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.
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