Common Foreign and Security Policy

Does Europe exist on the diplomatic stage? Replies to this question draw uncertainty and a mixed reaction. Yet the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is today a reality. A reality that is fragile, recently established, imperfect, though it increasingly enables Europe to speak with a single voice, shape the major global equilibria and intervene in crises.

After long-standing experience in European Political Cooperation (EPC) that was introduced in the 1970s, the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the bipolar world gave Europe a new capacity for initiative together with the will to crown its economic achievements with a political project.

The Europeans’ inability to collectively succeed in addressing the Balkans crisis that broke out on their doorstep from 1990 acted as a catalyst for the will to build a true common foreign and security policy, which entered into force with the Maastricht Treaty in November 1993. This new policy demonstrated the Europeans’ ambition at the time to contribute themselves to the stability of their immediate environment, in the Balkans, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, to make Europe a global actor and to provide it with crisis prevention and management resources.

Considerable ground has been covered over the past ten years. To begin with, the European Union dealt exclusively with customs and trade issues and development aid, and its opening up to external issues has constantly increased politically speaking.

The European Union’s area of diplomatic intervention covers all continents. The Euro-pean Union (EU) is involved today in most issues, in which it can even play a leading role: in par-ticular, it is a member of the Quartet for the Peace Process in the Middle East; through Javier So-lana, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU now speaks on behalf of the entire international community on the Iranian nuclear issue; it played a leading role in securing a peaceful transition in Ukraine at the end of 2004; with the five ASEAN member States, it monitored implementation of the Aceh ceasefire agreement that ended an over thirty-year-old-conflict, as well as the disarmament of militias and withdrawal of Indonesian forces; and the EU intervened by providing civilian and military support for the African Union Operation in Darfur to assist badly affected civilian populations while strengthening African crisis response capacities.

The "European response reflex" has developed considerably: while ten years ago the policy of going it alone was the rule more often than not in diplomacy and defence, today virtually all international crises are discussed forthwith in Brussels as a matter of urgency. This first in order to become acquainted with, and test, partners’ responses, then define a European stance prior to applying diplomatic action to the crisis as such and, where appropriate, intervening in the field by means of a civilian or military ESDP action. The European response reflex is also developing lo-cally through increasingly frequent initiatives by Heads of Mission in the field. Thus, the crisis sparked by the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a number of Danish daily newspapers was first addressed at European level under the aegis of the Presidency and through Mr Solana’s very active interventions. The crisis gave rise to an exemplary show of solidarity among EU Member States.

Becoming accustomed to such exchanges gradually contributes to forging a common diplomatic culture aimed at furthering peace and security, a culture through which each Member State contribute its expertise and convictions. For instance, the Union would certainly not have acted in the same way in Ukraine before or after the joining of ten new Member States on 1st May 2004, who brought with them their history and their own sensitivities. The need to resolve African crises has become common to all States since the Operation Artemis conducted by France in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The attention paid historically to the African continent by a number of Member States is gradually spreading to partners in increasing numbers. The Operation EUFOR RD Congo conducted in the DRC in support of the UN Mission in DR Congo (MONUC) during the election process was thus led by Germany and, in addition to France, many other Member States contributed significantly to the mission, Spain and Poland being foremost among them. The stabilization of the Western Balkans, given that region’s historic role in creating the CFSP and the complete range of tools deployed, is certainly the best example of a diplomacy conducted first at Euro-pean level and implemented by each of the Member States who feel responsible for it individually.

This gradually acquired credibility relies on the vast range of instruments that the European Union is likely to deploy in support of its diplomatic action and which no other regional organization in the world possesses, i.e. trade policy leading to the signing of preferential or free-trade agreements; policy on the facilitation of visa obtainment and on readmission; humanitarian action; development aid instruments that can mobilize about 7 billion euros per annum, including European Development Fund contributions, in all regions of the world. The prospect of enlargement has certainly proved to be the Union’s most powerful lever for intervention as shown by the efforts and progress accomplished in just a few years by the ten countries that joined on 1 May 2004. Today this prospect is presented to countries in the Western Balkans, as the Thessaloniki Summit recalled in June 2003. Finally, since 2003, the EU has strengthened its autonomous capacity for action by developing new tools in the ESDP framework which, in a way, is for diplomatic Europe the tool and catalyst that achieving the internal market represents for economic Europe. The European Union’s strength and specificity lie in its capacity to use this comprehensive set of tools. Much remains to be done to make headway in that direction.

The CFSP is not akin to a single foreign policy as in the case of the single currency. This is not what Member States wished for. In many respects, the CFSP often is more a matter of method than substance. It is dependent on the will and the political commitment of each of the Member States, with whom all decisions lie. Unlike the Community sphere (first pillar) in which the centre of gravity is focused on the European Commission which virtually has a monopoly on initiative, the Council is truly the engine of the CFSP.

The CFSP is a newly established, imperfect and fragile policy, therefore needing to be strengthened and deepened. European diplomacy is faced with several major challenges, namely pursuing the development of its resources, ensuring that those instruments operate better together, and defining a true common European ambition to enable the Union to act on a par with the major players in the international stage.

With a view to the outcome of the institutional reflection begun in June 2005 following the rejection of the draft Constitutional Treaty by France and the Netherlands, the European Council agreed, in the absence of a new text, to make the best of the possibilities offered by existing treaties. One element is to develop greater complementarity between external actions of the first and second pillars through concrete measures such as the improvement of the Union’s capacity to address emergency situations, crises and disasters; the exchange of personnel between the Commission and the Council Secretariat; unified EU representation in certain third countries by merging the functions of European Union Special Representative (EUSR) and European Commission Delegate; more active and better coordinated commmunication policy giving European external action en-hanced visibility.

Alongside these improvements to the implementation of European foreign policy, that policy’s political conduct and steering need further enhancement. While the war in the Balkans revealed the lack of a genuine European foreign policy, the Iraqi crisis was that policy’s first growing pains as shown by Europe’s absence and its complete silence as it failed to adopt a stance. The European Union was spared no criticism for insufficiently differentiating itself in the face of the escalating crisis and hostilities in Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories.

The impetus required to prompt Member States to overcome their differences can certainly be given by European citizens. While it is sometimes difficult to achieve compromise in Brussels, citizens and peoples are the CFSP’s most consensual element and its best asset. For, whenever citizens and peoples are consulted, they express the hope that Europe will gain greater influence on the international scene, defend them against new threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, environmental hazards, and pandemics, while disseminating their common values, including the promo-tion of human rights, democracy, better harnessed globalization, solidarity, and sustainable devel-opment.

Drawing the lessons from the divisions over the Iraqi crisis, and based on these core com-mon values, the European Union drafted the founding document known as the "European Security Strategy (ESS)". Prepared by Mr Javier Solana and adopted at the December 2003 European Council Meeting, the European Security Strategy describes Europe’s vision of security threats and stakes and presents the political, economic and financial means to address them. The CFSP allows the projection of the convictions and strength of the European model that enables Europe to be heard. Despite our model being imperfect and cumbersome, the construction effort for which the European Union stands remains an example for many countries in the world, in Africa, Latin America and Asia, where regional integration is still in its infancy.

The European Union can thus make its own voice heard, including on major, sensitive is-sues such as, in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (route of the Israeli West Bank barrier and, following the legislative elections of January 2006, creation of a temporary international assistance mechanism to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people), opposition to the death penalty, support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), the fight against global warming, and promotion of the multilateral model governed by the rule of law. Europe speaks with one voice on all these issues. Europe also knows how to voice its dissent and convince its partners at times, when raising the issue of Guantanamo with the United States at the highest level, notably during the June 2006 Vienna Summit or, for instance, when it committed Russia to signing the Kyoto Protocol on the occasion of the EU-Russia Summit of May 2004.

At this stage, the European group of countries as a whole is solely capable of conducting peer dialogue with major international partners. It is of essential importance for the European Union to become more aware of this and to strive to cultivate a more balanced and uncompromising dialogue with those partners and, in particular, with the United States, Russia and China.

The Common Foreign and Security Policy was recently established and is often little known. Yet it is an intrinsic dimension of our diplomatic action and all diplomats are now confronted in their action with a European dimension. Citizens are made increasingly aware of CFSP through crisis management missions in the toughest areas. Yet they all too often first encounter the policy through esoteric abbreviations like CFSP, COREU, PSC, ESDP, and so on. Together with the "Brief guide to the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)" written by the delegation of the Permanent representation of France to the European Union to the Political and Security Committee, this new CFSP Handbook aims to make this essential dimension of our diplomatic action more fa-miliar. It is intended as an introduction to CFSP, including its failures and achievements, how it is implemented and by whom, whether directly or indirectly, this through an operational approach designed to make Common Foreign and Security Policy easier to access by all.