"We have a democratic calling"

Catherine Ashton, the High Representative, has just spoken to the European Parliament in Brussels on Tunisia and Egypt.

On Tunisia, Ashton was able to describe what action is being taken. She will submit a proposal to the Foreign Affairs Council on restrictive measures to freeze the assets of Tunisian figures suspected of embezzling public Tunisian funds. A EU mission to support the legal framework of elections in Tunisia has been sent, and Ashton will visit Tunisia in two weeks. Ashton also pointed out to parliamentarians that the newly appointed Tunisian Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Brussels as his first official visit, and spoke with her.

Regarding Egypt, Ashton had some praise for the demonstrations, saying that "the great strength of this movement is that it is happening across Egypt", and called for peaceful protesters who had been arrested to be released, and the restrictions on online media to be ended. Recently violence has broken out, with at least 500 people injured in the violence according to Euronews (which has taken to showing a continuous stream of fighting on Egyptian streets), and it seems that the clashes are caused by the police and pro-Mubarak demonstrators trying to dislodge the anti-government protestors, with the army standing aside, as if waiting to see which side will be more determined. Ashton called for calm on all sides, and described the EU as willing to help with reform and change in the region, saying, "we are a Union of democracies, we have a democratic calling".

Guy Verhofstadt described the only proper European response to the Egyptian crisis to be the Turkish one, which called for Mubarak to listen to the demands of the people, and demanded that Ashton state that the EU is fully behind the Egyptian people and their demands. I agree that that is the correct, principled, stance that we can take, though I understand that Ashton - indeed, any High Representative - isn't in the position to make strong statements off her own bat. I also have some sympathy for the High Representative: these situations are hard to react to, particularly when you have to co-ordinate 27 different foreign policies. However, there is clearly a popular movement in Egypt, and we should be consistent in our calls for democracy and human rights. Ashton's weakness here is probably her inexperience - I do not know what her personal reaction to the situation is, and I feel that she probably recognises what the circumstances in Egypt mean, but any High Representative has to have a clear vision and strategy, backed up with facts and strong arguments when faced with such a rapidly changing situation. This inexperience probably means that any response she wants to formulate is done relatively slowly, and she is unable to deal with national policy variations well enough to co-ordinate quickly.

There was a lot of talk by MEPs about how the EU should take a stand and acted together, which I agree with, but we need to recognise that we can only have a limited impact on events within other countries undergoing popular protests at the best of times. The Iraq invasion has discredited the idea of intervening, and any action we take has to be principled, but always allowing for the change to be a domestic affair. If we say we shouldn't intervene in other countries to change their regimes, then we have to accept that that means that we have to deal with other countries as we find them, and that international politics are complicated by more competition from powers that aren't that interested in democracy (though obviously our own record on this internationally isn't the cleanest).

Firm, principled political stances, and being able to offer assistance to ensure peaceful and stable reform (it is hard to foster democracy in a revolutionary atmosphere, given that compromise and trust is at the heart of the democratic system), are probably the limit of what we could do, but they are important nonetheless in encouraging a peaceful transfer of power. In the future it may be wise to have a plan in the European External Action Service that mandates the high Representative to deal with similar principled and supportive way, with the speed and coherence that are required.

The Role of the High Representative and the EU's CFSP

Dan Smith has written a very interesting and well thought-out post on the state of the External Action Service (EAS) and its potential as well as what aims it should have. The Institute of International and European Affairs had a guest lecture on the topic back at the start of March 2010 on the role of the HR and the President of the European Council. I've embedded the video below.

And the Special Representative for Bosnia is...

Ashton may reshuffle the deck of EU Special Representatives now that the Commission delegations are being upgraded to embassies around the world. This is entirely rational and a good move, even if it does mean, as ever, another round of backstage member state maneovering on who gets what post. In the end, it won't make sense to have SRs when the EEAS (European External Action Service) is in place and can do the job just as well. Having SRs for regions and attached to international and supranational organisations (African Union, Balkans, etc) is a good idea, since it would permit an overall approach to regions and promote good contacts and deep relationships between the EU and other regional organisations.

But one point of caution. Paddy Ashdown is being talked about as a possible SR for the Balkans. There is some opposition to his possible appointment on the basis that there shouldn't be too many UK nationals at the top in the EEAS, but there's no denying that he has experience in the region, as he has served as the High Representative for the international community in Bosnia - a very powerful and sensitive role that is key to the state building and reconciliation in the country. But this post is still just as important to the peace process in Bosnia today, and stripping Inzko (the current HR/EUSR) of his EUSR status wouldn't be a good signal to the country when it faces elections this year.

Bosnia still has a long way to go on the path to becoming a country at peace with itself, and it will not help for the EU to take, or appear to take, a more "hands off" approach. This is Europe's back yard, and we have a duty to be fully engaged in the process. I don't think that a SR for the whole Western Balkans would be enough: the HR in BiH needs to be a link between Bosnia, the international community and the EU to work as effectively as possible, and Bosnia needs to have a solid and stable link to the rest of Europe.

Obama doesn't love us anymore...

Obama won't be attending the upcoming EU-US summit in Madrid. Do you feel abandoned? Alone? Unloved?

Despite the talk this will generate, there's not really that much to say. Obama is a smart man, and if there's a point to attending, he will attend. We might wring our hands over the loss in status and perceived snubs, but at the end of the day if the EU doesn't prove itself to be a valid global actor, then it won't attract a global guest list to its summits. That the summit is in Madrid doesn't really matter (as Julien Frisch highlights), but it does indicate why Obama won't bother coming: the central institutions are loosing out to the member states.

The Economist has a very good article on the need for Ashton to assert herself against a Spanish rotating presidency meddling in EU foreign policy. If Ashton can't even slap down member states for floating policy ideas as policy fact, then what does that say for the credibility of the Lisbon institutions? Would you dial a number if the person at the end of the line is too afraid to speak?

In short, there's no point wringing our hands over this latest loss in prestige. We need to get to grips with where we want to go with our foreign policy (and on who will do what both in foreign policy and domestically), and how we're going to get there. Then others will be willing to talk to us about it.

Update on the EU's "Visibility"

The Times has now started bashing Ashton for her failure to fly the European flag in devastated Port-au-Prince. It's strange to see a newspaper such as the Times - one generally sceptical towards all things European and which seems to doubt the usefulness of European initiatives - effectively supporting a vanity trip for the EU. While it is good to fly the flag, it's vastly more important to get things done, which in Ashton's case means organising good co-ordination.

Despite the attacks on Ashton's style, I have to say that I haven't heard/read a similar attack on her co-ordination efforts. There's probably more that can be done in this area, but if Ashton's opposition can't back up their criticism with evidence - or even claims - of effective policy failure, then it's just hot air.

Watching Ashton briefing the EP on Haiti, I was struck by how the government-opposition roles were reversed. The EPP is normally in government mode (it is, after all, the largest party, and controls the Commission - perhaps even forcing Barroso to lending more public backing to Jeleva then he wanted to). Yet here the S&D group was playing the role of the governing party: Michael Cashman gave a particularly vocal defence of Ashton while strongly attacking other parties (translation: EPP) for "political point scoring".

Which raises the question: was lobbying for such a high profile post politically wise?

The EPP is very much in power at the moment; it's the strongest in the EP and controls the Council and Commission. But while the S&D group has largely started to play a more natural (if sometimes grandstanding) opposition role, Ashton's prominence makes it harder to claim that they have nothing to do with the current Commission. On one hand, the S&D are making the best of an awkward hand - the state-centredness of the Commission means that unless the centre-left aren't in power in any member state, they will have at least one Commissioner. Nevertheless the S&D have strongly looked for some governmental power, and it's not completely free to play the constructive oppositional politics it needs to if it wants to have any hope of making an impact.

What MEPs want.

Ashton may not have gone to Haiti, but the High Representative has met with Secretary of State Clinton (Link. Via David Garrahy).

This is foreign policy as the MEPs want to see it: glamorous, high profile, with the US praising the EU and talking up its role in the world. And Clinton did praise - the Lisbon Treaty was described as a historic event in world history. A wide range of topics was also discussed, such as Afghanistan and Iran, though the EU has little say in these areas. Nevertheless, no doubt the sight of Ashton and Clinton talking tough on Iran was a dream come true for MEPs, and it might leave them satisfied with theatrics abroad for the time being.

The question remaining from this and Ashton's meeting is what role will Ashton play with regard to Iran? Will she try to be proactive in shaping a common policy, or is Iran just an easy target for tough speeches these days?

Haiti: does it matter that Ashton isn't "on the ground"?

Haiti, the EUobserver reported, is showing how Ashton will conduct foreign policy:

" Ms Ashton's office already leapt into action on Wednesday (13 January) as news emerged of the scale of what looks like the worst natural disaster since the Asian tsunami in 2004.

Ms Ashton chaired a meeting in Brussels of European Commission officials from the foreign relations, development and environment departments as well as experts from the EU Council and the Situation Centre, the EU member states' intelligence-gathering hub.

The meeting agreed to trigger €3 million in emergency aid, signed off by development commissioner Karel de Gucht, and to look into further financial assistance, such as advance payments from the commission's €28 million annual development budget for Haiti.

It also decided to send officials from the commission's environment department to the earthquake zone to assess damage and to task an environment department unit to co-ordinate pledges from Belgium, Sweden, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Norway, Iceland and Luxembourg to send personnel and equipment."

But what got the most attention was Ashton's "failure" to visit Haiti personally. Her reason? That it was already hard enough for aid to get through without her travelling to the disaster zone. Did this satisfy MEPs? Of course not:

"The head of the centre-right group in the European Parliament, Joseph Daul, said that the fact that Mrs Ashton was not present while her US counterpart Hillary Clinton travelled to the Caribbean island over the weekend was "regrettable." Just about everybody was in Haiti at the moment when these people are suffering, and Europe was not present," he said. "If it would have been in our hands, we would have sent someone."

To date, MEPs on the right have held their fire on Ms Ashton, who has the extra backing of the 27 EU countries, which unanimously appointed her to be the union's high representative for foreign affairs. The member states' deal was a careful compromise between left and right which saw the post of President of the European Council, the EU's other main external actor, given to a centre-right politician.

His attack on Mrs Ashton was later backed up by the leader of the Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

"I am very sceptical about Lady Ashton," said the French politician. "Her performance vis-a-vis the situation in Haiti has been insufficient and I think that what Mr Daul said in his communication today was not wrong."

Mrs Ashton's job means that she is supposed to be the public face of the EU in the case of an international crisis and to oversee the bloc's response. On Monday, the EU pledged over €400 million in aid to Haiti."

It's hard to see any practical difference that an Ashton-visit would have made. There is a pan-EP obsession with political symbols, to the extent that they seem to value symbolic tours of disaster zones rather than focus on any practical benefits in aid co-ordination. The inferiority complex with the US, and comparisons with Clinton have to stop: Ashton works in a different institutional environment, and it makes far more sense at this stage to focus on small, practical policy steps that provide actual benefits than wasting energy on political symbolism. Last week MEPs wanted to see a foreign minister, not an ambassador for 27 foreign ministers - well, what separates the two is that the former tries to coax the levers of power into action, while the other just represents on the spot.

MEPs should focus on policy, not PR.

Ashton: foreign policy will be conducted "as appropriate".

Baroness Ashton's hearing was probably the most watched one, even though it was widely predicted that she would pass through easily, due to the cross-party and cross-member state deal on her candidature. But the lure of hearing what the views of someone entering the foreign policy arena for the first time, and of hoping to see some indications of how she would attempt to shape EU foreign policy drew an audience.

So how did she do?

To some people, she was a disappointment - there was no strong commitments or statements on policy in any single area. At most, the western Balkans - and Bosnia and Herzgovina in particular - where indicated as a priority, while every other foreign policy issue was, the MEPs were assured, of great importance and would be considered carefully. On one hand, it was a frustrating hearing - these are easy and natural things to say, and they hardly tell us anything that we couldn't already tell from a glance at the EU's interests in its own region. But then again, it's hard to know what we should expect from a foreign policy hearing. An incoming foreign minister (or high representative) doesn't want to annoy possible partners and allies, and you don't want to go around talking about strategies openly. The HR position also has the problem that a unanimous coalition has to be built up at home (or at least a position that nobody wants to veto) before the HR can set about implementing a policy.

Still, the liberal use of the phrase "as appropriate" in her answers means that already vague replies were rendered almost meaningless. The most interesting single statement was a strong-sounding statement against Iran building nuclear weapons, and in favour of non-proliferation regimes.

MEPs didn't exactly preform well: they may have been going easy on her to protect the deal over her candidature, but more searching and specific questions could have been asked to get a better feel of her personal attitudes, which would no doubt shape her tenure. MEPs had a strange obsession with getting the right to hold hearing and vet the appointment of senior EU ambassadors - which Ashton repeatedly, and sensibly, refused.

Towards the end the Green MEP Ulrike Lunacek made a good point - we want to know what Ashton is like, we don’t want an ambassador for 27 foreign ministers. While it's impossible to leave the 27 foreign ministers out of any equation, I don't think we got any deeper into what kind of HR Ashton will be, than the image of the "quiet diplomat" that she has been promoting over the last few weeks.

Indeed, the most important foreign policy statement we may have heard from the hearings could have come from the hearing of the Energy Commissioner-designate, Oettinger. Apparently, he wants the EU to deal with energy deals - ending bilateral treaties between member states and third parties. If the EU were to sign energy treaties collectively, then the EU's market size would come to bear, and it would upset Russia's "divide and rule" strategy when it comes to gas.

Two Presidencies, Two Presidential Websites

The dawning of 2010 brings with it the beginning of two parallel Council presidencies: a rotating, currently Spanish, one in the normal Council (apart from foreign affairs), and one in the European Council, in the shape of Van Rompuy. Though Van Rompuy has been in office for a month now, the last European Council summit was run by the Swedes who held the last rotating European Council presidency.

So with two presidencies (well, two Council presidencies), there's two presidential websites:

The Spanish presidency.
Van Rompuy's presidency.

As uninspiring as the Spanish one is, it's clear that there's more money behind it than Van Rompuy's... remember when the President was supposed to be an ueber-powerful figure who could shoot directives from his eyes? Can't even find a good website designer, apparently.

Though not much has happened yet with the Spanish presidency, there are two interesting signals: the intention to set up a council with Van Rompuy to smooth out how to operate the two presidencies harmoniously, and the ambition to see a Palestinian state in 2010.

While the first seems to show that Spain doesn't wish to undermine the new permanent presidency and will willingly accept the Lisbon reforms in practice, the second could weaken Baroness Ashton's position as the High Representative politically. The HR organises the Foreign Affairs council (as it's called, but it might be easier to think of is as a committee) of the Council and sets the agenda there, so I doubt that the HR's position could be irreparably weakened by the rotating presidency, but it could be politically weakened. After all, the HR depends on the member states to agree with her to get anything done, so any loss of political initiative could be hard to win back, even if the position is one of consensus-builder.

How will Van Rompuy and Spain hammer out their respective political roles, and how will Ashton take on the political challenges raised by the Spanish Presidency? Ashton has stressed the consensus-builder role of the HR; can she skillfully present such ambitious goals as a Palestinian state in 2010, or take on the task of solidifying a common approach in the EU? And how far could she take control or ownership of foreign policy projects, or will she be buffeted about by the changing winds of the rotating presidency?

Could an unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence be Ashton's first test? The foreign policy field seems almost crowded at the moment with possible "first tests".

Chasing Brussels #8: Van Rompuy, Ashton and Gender Politics

Episode #7 is out now, and this time we're discussing the new appointments from Thursday and gender politics and the campaign for a Gender Balanced Commission (with a certain amount of devil's advocate thrown in).

Host: Joe Litobarski
Panelists: Julien Frisch and myself.

Who are the new European Council President and the High Representative? Are they the right people for the job? Is the appointment of Ashton a victory for the gender balance argument, or could it deflate the Gender Balanced Commission's wider campaign to get gender balance over the whole Commission? Should gender politics be focused on the outcome of selection processes or on reforming the selection processes themselves?

I'd also recommend that you look up the Gender Balanced Commission campaign, and sign the petition.

Tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Nationalist rhetoric is increasing in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where the Assembly of the Serb-dominated state of Republika Srpska had issued some "Conclusions" which staked out claims for the state for power which are now held at the federal level. The High Representative (who is appointed by the international community, and also the EU's Special Representative to BiH) has vetoed the Conclusions as:

"Implementation of the conclusions would undermine the division of competencies between the State and the Entities, seek to give the RSNA veto rights in State level matters, undermine final and binding decisions of the BiH Constitutional Court, a Dayton institution, and determine that the HR’s powers are unconstitutional."

[You can read the veto's legal instrument here].

The country is a two-state federation of the Serb Republika Srpska and the Muslim and Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose federal government has slowly been strengthened by transferring some of the competences of the states ["Entities"] to the centre, while ensuring that power is shared between the "constituent peoples" fairly at federal level. The process of integration and state-building has been presided over by - and sometimes directed by - the Official High Representative (who is always also the EUSR for BiH) who is empowered by the Peace Implementation Council under the Dayton Agreement. Naturally, any move to weaken the central government and strengthen state power has nationalist implications for each side and threatens the break-up of the state.

Why does this matter for the EU? Well, BiH is practically an EU protectorate. The EUSR is the OHR as well, who can veto legislation and remove elected representatives from office. The EUSR also has a hand in advising the European Commission on BiH's progress and the implementation of Stability and Association agreements and advises the EU on progress in general (visa liberalisation is one of the carrots for BiH's progress). The EUSR is also the focal point for the political co-ordination of the EU's police mission there and EUFOR, as well as helping the HR for CSFP (Javier Solana, who was in BiH in May) on BiH matters. BiH has signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement and an Interim Agreement, with the eventual goal of EU membership. [The Council's Joint Action that installed the current EUSR, Dr. Valentin Inzko, gives a good picture of the EUSR's remit: link].

All of which means that the EU is heavily invested in the success of BiH as a state. But would the EU be prepared to act in BiH or be able to properly support it if tensions continued to grow to boiling point? The EU finds it hard to act in foreign policy at the best of times, and it will be caught up in a busy, and mainly inward-looking, agenda for the next 6 months: the Lisbon Treaty, a new Commission and Parliament, the Copenhagen Summit on climate change, the financial crisis, etc. Ultimately, of course, the US guarantees stability in BiH, despite European control of the peacekeeping forces and European control of significant political power - still, it would take an almost complete collapse to draw the US in, and the EU would generally be expected to keep the state functioning.

There's no real indication that there's anything beyond an increase in nationalist rhetoric, and Dr. Inzko hasn't mentioned any real instability in his report to the Political and Security Committee of the EU. But it may not take a crisis for EU politics to become entangled in BiH-ian politics: BiH has some ongoing border disputes with Croatia, and these could affect Croatia's accession (since the EU may be unwilling to admit Croatia if it will cause the same problems with BiH-ian accession as Slovenia is with Croat accession). It's likely that there won't be any big (EU-affecting) news coming out of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Swedish Presidency of the European Council, but it still might be worthwhile keeping an eye on BiH-ian politics given the economic crisis.

It's worth noting that for the next 6 months Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister would be a capable pair of hands when it comes to BiH, since he is a former OHR/EUSR himself.