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Iraq cracked the CFSP- can the pieces be put back together?
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by
Dan Daniel Tomozeiu:
Political Sciences student
29/04/2003 |
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The
second war in Iraq has been over for a few weeks now. Iraq
is still in a state of chaos and the promised democratic rulers
are not installed yet. There is no democracy in Baghdad and
there is no democracy in the region. No mass destruction weapons
have been found either, so it looks like the second war on
Iraq had no justification. Still I can not forget the happiness
of the Iraqi people when they saw themselves free at last,
free from one of the most terrible dictators ever. So who
won? The Americans- maybe; the Iraqis- not yet; the EU- definitely
not.
It
feels strange talking about the EU winning or loosing a war
that they didn't really fight. Still this war had a huge impact
on the EU as a whole and different member states in particular.
The first clear conclusion that can be drawn from the whole
situation is, and we heard it many times in the past few months,
that there is no real CFSP at EU level. After the whole fiasco
has passed, when looking back on the situation we can say
it for sure that a "common" foreign policy is just
another great EU plan, that until now has nothing in common
with reality. With its five big country split right down the
middle: France and Germany on one side, the UK and Spain on
the other and Italy more in the shadow (generally for the
war but not making it clear due to internal and external reasons)
the EU realizes that a "common" policy is something
only for the small states, and not for the big ones.
A
second conclusion that appears very clearly from the whole
situation is that the US is the only real world power at this
point. The US has proved, one more time if it was necessary,
that they can do what they want, when they want and that there
is nothing any country can do to stop them. The US showed
the world that they have the 3 Ms (Money, Mind and Muscles)
necessary in order to run the world. The fact that they went
ahead with the war, just as planned and now they can afford
to go after the ones that opposed it (please, read France)
and punish them simply shows that their power is unparalleled.
On
the other side of the Atlantic the answer to the strong US
position was as weak as weak could be. Here I am referring
to the answer of the leaders and not that of the population.
The population went on the streets, put up the peace flags,
sent letters; in a word it did its part but the leaders put
on a childish game that showed clear that the EU is not even
by far a match for the US power and cohesion. Mr. Blair and
Mr. Aznar pulled their teeth together and stayed on the side
of the winner, it might not have been the best decision but
it was the "healthiest" one. Mr. Schreuder was caught
in his little electoral campaign game and didn't know how
to get out of it, found himself on the side of Mr. Chirac
but constantly thinking of the "special" US-German
relation. Mr. Chirac "the champion" of the anti-war
front ended being the worse off from all of them. Deserted
by a big part of the EU countries, seeing that he has no chance
of standing against the US power found it right to start "shouting"
at the Eastern European countries.
The
Eastern European former communist countries, many of them
new EU members starting next year, found themselves without
many choices. Taking into account their obsession with security
they had to get on the side of the most powerful, in this
case the US. Since the anti-war block seemed to have no matching
power against the pro-war coalition, the only logical solution
left for these countries was to get on the side of the stronger.
Mr. Chirac threats did not help for sure; on the contrary,
they made the so-called "common" foreign and security
policy even a more remote possibility in an enlarged EU.
The
Cold War ended about ten years ago but many people still use
a Cold War framework when thinking about world politics. In
this framework the Franco-German-Russian summit in Sank Petersburg
didn't do much good to the CFSP. Seeing that they lost in
their competition against the US, France and Germany started
looking for allies somewhere else, and the closest one was…Russia.
Well, Russia is a changed country that has come a long way
in the past 10 years and could prove a strategic EU ally in
the long run. Still for the moment any common defense partnership
with Russia would mean the end of CFSP. For some of the new
members in Eastern Europe, and especially for the Baltic countries,
the possibility of a military cooperation with Russia is as
remote as remote can be.
The
crisis over Iraq has pointed out the weakness of the EU in
general and of the CFSP in particular. It has proved that
a "common" foreign policy is almost inexistent at
this point. The cries also showed that what the US wants,
the US is going to get, and that a fragmented EU is under
no circumstances going to stop it. The US has a lot of allies
in Europe right now. Except for the UK, Spain and probably
Italy they can count also on all the countries in the east,
plus some other "traditional allies" such as the
Netherlands, which hasn't said or done much in the present
crisis. The new getting together of France, Germany and Russia
will push the US to focus more on Eastern Europe and the new
EU members. After all these countries have a great economic
potential in the coming years and they are a safe target for
US investment.
Regarding
the "old allies" the relations with the US depend
in big part on the UK. If the UK will participate more actively
in the CFSP then the US will feel confident enough to consider
the EU on their side. If the UK will keep it's distance like
until now and France and Germany will go ahead with their
common army plans together with Belgium, Luxemburg and whoever
else wants to join in, then the concept of "coalition
of the willing" will become the standard one. In this
case the US will simply try each time to get as many countries
on their side as possible and mind their own business.
Still
there is hope for the CFSP and this hope is given exactly
by the enlargement. If the enlarged EU will be a democratic
and integrated entity, without any back-door arrangements
and personal vendettas like it has been until now, then the
new member states might actually start trusting the CFSP and
the EU for their security. In this case the CFSP would actually
start functioning, be more balanced and would be in more harmony
with the other international players' policies, including
the US.
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TIES
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