Analyse Clingendael: zal de EU eindigen als een parodie of als een grootmacht? (en)

Anand Menon is Professor of West European Politics at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on European Politics, EU foreign and security policies, NATO, and the foreign and security policies of Britain and France.

DEN HAAG  - The solution to Europe's foreign policy problems lie not in Brussels, but in the member states themselves, says Anand Menon. National governments lack the political courage and will to go beyond 'pooling and sharing' and work towards a true EU foreign policy.

So here we go again. A prominent group of European foreign ministers, marshaled by their German counterpart, have put their collective signatures to a set of reflections on the Future of Europe. Aside from the - eminently sensible - focus on Eurozone governance, the document also advances proposals for strengthening the Union's foreign and security policies, that , it must be said, will almost certainly never be adopted. Yet the proposals, nonetheless threaten to further undermine Europe's international clout.

Ideas advanced by the group include giving the European External Action Service (EEAS) more power over neighbourhood and development policy, and setting more ambitious goals than 'pooling and sharing' for the Common Security and Defence Policy. In the longer term, the group calls for the development of a European Defence Policy, and potentially even a European army, more provision for majority voting on foreign policy issues, and joint representation in international organizations.

Extending the remit of the EEAS to include the neighbourhood and development makes eminent sense, though it will hardly spawn a qualitative leap in foreign policy effectiveness. Moreover, one is moved to wonder why foreign ministers did not make more of a fuss when Commission President Barroso abrogated control over these areas  to the Commission during the formative months of the EEAS.

As for the other proposals, it is hard to see any of them gaining much traction. Why go beyond 'pooling and sharing' when most member states have proven unable even to reach this objective? How many member states would really agree to give up a veto on foreign policy? At what point do we really expect the UK and France to trade their UNSC seats for an EU one?

The various Ministers, moreover, were not speaking on behalf of their governments. Indeed, several of them, including the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not support all the recommendations in the report (who disagreed with what, of course, remains unknown). There is plenty of wiggle room, then, for those who want to claim credit for their Europe vision, whilst not taking responsibility for ideas that are politically problematic at home. No member state, moreover, is bound by the contents of the report. It is hard to imagine a more egregious example of cheap talk.

Cheap, but also damaging. Leaving aside the impracticality of the proposals themselves, they nevertheless serve a purpose. The more national governments propose EU institutional solutions to the problem of their declining international influence, the more they reinforce the fiction that it is in Brussels that the root of this problem resides.

And fiction it is. The solution to Europe's foreign policy problems lie, not in Brussels, but in the member states themselves. If the German Foreign Minister wants a European Army, he might consider allowing the EU to deploy troops every now and again. If the French foreign minister favours European defence, perhaps he could back away from his insistence that the French government retains a controlling stake in major defence contractors. The Belgians and the Dutch, for their part, might start taking military capabilities more seriously if they really want to help create a more effective Europe.

Yet such painful choices would require political courage and a determination to take on powerful vested interests. How much easier simply to place the blame elsewhere. Here, the European Union really comes into its own as a particularly defenseless target. Dependent on member states for the resources necessary to implement even a modest foreign policy, senior EU officials are hardly in a position to rebut the suggestion that EU institutional reform will enhance the Union's effectiveness.

It is also too easy for national governments to talk a good game in Brussels when it comes to the EU's foreign policy ambitions, whilst doing nothing to help bring these about once home. The EU must be seen as more than simply a useful scapegoat for their own shortcomings.

There are, doubtless, those in other parts of the world who might welcome a Europe so obsessed with institutional tinkering and blame avoidance that it is unable to act effectively. For Europeans, however, this inability should be a cause for serious concern. The anger is that the Union ends up a parody rather than a power.