brussels; and vi) between the Commission and the Parliament.

The EU’s institutions are in a highly fluid state as a result of the Lisbon treaty.  Maybe it will take some time before they begin to acquire a coherent shape. But for the moment, the rest of the world is baffled and a little impatient.

On her EU Observer blog Honor Mahony writes about the rotating EU presidency, currently held by Spain:

The rotating presidency is not gone – it was just (openly) hidden in the complex folds of the Lisbon Treaty, upon us now, in all its foreign policy nebulousness, for a whole two months. But the six-month presidency is supposed to operate behind the scenes, doing much of the policy spadework but for little of the glory. Herman Van Rompuy, as EU council president, and Catherine Ashton, as the EU’s foreign policy chief, are now the main actors. That is going to take some getting used to.

On Project Syndicate Jean-Pierre Lehmann declares that the Lisbon Treaty structure has “failed”:

The Lisbon Treaty was a compromise constitutional arrangement that would nevertheless give the EU greater weight and authority precisely for occasions such as the Copenhagen summit, when global issues are addressed. Though multiple European actors on the world stage were more than justified in the old days, this is no longer the case. With China, India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, and other major global players speaking with one voice, Europe could no longer afford a cacophony of voices. But in Copenhagen, the structure established by the Lisbon Treaty failed. (…) Europeans do not realize how little interest in “European affairs” there is in Seoul, Sydney, São Paolo, or San Francisco. There is a growing general global consensus that Europe is a pompous old has-been. (…)

The only thing “that could revive the EU, give it much enhanced global respectability” is, Lehman says, Turkey’s admission as a full member.

We don’t need another EU-US summit. The Wall Street Journal quotes Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the European Policy Centre in Brussels:

“There is a paradox,” he said. “It’s certainly true that Europeans have too many summits. Whenever there’s a problem, the Europeans say we need a summit.” Annual European summits might be a sensible idea with countries with which, for example, the Europeans have an underdeveloped relationship and are seeking a closer one, he said. “But if there is one country where we don’t need an annual summit it is with the U.S.,” he said. The sheer magnitude of trans-Atlantic contacts over every conceivable topic, from airline security to financial regulation to Afghanistan, means that leaders don’t need to get together annually. And if they do want to chat, there’s always the regular summits of NATO, the Group of Eight and the Group of 20.

Sarkozy on transatlantic relations. Canadian Press reports:

“With the United States, I don’t understand the debate,” Sarkozy told a news conference with Merkel after a joint meeting of the entire French and German governments in Paris. Sarkozy indicated that Obama might choose to meet with European leaders in the fall when the U.S. president would be expected to attend the annual NATO leaders summit which this year is in Portugal – a combined solution the French leader said was a “rather good idea.” “If the summit is in November instead of May, it truly doesn’t matter. My feeling is that there are too many summits. There are too many trips. There is too much time lost,” Sarkozy said. Sarkozy said he was not at all worried by Obama missing the May summit. He noted that Obama had met European leaders on numerous occasions in 2009.

The U.S. leader travelled to Europe half a dozen times last year and met European leaders at other international venues, including at the United Nations. “I don’t think it demonstrates a lack of interest by President Obama for Europe,” Sarkozy said.

German-French couple back on track? Deutsche Welle reports:

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have unveiled a new 10-year plan, including 80 projects designed to improve Franco-German cooperation. The goal is also to better promote European ideas globally. (…) The “Franco-German Agenda 2020″ outlines plans for everything from joint ministerial sessions, to combined political and economic policy-making, education initiatives, language learning programs, and even simplified Franco-German marriage regulations. (…)

“This leadership is not meant to damage anybody else,” Sarkozy said of the new Franco-German claim that “without us, nothing can work.” “We just want to ensure that a politically strong Europe exists. And for that, Germany and France must cooperate.”

“I think this is a chance to do something bilaterally, but also with a close relationship to our international endeavors,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Thursday. “We need new ideas; we need to approach business differently; we need sustainable national budgets and financial policies. And I really believe that all these new challenges must be brought into European discussions by Germany and France.”

Transcript (in French) here.

Verhofstadt: EU needs more unity and integration. In an Open Letter to Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Guy Verhofstadt, President of the ALDE group in the European Parliament (Liberals) and former Belgian prime minister, writes:

Whether we are dealing with Haiti, Greece or the dramatic conclusion of Copenhagen, the reason for failure is always the same: it is because Member States continue to keep a tight hold of the reins, and that Europe has neither the power nor the tools to create a single approach, much less to impose it.

The tragedy that struck Haiti gave rise to generous responses from Member States. This is undoubtedly a good thing. However, “EU-Fast” i.e. a common, European humanitarian force would have been quicker and more efficient. The idea of coordinating European civil protection forces in Member States is not new. It was first put forward in April 2003: Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, Jean-Claude Juncker and I proposed the idea of EU-Fast (European Union First Aid and Support Team). (…)

Copenhagen may well have had a different outcome had Europe been represented by a single person, instead of eight (…)

In conclusion, Mister President, if heads of state and government really want to get to grips with reasons for the European Union’s failures, they must, on 11th February, come to a single logical conclusion: Europe needs more unity and more integration, otherwise the Union will cease to play its role on the global chess board. It won’t be enough to simply refer to the Lisbon Treaty in the hope that the tide will turn. The last months and weeks have been proof to the contrary.

Quote of the day. Honor Mahony comments on her EU Observer blog:

But, I have to say Catherine Ashton is making it a bit too easy for him (Spanish foreign minister Moratinos) to expand upon issues as he pleases. I have defended her on these pages and I continue to do so. She is a novice in a huge and difficult new job, so she needs time. Yet today I read an interview with her in the Financial Times, in which she said precisely nothing at all. If you give an interview with the best-read newspaper in Brussels, you say something. Come on Lady Ashton, stop hiding! You are the foreign policy face of the EU.

Read today on Global Europe: Dangers of inaction. The European Union must support a waning South East Europe. By Othon Anastasakis, Director of South East European Studies at Oxford and Fellow of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

To receive the Global Europe Morning Brief every weekday by email, send an email to globeurope@gmail.com

US pushing for sanctions on Iran. The BBC reports:

The US is circulating a discussion paper on possible further UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, says a Western diplomat at the UN. The measures include expanding travel bans and asset freezes on people connected with the nuclear industry. (…) On Wednesday, the Western diplomat confirmed reports by the Reuters news agency that the US paper talks about expanding travel bans and asset freezes on those connected to Iran’s nuclear industry, as well as financial measures such as placing restrictions on its central bank. In particular, it suggests targeting senior members of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which oversees Iran’s nuclear programme and its strategic weapons. The BBC’s Barbara Plett, at UN headquarters in New York, says this is very much a preliminary stage. The US and its European allies on the Security Council – the UK, France and Germany – would have to eventually win agreement from Russia, which has been reluctant to pursue sanctions, and China, which openly opposes them.

But according to a Washington Post analysis, “China experts believe Beijing – despite heated anti-U.S. rhetoric of recent days – won’t stand in the way” of sanctions.

The AFP has some remarks by Catherine Ashton’s on Iran: quoted here.

Don’t expect too much from a deal with the Taliban. Michael O’Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan write in the Daily Beast:

There is a role for trying to wean away some Taliban supporters from the core ideological movement, to be sure. But we must be careful not to seem so desperate for a deal that the Taliban misinterpret our offer to talk as a position of weakness, or making the best of a losing hand. (…) They believe themselves to be winning and as such continue to insist that any negotiations only occur once foreign forces are gone—meaning when they would have the upper hand over the government militarily, in all likelihood. (…) So yes, let’s keep reintegration and reconciliation in our tool kit. However, it is still premature to expect much of the idea, and such approaches will always have to be handled very, very carefully in Afghanistan.

Read also a Washington Post story about the rather negative Afghan views of the new reconciliation strategy: here.

Obama right to skip EU-US summit in Madrid, says Adrian Hamilton in the Independent:

President Obama doesn’t do idle chat. When he speaks to foreign leaders – unlike his predecessor, George W Bush – he likes the conversation to have a purpose. Not for him the bonding exchange or the photo opportunity. Which is why he seems to prefer Angela Merkel to most other European leaders. And why he has so publicly turned down the EU’s invitation to a summit in Madrid. Call it a snub if you like, but the simpler explanation is that he simply saw no point in it.

And he is right. Just what was the purpose of the summit? It was called by Spain’s Jose Luis Zapatero largely with the aim of pre-empting the newly appointed full-time President of Europe, Herman von Rompuy, from doing the same.

In a similar vein, the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum comments:

The president is absolutely right to ignore what would certainly have been another boring meeting, accompanied by excellent food and inconsequential conversation.

For a decade, Europe’s leaders wrangled over a constitution — now called the Lisbon Treaty — that was supposed to give the continent a clearer voice in international affairs. But when it finally came down to selecting a president and a foreign minister of Europe, the Europeans punted. They chose two perfectly nice, perfectly bland, and completely unknown politicians, neither of whom has yet said or done anything of any consequence. In other words, the real leaders of Europe — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France — don’t want the continent to have a foreign policy at all. But if they don’t want to speak in unison, then why should the American president pretend to listen? He can get a lot more done by calling up Merkel, Sarkozy or Britain’s prime minister for the occasional off-the-record chat.

It didn’t have to be this way: A year ago, at the start of this administration, Europeans had a chance to make a real impression in Washington. All doors were open, all ears were listening, any European coalition that had wanted to help solve one or more of the world’s security issues would have been granted carte blanche. Nothing happened, no such coalition emerged, and the window of opportunity closed. The president now has his mind on other things. His failure to turn up isn’t a “snub,” it’s a thoroughly rational decision.

For Judy Dempsey, transatlantic relations are handicapped by a lack of leadership in Europe. She writes in her New York Times column:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain is facing an election campaign. Besides, he has little interest in Europe. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have supported the United States in seeking stronger sanctions against Iran. Apart from that, neither leader has shown great interest in pursuing the further integration of Europe that is crucial for making the bloc more united in defense and security policy. Mrs. Merkel’s center-right coalition government has spent much of the time since elections last September bickering over domestic policy while she herself now shows little interest in foreign policy, or even traveling.

“It is not clear who is speaking for Europe,” said Stephen Flanagan, defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The great hope that the naming of Catherine Ashton,” the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, “would lead to coherence has not turned true,” he said.

EU’s foreign policy challenges. Catherine Ashton spoke to the FT’s Tony Barber:

She offers compact, guarded answers to questions on world affairs. She lacks the confidence of a trained diplomat, for she is not one, and appears anxious not to put a foot wrong so soon after taking up a job for which some critics considered her ill-qualified.

The only controversy that has arisen since her appointment in November concerns last month’s Haiti earthquake, when she came under attack, largely from French sources, for not travelling immediately to the Caribbean and waving the EU flag. “I will go to Haiti when the noise has died down and I can be of real use,” she says. (…)

The potential for enhancing Europe’s ability to speak with one voice is clear, but so are the limits imposed by the fact some governments do not agree on crucial dossiers.

Take Kosovo, whose independence five EU states refuse to recognise. Lady Ashton counters: “There are differences over recognition but there’s absolute agreement on the substantial programme of help that we’re putting in place in Kosovo. My job is to translate this position into action and represent it. When we don’t have agreement, there are ongoing discussions among member states.”

Thornier still is the Middle East, where Sweden used its EU presidency last year to push for a more pro-Palestinian line. Germany and other states more sympathetic to Israel put their foot down. Such differences, she says, were reconciled in a statement by EU foreign ministers in December that called for “a two-state solution with the state of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine”.

Lady Ashton plans to visit the region next month. “The December council conclusions are the basis on which I will go on my visit to the Middle East. All the shades of opinion coalesced in December around a form of words that all 27 member states felt comfortable with. There may be national positions that go beyond that in one way or another, but I am able to use that consensus to say things about where we, the EU, stand,” she says.

One urgent challenge facing Europe is how to rally Chinese and Russian support for a possible effort at tightening sanctions against Iran on account of its nuclear programme. Lady Ashton touched on the issue when she met Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister, in London last week. “It’s clear, unfortunately, that Iran has not been willing to move forward in the way we wanted. The important thing was to say to China that we think there now need to be discussions [at the United Nations Security Council],” Lady Ashton says.

Much of her work in the next two months will be putting flesh on the bones of the EU’s plans to build its own diplomatic service. Some steps have already been taken, she says. “At the UN there used to be a council delegation [representing EU governments] and a Commission delegation, operating side by side but separately. Now we’ve brought them together . . The EU is the biggest aid donor in the world, and we’re demonstrating that we are speaking as one.”

Bad timing, wrong approach? The ECFR’s François Godement writes about Madrid’s initiative on the EU arms embargo against China:

What is striking about Moratinos’ call was the lack of method and strategy. Going public, not mentioning what China might do to justify the change of policy, and suggesting there is some urgency to the matter are all bad negotiating moves.

In our EU-China power audit (published last year), we argued that consideration should be given to lifting the arms embargo, but only against some very significant move by the Chinese. The watershed example would be China’s support in getting Iran to quit its nuclear programme. One might also imagine less ambitious goals of reciprocity – such as a key commitment by China to goals of better governance in Africa.

Instead, Moratinos has failed to suggest any effort China might make to warrant such a big political move by Europe. There seems to be some expectation of future Chinese goodwill of an unspecified nature. But no details of what, when, how and why. China is a realist power, and we all know the likelihood of it providing unsolicited concessions. So this political blunder is not just in the timing.

Having gone through the experience in 2004-2005 of seeing the Europeans make exactly the same promise on the arms embargo, and then back off, China has retained a very low profile on Moratinos’ proposal. But it is bound to have taken due notice of the weakness, division, and lack of coordinated thinking on EU-China relations.

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Attempts to build Afghan police faltering. The New York Times reports:

The attempts to build a credible Afghan police force are faltering badly even as officials acknowledge that the force will be a crucial piece of the effort to have Afghans manage their own security so American forces can begin leaving next year. Though they have revamped the program recently and put it under new leadership, Afghan, NATO and American officials involved in the training effort list a daunting array of challenges, as familiar as they are intractable. (…)

General Burgio said the countries that were supposed to be building up Afghanistan’s security had not followed through on their promises to send enough qualified instructors. But even when the instructors arrive, he said, the countries involved seem unable to agree on a uniform training protocol. (…)

DynCorp, the American company that provided retired police officers to do much of the training, has been told its contract will not be renewed. But it has appealed that decision, holding up the changeover until the appeal is decided, by March 24.

That has left NATO struggling to augment the police trainers with active-duty police officers from European countries.

Two narratives. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad spoke at the Herzliya Conference in Israel. The Washington Post reports:

“This is a case of two completely, diametrically opposed historical narratives,” Fayyad said in a 30-minute address that delved into the logic behind key Palestinian demands such as an end to Israel’s occupation and settlement of the West Bank and the creation of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. “Israelis have a long history. Pain. Ambitions. Like you, we have our own history of pain and suffering, and we have our own ambition — to live alongside you in peace and security.”

Fayyad’s effort to keep Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank on track continues to command Israeli respect and keeps U.S. and European funds flowing in. In an earlier address to the conference, Israeli President Shimon Peres drew the Ben-Gurion comparison, calling Fayyad a state-builder. Others — even those pessimistic about a peace agreement — agreed. “The good news: For the first time ever, the Palestinians have someone willing to think constructively and build their society. Bad news: He is not representative,” said Dan Schueftan, director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa.

Paris considering to sell vessel Mistral to Russia. The Washington Post reports:

Such a deal, which the French Defense Ministry said is under negotiation, would mark the Russian military’s first major arms purchase abroad in modern history. It would also be a seminal moment for France and the West. The sale would be the largest and most sophisticated by a NATO country to Russia and would dramatize the evolving role of an alliance conceived to counter Soviet military power. (…)

Sarkozy’s government said the proposed sale was a logical extension of NATO’s repeated expressions of willingness to work with Russia as a partner, not an enemy. Prime Minister François Fillon has been a particularly vigorous champion of the deal, framing it in a context of broadened economic and political relations with Russia, including participation in strategic oil-pipeline ventures and joint automobile manufacturing projects. “It would be impossible to call for continental stability in partnership with Russia if we refuse to sell armaments to Russia,” Fillon said during Putin’s visit to Paris. “A refusal would amount to contradicting our own statements.” Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was no less eloquent in his defense of the negotiations. “We do not want to be prisoners of the past,” he said after a negotiating session with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow.

China planning to lend 1 billion US dollar to Moldova — why? Reuters is looking for an answer.

No breakthrough in Cyprus. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, ended a three-day visit to Cyprus without tangible results, the New York Times says.

Ukraine’s Orange Revolution a success, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer says:

Although Ukraine is in big economic and social trouble, it should not be forgotten that it has, until today, been saved by the fate of becoming a “guided” democracy in the Russian mold. Independent media and freedom of speech have not been restricted in Ukraine, and elections since 2004 have been judged free and fair by both international observers and the parties themselves. (…) Moreover, regardless of who wins the presidential runoff, fears about Ukraine’s independence will not, in contrast to 2004/2005, be an issue. This too, is a step forward that should not be underestimated.

He calls for a German-Polish initiative to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union.

Ivan Krastev describes the Orange Revolution as a key stage in a nation-building process:

Ukraine is in the painful process of building a new national identity. The Orange Revolution has been a failure in many aspects, but, on the positive side, it was a decisive moment in Ukraine’s nation-building process. In this sense, it did not fail. Contrary to the fears of many, the past five years did not deepen the divisions in society. Instead, the divisions contributed to the emergence of a new political consensus that was demonstrated in these elections. At the heart of this consensus is the fact that “Ukraine is not Russia” and that Ukraine has a better chance to survive as a dysfunctional democracy than as a functional autocracy. It is easy to notice that in these elections, Yanukovic is not the pro-Russian candidate (and not only because of his American advisers) and Tymoshenko is not the pro-NATO candidate (and not only because the former President Yushchenko was passionate about NATO). Both of them have moved to the political and geopolitical center. While for the moment the prospects of democracy in Ukraine are still uncertain, it is clear that Ukraine—muddling through its permanent institutional crisis—has succeeded to survive as an independent state. In short, the Orange Revolution has succeeded as a national revolution, and these elections are the best proof of this. It was not Europe that lost Ukraine. Moreover, Ukraine might not be lost at all.

Israel joining EU “very unlikely”. The Reuters blog comments:

While Berlusconi’s comments made headlines, at least in Israel and Italy, it’s not the first time he’s laid out such an ambition – he said almost exactly the same thing during a visit to Croatia in January 2003, when he backed Zagreb’s bid to join the EU and said he hoped Israel, Turkey, Ukraine and Moldova would follow. Expressing such a hope is an easy thing for Berlusconi to say and makes him look generous towards his hosts. But he also knows that Israeli EU membership  is extremely unlikely any time soon, not only because of opposition among existing EU member states, but because there’s not enormous enthusiasm on Israel’s part either. (…)

Israel, with its hot technology sector and rapidly expanding economy, might make a strong economic partner for the EU, but member states that have concerns about Turkey’s membership are likely to have similar concerns about Israel, a Jewish state that remains a long way from reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israel is aware of that, and also knows that many of the benefits of the European Union can be enjoyed without having to go through the heartache and strictures required to become a fully-fledged member. Israel is already a participant in the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy, is a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and enjoys favourable EU trade terms via an association agreement that came into force in 2000. Closer EU ties, particularly on trade and economic issues, would always be welcome, but full EU membership,  involving the surrendering of some of Israel’s hard-fought-for sovereignty and giving up the shekel for the euro, remains far too much of a reach. Joining the OECD is an Israeli priority, but Berlusconi’s dreams are very unlikely to become a reality.

Obama’s decision to skip the EU-US summit. The New York Times has some new background:

European officials said that two senior American officials — the under secretary of state for political affairs, William J. Burns, and the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Philip H. Gordon — had attended a preparatory meeting for the summit meeting two weeks ago in Madrid, and that there was no hint then that Mr. Obama would decide not to attend. But a senior American official said that Mr. Gordon and Mr. Burns emphasized to Spanish officials, when the meeting was raised, that they “were not in a position to commit to one.” In fact, the official said, the Obama administration has been “pursuing and getting a better relationship with Spain and the new E.U.,” with Mr. Zapatero visiting Washington twice. (…)

American officials said that Mr. Obama felt that the previous major American-European summit meeting, last June in Prague, was a waste of time, and European Union officials said that the president even skipped a leaders’ lunch at the smaller European Union-United States meeting in Washington last November, sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. instead, something they said that President George W. Bush would never have done.

Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a London-based research center, said that the Obama decision “is a useful wake-up call for the E.U.” He said the European Union must realize “that no one will court them or have summits with them because Europe is a nice idea. “They need to deliver.” Mr. Obama sees Europe as an important ally, but “Obama clearly has no emotional identification with Europe,” Mr. Grant said. “He has a cool, analytical view of allies and partners, but when the Europeans can’t provide much to help America solve global security problems, he doesn’t want to spend too much time on it.” (…)

The State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, said in Washington on Monday that the transition to a new leadership of the European Union after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty might have been a factor. “Because of the changes involving the establishment of a E.U. council president and a European Commission president on top of the rotating E.U. presidency, I think it’s taking some time to work through exactly how various high-level meetings will happen. But we look forward to ongoing dialogue.”

AFP has a reaction from Catherine Ashton:

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Obama’s decision was no more than “a logistical problem”. Asked if it constituted a snub, she replied: “No, not at all.” “I knew about the possibility that President Obama would not be able to make that date,” she told AFP. While unable to give details of the clash of dates, she added that the White House was “looking for another date” for the summit, which the Spanish had seen as a highlight of their six months at the helm of the EU presidency. “He is going to be in the Iberian peninsular in November for the (Lisbon) NATO summit so there is a question whether he could do something … at that point,” she added.

Laura Rozen writes in Politico:

The EU summit in Prague last April was considered a waste of time by the White House, reports said. The Obama administration was already reluctant to put it on Obama’s schedule this year, but Spain, which now has the presidency of the EU, tried to push a meeting, and ended up with something of a mess.

“The U.S. approach to Europe since day one of the new administration has been show us that you want to help, don’t just tell us,” says Laurie Dundon, director of trans-Atlantic relations at the Bertelsmann Foundation. “The Obama administration said very clearly to Europe early on that they needed concrete deliverables by 2010. The EU isn’t ready. They’ve heard the message, but there is nothing ready to bring to the table in May on key priorities that the U.S. cares about –Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran.  …The U.S. isn’t going to send President Obama to a meeting just for symbolism.”

The FT’s Tony Barber comments:

It will be read as a signal from the White House that the president doesn’t think the meeting would be especially productive.  And that speaks volumes about how other powers, even allied countries such as the US, view the EU as a force on the global stage. (…)

Obama’s decision will hurt all the more because the EU is in the process, so it thinks, of beefing up its common foreign policy and the way it projects itself to the rest of the world.  Now that the EU’s Lisbon treaty is in force, the 27-nation bloc has a full-time president, Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, and a foreign policy chief with enhanced powers, Britain’s Baroness Catherine Ashton.  Along with José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, this pair would presumably have been in Madrid to greet Obama.

But in a way this is precisely the EU’s problem.  Obama and other world leaders can’t figure out who exactly speaks for Europe.  So far, the main effect of the Lisbon treaty seems to have been simply to add one more European – Van Rompuy - to the party.  Neither Barroso nor Zapatero is showing any inclination to step to one side and let Van Rompuy be Europe’s main man.  It hardly helps, of course, that virtually no one in Washington had heard of Van Rompuy or Ashton until EU leaders picked them in November for two of the bloc’s highest jobs.

However, the Obama decision is about more than US-EU relations.  It is about the EU’s obsolete practice of holding regular summits with third parties – Canada, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, the US and so on – that are usually almost completely empty of substance.

Stanley Crossick says that these developments are putting the Lisbon treaty into question:

Everyone agrees that the European Union must get its act together. The wrangling over the next EU-US summit shows that the EU won’t get it’s act together until the egotism of Member State leaders is brought under control. (…) The question now being asked in relation to EU external policy is whether the Lisbon Treaty is creating more difficulties than it is resolving.

And Hugo Brady (CER) writes in a commentary for the Independent:

Obama’s first experience of the Union was a depressing and substance-free summit in Prague last April where he was hosted by a Czech government, then the holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, which had just fallen. Little he has experienced since then has convinced him that he should take the Europeans seriously as a global force.

Optimists hoped that the EU’s Lisbon Treaty would put an end to such embarrassments and help the EU craft a credible common foreign policy. The Treaty abolishes the role of the rotating presidency in foreign policy in favour of a full-time EU president and a more powerful High Representative for Foreign Affairs. But instead, Europe’s decline seems to be accelerating as it is sidelined in Copenhagen, dismissed by the Chinese and despaired of by the Americans.

The reality is that the Lisbon Treaty is just a piece of paper. It cannot by itself cure the Europeans of their weakness for circuitous arguments and tendency to offer up process as product. On top of this, Cathy Ashton, the EU’s current High Representative, will need at least two years to implement and bed down the Treaty’s foreign policy provisions. Depressingly, the Europeans probably need to accept that they have missed the opportunity Obama’s election represented, at least for now.

The Economist’s Charlemagne looks at the Spanish angle of the story.

And Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy portrays Hillary Clinton as “Europe’s reassurer in chief”:

As President Obama looks east, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is charged with the mission of ministering to a Europe feeling somewhat neglected by this administration.

European Commission set to take office next week. The Irish Times reports:

Barroso’s incoming European Commission moves a step closer to taking up its mandate when Bulgaria’s new candidate for the EU executive goes before a confirmation hearing in Brussels today at the European Parliament. Kristalina Georgieva’s nomination to the international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response portfolio followed the withdrawal last month of Bulgaria’s former foreign minister, Rumiana Jeleva. MEPs had made it clear they would not back Ms Jevela after her weak performance before the development committee.

A vice president of the World Bank, Ms Georgieva is perceived in Brussels to be a much stronger candidate. If her nomination is accepted, as anticipated by the committee, the entire team will go before a vote of MEPs in Strasbourg next Tuesday. Only then can the new commission take office, ending a delay of more than three months in which the outgoing executive has been working in a caretaker capacity.

You can watch the hearing life at 12.30 here or here.

Read today on Global Europe: Our long-term interests. The European Union must defend human rights in Iran. By Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, Member of European Parliament for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats).

To receive the Global Europe Morning Brief every weekday by email, send an email to globeurope@gmail.com

Why is Washington selling arms to Taiwan now, provoking Chinese anger? Will Inboden writes in Foreign Policy:

So why might the US rock the sampan now with these arms sales? Precisely because maintaining Taiwan’s capacity to defend itself is vital to maintaining the peaceful trajectory in China-Taiwan relations. If Taiwan is able to deter the potential Chinese use of force, than the only realistic option in the relationship will be peaceful coexistence built on growing economic ties and political rapprochement. Whereas if China’s military modernization and expansion eclipses Taiwan’s defense capabilities, China might find adventurism more enticing.

The arms sales to Taiwan should be seen in light of the broader U.S. grand strategy in Asia, stretching back to the end of the Cold War. It is based on maintaining strong ties with traditional and new allies and partners such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and yes, Taiwan, while simultaneously helping encourage China’s economic growth and peaceful integration into the international system. In the past year this strategy has started to wobble, particularly with U.S.-Japan ties fraying, and other Asian powers such as India being uncertain of the Obama administration’s commitment.  This arms package to Taiwan is a needed reassurance to the region that the U.S. will not abandon its friends in Asia. (…)

The first year of the administration’s China policy was predicated on some assumptions that are now proving to be wrong, namely that conciliatory gestures by the U.S. would be reciprocated by China. This was not to be.

Leslie Gelb, by contrast, is worried about the consequences for US-Chinese cooperation on international issues:

The cage rattling won’t come close to blows, but it will unsettle and unnerve international affairs, and ignite a new and damaging testing of great power wills. Count on this tug of war to block mutual cooperation on stifling the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea and to further sour ongoing trade and investment disputes and charges of Chinese Internet censorship, and whatever else turns up. Most worrisome, it’s not at all clear that Chinese and American leaders have thought strategically about their next moves and how to keep the situation within bounds.

Haiti: Bill Clinton will be named international coordinator for relief efforts, Reuters reports.

Turkey’s view of a nuclear Iran. The Brookings’ Ömer Taşpınar writes:

Turkey, a historic rival of Shiite Persia, is clearly against a nuclear Iran. Yet, Ankara is less alarmed by such a prospect because it does not fully share the threat perception of Tel Aviv or Washington. Turkey is against destabilization and military conflict in the region. It clearly considers a US or Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities as potentially more destabilizing for the region than a nuclear Iran. To the dismay of American officials, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan often argues that Tehran’s nuclear program appears to be for civilian purposes and makes calls for a nuclear-free Middle East — a tacit criticism of Israel’s nuclear arms. (…)

Ankara has significant economic ties and energy contracts with Tehran. The total trade volume between the two countries is $10 billion and expected to double in the next three years — given Turkey’s growing need for natural gas and willingness to lessen its dependence on Russia. As a result, Turkey will resist Western efforts to tighten economic sanctions against Tehran. Ankara’s position will matter, not least because of its presence on the United Nations Security Council as a nonpermanent member until the end of next year.

“Obama disses Europe”: Gideon Rachman comments on Obama’s decision to skip the planned EU-US summit in Madrid in spring:

There is no doubt that the Spanish government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU (You thought it had been abolished? Fooled you!), will treat this as a bitter blow. The Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero was royally snubbed by George W. Bush and so it was really important to him to underline that he has a great relationship with the sainted Obama. (…)

The Spanish are not the only Europeans feeling snubbed by Obama. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, was enraged when – on a recent trip to Washington – Obama failed to schedule a lunch with him, and the Commission president was fobbed off with Joe Biden. Back in Brussels, Barroso was heard to rage – “Bush never treated us like this.” When the Europeans are getting nostalgic for George W. Bush, you know that their noses are seriously out of joint. (…)

It’s simply that the European Union is not very high up his list of priorities. The Europeans should take this as a perverse sort of compliment. Obama’s top foreign policy priorities include places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, China, Russia. The European Union, by contrast, is a nice quiet place that seems to be getting along fine. Why fly all the way to Madrid, just to eat some tapas and exchange some polite chit-chat. It’s a nice thing to do, if you have the time – but Obama has enough on his plate to be getting on with.

Read also the Wall Street Journal’s follow-up story (Leadership Confusion Accompanies Obama’s Decision to Skip Talks) and Honor Mahony’s commentary on her EU Observer blog: here.

Will the EU lift the arms embargo on China? “Not soon”, says the Economist’s Charlemagne: “What is going on, as usual, is that individual EU countries are attempted to suck up by positioning themselves publicly as calling for its lifting.” Catherine Ashton, he says, must assert her authority:

Come on Catherine Ashton, slap the Spanish down. Start with the unhelpful comments coming from Spain about lifting the EU arms embargo on China. As a member of the European Union, Spain is free (though wrong-headed) to think that lifting the embargo is a good way to suck up to China. As holder of the rotating presidency of the EU until July 1st, Spain also has every right to seek to influence the agenda on various policy areas, such as trade with China.

But when it comes to the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty makes it quite clear: it is time for countries that hold the rotating presidency to pipe down, and take a back seat. Meetings of foreign ministers are chaired by Baroness Ashton, as High Representative. Move up a level from ministers, and when it comes to CFSP decisions by heads of state and government, responsibility for announcing those to the outside world falls under the new permanent president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. This may sound arcane, but it is about something pretty simple: one of the big promises was that Lisbon would end the unhelpful cacophony of EU relations with big, important powers like China. Once the line from Europe stopped changing every six months with each new rotating presidency, the theory went, it would be easier for the union to “speak with one voice”, in the well-worn phrase.

Israel into the EU? AP reports:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Monday he hopes to bring Israel into the European Union, at the start of a three-day visit to the Jewish state. (…) Under Berlusconi’s leadership, Italy has become one of Israel’s strongest allies in Europe. Berlusconi’s efforts to strengthen ties with Israel followed decades of a pro-Arab tilt by previous Italian governments. (…) Speaking on arrival in Israel, Berlusconi told Netanyahu that “my greatest desire, as long as I am a protagonist in politics, is to bring Israel into membership of the European Union.”

Israel has close trade ties with the EU but is not pressing to join the bloc. The European Commission was unavailable for comment about Israel’s possible inclusion into union.

Mariann Fischer Boel calls EP “the paradise of lobbyists”. Talking to the New York Times, the outgoing agricultural commissioner is highly critical of the European Parliament:

She does not hide her relief that she did not have to deal so closely with European lawmakers. Under the Lisbon Treaty, which took effect in December, members of the European Parliament will have an equal voice with national governments in deciding the final shape of legislation. “I feel extremely privileged because I did not have to cope with the European Parliament,” she said. “I went there, I listened, I discussed. But there was no co-decision from the E.P. at that stage, and I think it would have been more difficult if there would have been.” Even without these new powers, she said, lawmakers have shown a tendency to speak up for special interests, noting how they tried to delay reforms to eliminate tobacco farming subsidies.

Quote of the day. Gideon Rachman reports from Davos:

At this year’s Davos, the western delegates seemed depressed, defensive or even mildly deranged in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. After listening to Mr Sarkozy’s passionate attack on financial capitalism, one Russian participant was overheard saying that he had found the experience pleasantly nostalgic. He remembered hearing many similar speeches in the Soviet Union.

From today’s EU agenda: At 15.00, Barbara Lochbihler, head of the Parliament’s EU-Iran delegation, will give a press conference on Iran. Watch it live here or here.

Read today on Global Europe: A seat at the table. Eastern Partnership: What role for civil society organizations? By Jacqueline Hale, Senior Policy Analyst (Caucasus and Central Asia) at the Open Society Institute in Brussels.

To receive the Global Europe Morning Brief every weekday by email, send an email to globeurope@gmail.com

It’s the economy. The Economist has good news from the US:

In the fourth quarter of last year American GDP grew by an impressive 5.7%, at an annual rate, the best quarterly performance since 2003.

Iran — after the deadline. A New York Times editorial calls for sanctions:

Iran has again proved to be a master at playing for time. Six months after a new diplomatic overture from Washington and its partners, Tehran has shown no interest in resolving the dispute over its nuclear program. It is time for President Obama and other leaders to ratchet up the pressure with tougher sanctions.

France is taking over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council today and is expected to push for a rapid move towards sanctions, according to the Washington Post.

And Hillary Clinton is trying to build support for sanctions. The New York Times reports:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned China on Friday that it would face economic insecurity and diplomatic isolation if it did not sign on to tough new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, seeking to raise the pressure on Beijing to fall in line with an American-led campaign. (…)

With Russia increasingly frustrated by Iran’s recalcitrance, China has emerged as perhaps the lone holdout to a new United Nations resolution that would focus sweeping financial and economic sanctions on Iran’s leadership, including a possible ban on sales of technology to its energy sector.

Mrs. Clinton — in a flurry of meetings this week in Europe, including one with the Chinese foreign minister — has tried to build momentum for new measures against Iran. Britain, France and Germany back the effort, and Russia, which has often blocked previous efforts, now seems ready to act.

Only China, which imports crude oil from Iran and has large investments in Iran’s oil and gas sector, has said it would prefer to continue negotiating with the Iranian government. With a veto in the United Nations Security Council, it could block a move to impose more sanctions.

But the US leverage against China seems to melt down: see a Washington Post analysis here and a New York Times analysis here.

Meanwhile China managed to remove the topic Google vs. China from the Davos agenda, the Washington Post notes.

EU debates arms embargo against China. The FT’s Tony Barber reports that Spain’s ambassador to China

said two weeks ago that Madrid intended to use its six-month spell in charge to “deepen discussions” on lifting the embargo. Lady Ashton has remained silent on the matter, but some officials made clear that the ambassador had spoken out of turn. In Brussels, EU officials expressed amazement that Carlos Blasco Villa, the Spanish ambassador to Beijing, had spoken about lifting the embargo in an interview with China Daily, a state-controlled newspaper. Serge Abou, the head of the EU’s delegation in Beijing, said Europe “gains nothing from making the debate public”. The ban is a divisive question inside the EU, with some countries, such as France and Spain, keen on lifting the embargo, and others, including the UK, opposed.

The issue goes to the heart of two of the most sensitive issues preoccupying the EU – whether Spain is using its presidency to speak out more than it should on foreign policy, and whether Lady Ashton is asserting herself sufficiently in her new job. However, a decision to lift the arms embargo would in the last resort require unanimity among the EU’s 27 governments – something they achieved last October, when they lifted an arms sales ban on Uzbekistan in spite of continuing concerns about human rights violations there.

Can Taliban fighters be bought off? No, says Newsweek’s Ron Moreau:

My Newsweek colleague Sami Yousafzai laughs at the notion that the Taliban can be bought or bribed. Few journalists, officials, or analysts know the Taliban the way he does. If the leadership, commanders, and subcommanders wanted comfortable lives, he says, they would have made their deals long ago. Instead they stayed committed to their cause even when they were on the run, with barely a hope of survival. Now they’re back in action across much of the south, east, and west, the provinces surrounding Kabul, and chunks of the north. They used to hope they might reach this point in 15 or 20 years. They’ve done it in eight. Many of them see this as proof that God is indeed on their side. The mujahedin warlords who regained power in the 2001 U.S. invasion have grown fabulously wealthy since then. The senior Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani could have done the same. Now he and his fellow Taliban are gunning for those opportunists.

The London conference has called into question the EU’s relevance as an actor in Afghanistan, Edward Burke (FRIDE) writes in New Europe:

Most EU member states continue to view their commitment to Afghanistan almost exclusively through a NATO prism. By contrast, they have severely neglected the EU’s Policing Mission in Afghanistan. In London Cathy Ashton looked and was treated very much as a fringe player.

Kabul observers downbeat on London conference, reports Eurasianet:

In Kabul, the London conference results generated little enthusiasm. Instead, analysts remained concerned that the country’s fragile democratization process was being undermined by the international community’s preoccupation with a questionable security plan. To some, Western leaders seem more concerned about setting a timetable for withdrawal, something that would resonate with domestic political constituents, than with establishing a realizable and sustainable development blueprint for Afghanistan. (…)

For many in Kabul, the most divisive issue discussed in London was the peace and reconciliation plan. Women’s groups and human rights activists offered the most vocal criticism of what they perceived as an attempt to forgive and forget the Taliban’s past behavior. (…)

Waliullah Rahmani, director of the Kabul Centre for Strategic Studies, suggested that the Afghan government’s security agenda could have ominous implications for civil society development in the country. Achieving “security by any means and at any cost” could result in the sacrifice of hard won civil rights attained at the cost of human lives, he said.

Rebuilding Haiti. Minimalist or maximalist approach? William Easterly speaking to the New York Times:

“I think the whole idea of the earthquake being an opportunity for foreigners to do more aggressive interventions is really problematic and objectionable,” he said in an interview, arguing for modest, homegrown plans. “We have tried basically everything in the book already in Haiti as far as grandiose plans, and those haven’t worked.”

Goodbye capitalism? According to David Ignatius, a new “Davos consensus” is emerging in the global political and business elite:

They take it as a given that the free market failed in the crash of 2008 and that the new system will be more regulated, more interventionist, more prudential than was the old. (…) Americans need to understand that the 2008 financial crisis proved a point that many Europeans and Asians have been arguing for decades: Economic “liberalism,” of the sort found in Britain and the United States, creates a dangerous overreliance on the market. During the boom years, their complaints seemed like just so much whining. Not anymore.

Obama will not attend EU-US summit, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Nabucco pipeline is stuck again. The reason: a dispute between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Katinka Barysch (CER) has the background.

Read today on Global Europe: Too many cooks. We need a little self-restraint from our national leaders, by Nick Witney, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) and former Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency in Brussels.

To receive the Global Europe Morning Brief every weekday by email, send an email to globeurope@gmail.com

A Deal with the Taliban? — By Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books

An Israeli attack on Iran? Don’t hold your breath — By Michael Young, The National

Israeli-Palestinian talks may resume, but what for? — By Yossi Alpher, Daily Star

An Asian Century? Not So Fast — By Guy Sorman, City Journal

China’s peaceful rise turns prickly — By Charles Grant, CER blog

Europe should dust off its founding fathers’ ideals. Q&A Stanley Crossick — Euractiv

Questions about U.S. global leadership. “Big year for foreign policy — but little mention in Obama’s State of the Union”, says Peter Feaver at Foreign Policy.  And the New York Times’ Roger Cohen writes : “To judge by the nine paltry minutes devoted to international affairs in a State of the Union address of more than one hour”, Obama is “weary of America policing the globe. When Israel-Palestine merits not a word from a president, you know the United States is turning inward.”

Robert Kagan comments:

On the subject of foreign policy, the speech is very disappointing. Obviously, the president wanted the focus to be domestic, so the foreign policy and defense section is the dullest boilerplate. No new initiatives. No change in rhetoric. Indeed, practically no rhetoric at all. It is almost as if the president was turning the nation inward and stepping away from international involvement. There is no mention of Europe (except as a place where trains run fast), which Europeans will notice. No mention of Japan. And only one use of the word “allies,” in the context of Afghanistan. The perception that the Obama administration is pulling away from our allies, which is becoming widespread, will be strengthened by this speech.

As to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the speech is about withdrawal, not commitment. As for Iran, there is no mention of the Iranian opposition, the illegitimate Iranian elections, and only the briefest of references to human rights in Iran. Perhaps the world will understand that Obama felt he had to focus on the domestic issues. But it will be hard to avoid the perception that Obama, having little to show for his foreign policy efforts in the first year, has decided to downplay foreign policy. This is worrying.

Leslie Gelb seems to be less worried:

The foreign-policy portion of President Obama’s State of the Union address was among the shortest, if not the shortest, in the annual speech since the start of World War II. But it was laced with tantalizing statements about portentous decisions and policies in the offing. Mr. Obama most certainly didn’t intend to downgrade national security. Rather, he didn’t want international issues to divert from his main message: the economy and jobs. (…)

As with most things Obama, everyone will have to wait and see what he really means, whether he will mean the same thing three months from now, and whether he will not only fight, but fight effectively to get what he’s promised done.

Obama’s speech is also at the center of debates at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Gideon Rachman summarizes the debates (which you can watch live here):

The big political debates at the World Economic Forum are being shaped by two events that are taking place well away from the ski-slopes of Davos: Barack Obama’s efforts to re-launch his presidency in Washington and the conference on Afghanistan that is under way in London. Both events raise the same fundamental questions. Is the US now too weakened and introverted to exercise effective global leadership? And if the US cannot lead, what other combination of powers can sort out the most difficult global problems?

A year ago at Davos the election of Mr Obama was widely hailed as the one big ray of hope in a dark period in international affairs. Twelve months on, things look different. The world has avoided a new Great Depression and the mood among delegates from some of the big emerging economies – in particular China, India and Brazil – is confident, even ebullient.

But Mr Obama is a much-diminished figure. While he still gets high marks from the Davos crowd for intelligence and charisma, the president has struggled to make progress on any of the international issues that he identified as priorities – Iran, the Middle East, Afghanistan, the climate talks at Copenhagen or economic relations with China. The loss of the Democrats’ super-majority in the Senate and the fact that the president’s healthcare package is in deep trouble have further damaged Mr Obama’s image as an effective leader.

In EU circles the debate about Ashton and the EU’s “visibility” in Haiti continues. Ashton gave an interview to the Figaro to justify her reaction to the disaster in Haiti. Honor Mahony defends Ashton on her EU Observer blog. And the Commission feels obliged to react. A spokeswoman told the EU Observer that it is “a complete misunderstanding” to think the EU is trying to compete with the US on image amid the relief effort”:

“It would be wholly tasteless to enter into a beauty contest in such a situation. The first priority is that aid reaches the right people at the right time,” she said. “But it’s obvious that visibility is part of being effective. It’s important for the recipients of the aid to know who they are dealing with and for the European tax payer, the donors of the aid, to see the actions on the ground, in terms of their future engagement,” she added.

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Afghanistan conference in London. “Reintegration” and “Reconciliation” are at the center of a plan to be unveiled today in London by the Afghan government, the New York Times reports.

The CFR’s Stephen Biddle explains the new magic formula for Afghanistan:

“Reintegration” is the process of weaning low-level Taliban fighters and relatively junior faction leaders to switch sides and come in out of the cold. “Reconciliation” is the more political process of negotiating with high-level leaders on the Taliban side, many of whom are based in Pakistan. Both of those are getting a lot of attention in theater, and a lot of effort is put in to evaluating their prospects and to make them as practical as possible.

Biddle’s view of the role of Karsai:

He’s been weakened by it in some ways, and he’s been strengthened by it in others. He is now unambiguously the president of Afghanistan. Before the election, you could entertain some possibility he might be replaced. But certainly for the foreseeable future he is going to be the guy. His standing in the West is dramatically weaker as a result of the corruption of the election process. Whether that has made him a stronger or weaker political actor in Afghanistan, whether it’s made him more or less able to resist pressure from the United States to get him to clean up his government, we’re just going to have to see.

There are many who believe that Karzai’s leverage against us is up now that the prospects of his removal from office are negligible. There are others who believe that the tarnishing of his reputation that came along with the corruption opens him to potential pressure from us. Either way, if we are going to get the governmental change we need in Afghanistan, it is going to require, among other things, a conscious decision by Hamid Karzai to support it and to implement reforms. If we cannot persuade him to do that, we are not going to succeed.

Realistic goals for Afghanistan. The ECFR’s Daniel Korski writes in Esharp:

Everyone hoped the shock therapy of invasion would help moderates entrench a new way of life in Afghanistan, which would be more democratic, more humane and less likely to harbour international terrorists. But after almost a decade of trying, this internationally sponsored project must be called to a halt – it cannot be done, at least not in the next 50 years. The most likely scenario if matters continue, even after President Obama’s surge, is a precipitous withdrawal of international forces and the return of a revanchist Taliban and their al Qaeda backers.

Far better, therefore, to focus on making the country reasonably stable, even if this means that parts of it will be run in ways and by people who NATO has – until recently – fought. Far better to look at new ways of running the state, for example by decentralising power to a semi-autonomous southern region. Far better to cancel programmes that are culturally alien to Afghans and in so doing make it clear that the world does not wish to “westernise” the country, but make it stable.

A progressive, rights-respecting democracy is in the West’s interest – and should be a long-term goal. But a stable, quasi-democracy, which, like Saudi Arabia, practices the Sharia law, and like Iraq shares power with former combatants, is far better than an internationally created polity which by its nature provokes resistance and precipitates its own downfall.

As former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has argued, the Taliban do not threaten the West. But the dreamy, under-resourced and therefore unrealistic visions that many in the international community still harbour, do undermine our ability to achieve the West’s strategic aims.

In a similar vein, Fabrice Poithier, head of Carnegie’s Brussels office, writes in Foreign Policy:

It is time for the international community to address the only issue that really matters for peace in Afghanistan: how to make the Taliban part of a lasting solution.

Germany still has no strategic view on Afghanistan, says Gerhard Spoerl in Spiegel:

German soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan for more than eight years. Not once, however, has a German general come up with a strategy proposal that was deemed worthy of debate by the cabinet. Berlin doesn’t even have a body charged with developing political and military strategies. Instead, Germany just waits for the Americans to act before falling into line. It’s a rather weak legacy for a mid-sized power like Germany.

Read also a BBC report about Germany’s uneasiness over the Afghanistan mission.

Germany becomes focus of Iranian official ire, the New York Times reports. Unlike Afghanistan, Iran is a clear priority for Merkel. Now Tehran reacts to Berlin’s harder line:

Iranian officials continued to cast blame for the nation’s recent political crisis on foreign interference on Wednesday, focusing their ire for the first time on Germany, one of the country’s closest trading partners, with an accusation that its diplomats and intelligence agents helped organize protests at the end of December.

The accusations followed stronger statements against Iran’s nuclear program by German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, who raised the scpecter of new international sanctions against Iran, and an announcement on Tuesday by the Munich-based engineering giant Siemens that it would seek no new business there.

Attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities off the table? Carnegie’s Henri Barkey and Uri Dadush write in the National Interest:

As the White House and its allies weigh new policy options, Washington is still running with the old line that “all options are on the table.” Not really. Amid a global recession and double-digit unemployment, bombing Iran’s nuclear installations is out of the question. Any attack on Iran would drive oil prices up dramatically from already high levels, and risk sending the fragile global economy back into financial crisis.

Off-topic: In a Times column Ben Macintyre reflects on how the internet is changing the way we’re thinking: “In internet-driven thought, the premium is not on what you know, but what you can discover.”

Debate on EU’s response to Haiti disaster continues. In a Times opinion piece, Agnès Poirier claims that “Britain’s High Representative is letting Europe down badly”. Poirier is repeating the charges brought up against Ashton in the last days:

Jean Quatremer, a French journalist and one of the keenest observers of the European Commission for 20 years, has been distilling details of Baroness Ashton of Upholland’s routine in Brussels. It would seem that the Labour peer spends more time on the Eurostar commuting home to London than in her office, where nobody answers the phone after 8pm. Too bad when the caller is Hillary Clinton saying that she’s on her way to Haiti. Was Catherine en route? No. On Friday January 15, she had cancelled all appointments to go home earlier. José Manuel Barroso had to send Karel De Gucht, the Development Commissioner.

A few days later, Lady Ashton tried to defend herself. Her arguments fell decidedly flat: “I’m neither a doctor nor a fireman.” Indeed, but surely she must know that diplomacy at this level implies symbolic gestures and fast action. The EU has committed four times more in aid to Haiti than the US, so it would have been logical, if not crucial for Europe’s image that its Foreign Affairs Minister stood alongside the Secretary of State. In the European Parliament, a French MEP harangued Lady Ashton: “You shouldn’t be here but in Haiti.”

But in an op-ed for the European Voice, Mark Rhinard and Arjen Boin say that “these criticisms are premature and off the mark”:

The international relief effort may not have been up to expectations, but that is not because the EU failed to ‘show up’. The combination of a major disaster and an already dysfunctional state makes aid delivery near-impossible. The US discovered this the hard way, when it tried to co-ordinate efforts. Arguments that the EU should have been first on the scene in a faraway region suggest delusions of grandeur.

In fact, the European response was far from shabby. Governments sent personnel and equipment within hours. The EU itself assembled a team of civil protection experts, released money immediately and promised €400 million for short-term reconstruction. It has since despatched 300 gendarmes. Haiti will need millions more in aid and years of attention – and, as the world’s largest donor, the EU has the money and political will to provide both.

The EU’s response was better than in the past, in part because, in response to the 2004 Asian tsunami, member states granted the EU somewhat greater operational and co-ordinating capabilities. Looking ahead, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s decision to move the Commission’s civil protection responsibilities to a revamped ‘international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response’ portfolio may bring greater coherence to responses to external disasters.

Read today on Global Europe: A good performance in Haiti. But the EU’s capacity to respond to disasters must be improved. By Roberto Gualtieri, Member of European Parliament for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D).