Global Europe

The world reacted to the EU’s post-Lisbon foreign policy appointments with incredulity and dismay. Irrespective of the personal qualities or political competence of the appointees, the signal seemed clear: “do not expect the EU to start behaving like a power”. Many deplore the spinelessness (or cynicism) of this message; others see it simply as a reflection of EU reality. Ms Ashton now faces four major challenges. Her legacy will depend entirely on how she succeeds in meeting them.

Institutionally (and this is where and how she came in), she must demonstrate a serious capacity to bridge the two sides of the rue de la Loi. The intention of having one foot in the Council and the other in the Commission is twofold.  The first is to coordinate the main thrusts of EU foreign and security policy: trade, aid and crisis management. The second is to minimize turf battles and instill a culture of cooperation. If she can achieve this (or even some serious measure of it) she will have warranted her appointment.  

At the same time, she must preside over the creation of a functional and smooth-running External Action Service. Persuading the member states to commit to this service both high-quality personnel and politico-diplomatic seriousness of purpose will require deft handling of existing foreign policy empires. Success would constitute a great leap forward for the EU.

The third task will be gently to nudge the EU into a position affording it some leverage over the major policy challenges of the next five years: Middle East, South Asia, Russia, Africa, climate, development, proliferation. With imagination and energy, this is achievable. Although member states like to insist that their interests are divergent, the reality is otherwise. A smart foreign policy chief will succeed in making that underlying convergence of interests clear – even in the most struthious of capitals.  To cross that hurdle would be to revolutionize CFSP.

Finally, and most importantly, Ms Ashton must begin to develop strategic vision. The world of 2020 will be a rough and tumble multi-polar system dominated by five or six serious chess players. An EU still working a reactive ping-pong bat will be doomed to marginality.  Strategic vision must address the single most important question facing a world undergoing power transition: how to engineer a peaceful passage towards a new world order. This will require, between the declining powers and the rising powers, a series of mutually acceptable concessions leading to a universally amenable global order, an order cognizant at the same time of the interests of “non-powers”. In short a “global grand bargain”.

To achieve such an outcome, the EU needs crystal clarity about both its values and its interests and above all about the way in which these can be made to mesh with different values and competing interests in a multi-civilizational, multi-polar world. If Ms Ashton can help generate such clarity, she will go down in history.