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EU appointments: visionaries need not apply

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

We live in the age of media celebrity. So no surprise at the critical and sometimes bitter press reaction to the nomination of Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton, virtually unknown beyond their own parishes, as Council President and High Representative respectively. As someone said, it was like a TV talent show where the choice of the people (and the press) was ignored by the judges. If only we’d been able to phone in!

I guess there are two kinds of disappointment: from those who were seeking charismatic European leadership to force the pace of change and talk face to face with other world leaders; and from those like UKIP who wanted appointment of a powerful figure like Tony Blair to demonstrate that the feared “European Superstate” really had been born. Two sides of the same coin, in fact.

It does at first sight seem a sad reflection on the EU’s lack of ambition that it should choose people with relatively little experience at the highest level of international affairs.

The reality is somewhat different though. This is a period of consolidation. Visionaries need not apply. The European Council was looking for a president who could provide continuity in the management of its business, escape from the six-monthly presidential rotation (although that will still apply for the specialist councils) and build longer term relationships on the international stage. By all accounts Van Rompuy seems well suited to this chairmanship role. His term as Belgian prime minister certainly demonstrated considerable political skills.

It strikes me that creation of the European External Action Service led by the High Representative could be much more far-reaching in its impact than the presidential appointment. Catherine Ashton will have a formidable task, but one with great potential – to “conduct” the Union’s common foreign and security policy and defence policy, making new proposals for policy development and carrying out the Council’s mandate. She will both chair the Foreign Affairs Council and sit as vice president in Commission meetings.

She has to create a European diplomatic service bringing together up to 6,000 officials from the Commission, Council and member states, which for the first time will integrate the Commission’s capabilities with the foreign affairs decisions of the Council, so the trade, aid and substantial budget resources of the Commission can be used to leverage the Council’s policy ambitions. A joined-up European foreign policy at last!

Who knows whether this institutional change will transform Europe’s role in the world as it should, using the soft power policies implemented by the Commission to achieve broader political goals and moving beyond foreign-policy-by-press-release (with all respect to the great efforts made by Solana).

Let’s take one region – the Middle East. The European Commission has for years provided the funding to keep the Palestinian Authority alive, yet the Council has developed no coherent political strategy, for instance on the recognition of Hamas after its success in the Gaza elections and the question of Jewish settlements. It’s time that Europe became an equal partner of the United States in such issues.

There is a host of areas where a stronger EU policy must be developed if Europe’s influence in the world is not to decline further in the face of major shifts in economic and political power across the globe. There is need for a European voice in NATO, much stronger co-ordination of policy within the United Nations and other international organisations and coherent European policies towards China, Russia and others.

In other words there is huge amount for Rompuy and Ashton to do, but they will only make progress if the member states accept the need for a concerted EU approach to the external problems which the Union faces and are willing to toughen up policy vis a vis the rest of the world.

Posted in Defence, European politics, International, Treaty of Lisbon | No Comments »

Conservative realpolitik after Lisbon

Friday, November 6th, 2009

With the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty the British Conservatives have set out the policy which an incoming Conservative government would apply towards the European Union. There is to be no referendum, but a series of legislative measures to limit the extent of EU jurisdiction, and negotiations to take employment and social policy law back into national hands.

Political expediency – or perhaps we should say realpolitik – has been the hallmark of Conservative policy on Europe since David Cameron became leader of the Tory party in 2005. His overriding priority has been to hold his party together at a time when it is adopting domestic policies which belong to the centre ground of British politics, whether on public services, climate change, poverty, equality or infrastructure spending – respectable policies for any European centre-right party.

An aggressive stance on Europe has given satisfaction to those eurosceptic sections of the party which might otherwise have caused real trouble over Cameron’s leftwards policy shift on domestic issues. What’s more, the refusal of Blair, then Brown, to hold a referendum despite earlier promises has been a mighty stick to beat the Labour Government.

Cameron’s policy has also comforted those sections of the British press which have consistently attacked British membership of the EU.

Ratification of the treaty has obliged Cameron to find a formula for future Conservative policy consistent with past commitments, tough enough to keep the eurosceptics on board, but not giving too many hostages to fortune for any incoming Conservative government.

There is no point in being too negative about Cameron’s post-ratification approach (although the scathing comments of France’s Europe minister Pierre Lellouche might be quite helpful in suggesting to the sceptics that battle will be joined!).

Party unity is as vital as ever for the Conservatives. A general election must be held by the end of June 2010 and the opinion polls currently promise a reasonable Conservative majority, provided the party can remain united. The great fear is that smaller parties will top-slice the Tory vote, giving success to avowedly anti-European parties like the UK Independence Party (UKIP) or the British National Party (BNP). This could mean a smaller majority, and even a hung Parliament, which would certainly please the Liberal Democrats and the minority parties if it gave them the balance of power.

A thin majority was the nightmare of former Conservative leader John Major in the 1990s and even drove him to resignation and re-election to resist the eurosceptic wing of his own party. Cameron wants no repeat of that.

So how damaging would Cameron’s new policy be for relations between a Conservative government and its partners in the European Union? There is a commitment to hold a referendum on any major new treaty, which mirrors Irish legislation, and also before any adoption of the euro. A law is promised to assert UK sovereignty, but this would not compromise the supremacy of European law and parallels existing powers of the German constitutional court. The commitment to “repatriate” employment law looks the most difficult part of Cameron’s package: perhaps surprisingly British employers’ organisations have greeted this with no great show of enthusiasm.

Withdrawal of the Conservative MEPs from the EPP is the one decision which has already caused major damage to Cameron’s future relations with other European leaders. This will require a major repair operation if a Tory government is to achieve its aims in Europe.

Meanwhile European diplomatic channels are humming as the candidates for President of the Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs are analysed and assessed. It’s getting close to decision time, and it looks as if Blair’s name for president has faded away.

At the same time the British foreign secretary David Miliband is still getting strong support for the High Representative role, not least from the European Commission, which sees him as the ideal person to set up and run the European External Action Service which I discussed in my last blog. Miliband is also the candidate of the European Parliament’s socialist group. Miliband himself says that he is not taking the job, but we’ll see. He is only one of several potential successors to Gordon Brown in the event of a Labour defeat in the spring, and who wants to spend four or five years in opposition?

Posted in Elections, European politics, International, Treaty of Lisbon, UK politics | No Comments »

Leadership needed for Europe’s foreign policy

Monday, October 19th, 2009

A fundamental purpose of the Treaty of Lisbon is to make the European Union an effective force in the modern world, a global player with a power and influence far greater than the sum of its parts. The appointment of a High Representative bestriding Commission and Council, served by the European External Action Service (EEAS), is designed to provide the institutional framework to achieve this aim, in conjunction with the new Council President.

But will the member states appoint people capable of fulfilling such high ambitions? and how much power will governments be willing to concede in making the new system work? In particular how will, say, France and the United Kingdom approach the challenge, given their highly active foreign service and foreign policy traditions? Remember President Sarkozy and Georgia? Who will speak for Europe in the future?

The rumour mill is working overtime as we await the Klaus signature on the Treaty. The Council President could be an effective bureaucrat or a political driver, male or female, from big country or small. Ireland’s Mary Robinson is one possibility for the presidential job. Tony Blair? I don’t think so, given the UK’s absence from the euro, Schengen etc and Blair’s record with Bush. The Netherlands’ Balkenende could run strongly for the High Representative job. It’s fun to speculate, but no one seems to have any real idea.

It does matter who gets the job of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The external relations aspects of the Treaty imply far-reaching change within the EU institutions. Over the next two or three years thousands of officials will be brought together from the Council Secretariat, from the external services of the Commission and from the member states to form the EEAS, a separate entity to handle the EU’s relations with the outside world. Great leadership qualities will be essential to build an effective service.

There will be some fierce institutional battles before there are any diplomatic ones. On Thursday October 22 MEPs will vote on the Elmar Brok report which outlines the parliamentary view of the EEAS and insists that the service should be clearly affiliated to the Commission and funded from its budget. This would give Parliament a direct say which it would be denied if EEAS and its funding were to be hived off to the Council. ALDE member Andrew Duff warns of a block on the new Commission appointments if the EP does not get its way. So it’s clear that the institutional wrangling is by no means over.

The scale of the changes ahead is considerable. It seems that more than 5,000 people could be transferred from the Commission alone – a fifth of its total complement. They may continue to work in the building where they are now, probably the Charlemagne, but they will no longer be Commission officials (although remaining EU officials). Trade, development and enlargement will remain the Commission’s direct responsibility, but even these departments will be expected to work closely with EEAS.

The European Commission’s 125 or so delegations across the world, plus the Council’s liaison offices, will become European Union embassies, with responsibility for co-ordinating and implementing European policies in their territory. Up to now it has been the embassy of the member state holding the Council Presidency which had this role (or a caretaker embassy in the absence of a national representation). Many officials of the EEAS will be recruited as “temporary agents” from national governments, to serve in the representations and in Brussels.

I gather that the Swedish presidency, COREPER ambassadors in Brussels and the Commission are working intensively to work out the appropriate structure for EEAS. It will then be up to the High Representative, once appointed, to make a formal proposal to the Council in consultation with MEPs and with the “consent” of the Commission as to how the new organisation will function. It looks as if the HR/VP will be appointed before the new Commission has taken over, in which case the current commissioner from that country would stand down. Whoever takes the post will have a formidable task ahead.

Posted in Defence, European politics, Integration, International, Trade, Treaty of Lisbon | No Comments »

Europe can be pleased with G-20 outcome

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Let’s accentuate the positive! The G-20 meeting in London did achieve a much wider consensus and more far-reaching decisions than most people thought possible. Merkel, Sarkozy, Barroso and Obama all said so. The summit was also remarkable for its recognition of the realities of a changing world economy and the ability of its disparate players to make common cause.

The G-8 is dead: long live the G-20. It would be good to think that this bodes well for an effective global response to climate change in the run-up to Copenhagen.

The Europeans could feel quite pleased with themselves. The conclusions of the London meeting delivered many of the aims which had been set by the EU spring summit and the EU finance ministers in preparation for the London meeting.

But beware of the fudge. As is usually the case on these occasions, the billions and trillions which appeared in the communiqué were not all they seemed, as the FT nicely demonstrated in its graphic. For instance, the $250bn figure to support trade finance apparently relates to the amount of trade supported rather than the cost of underwriting it, which is put at $25bn; and the much hyped extra funding for the IMF comprises some money already committed from Japan and the EU and greater borrowing in the future. The IMF will be selling some of its gold bars as well.

Will this be enough to support the economies of central and eastern Europe?

On the other hand the programme to increase the role of the new global economies in the IMF and World Bank is a recognition of the need for change, while a commitment to avoid trade restrictions provides a valuable sheet anchor to restrain protectionist pressures in difficult times.

The Merkel-Sarkozy positioning in advance of the summit and President Sarkozy’s threat to walk out were intriguing. Their pre-summit initiatives were no doubt an assertion of their independence and a way of distancing themselves from the US, particularly important for both leaders given the public resentment against an American banking system which had precipitated the crisis in the first place.

German opposition to pumping more cash into the economy along the lines advocated by Gordon Brown reflected long-standing German fears of inflation, while President Sarkozy’s threat to quit made great news coverage for him at a time when he is battling deep unpopularity at home – and just as France becomes a full member of NATO. He was able to show himself as the scourge of Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

In fact the London conclusions on financial regulation appear to fit neatly with the EU agenda agreed last month. President Barroso has already outlined the timetable for action. A beefed up global Financial Stability Board will be a valuable counterpart to the proposed EU risk assessment bodies. The European Commission will be pleased to become a member of the FSB.

Tax havens were President Sarkozy’s final battleground, aimed particularly at the 60 per cent of hedge funds which he claimed were registered in these territories. He wanted instant publication of the OECD name-and-shame list, but ran up against Chinese opposition related to the position of Hong Kong and Macao. It was President Obama who brokered a deal in the margins of the meeting, as Sarkozy himself acknowledged.

“The era of banking secrecy is over” said the final text. Let’s now see how quickly those EU countries which have still to implement the tax standard (Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg) can be persuaded to agree.

Posted in European politics, Finance, International, Trade | No Comments »

Everyone a loser in Ukraine-Russia dispute – except EU energy policy

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

The gas is flowing again. The deal signed between Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow on January 21 should at last provide some respite for all those who have suffered severe hardship from the suspension of gas supplies in recent weeks.

In the short term everyone has been a loser from this dispute. Neither Ukraine nor Russia emerge with any credit. The economic strength of many countries in south east Europe has taken a battering in already difficult times. On the other hand the long-term case for a proactive EU energy policy has received a major boost.

It seems that the Moscow agreement is for 10 years and includes a formula under which Ukraine will pay a European benchmark price, linked to the oil price, calculated quarterly and discounted by 20 per cent for 2009, while Ukraine agrees not to increase the transit charges for exporting Russian gas to European customers. There are tough terms for outstanding payments.

The crisis is over then, at least for now. Or is it? We are all familiar with the cold war rhetoric between Russia and Ukraine, and the archaic, heavy-handed style of Russia’s leadership, but the fierce rivalry between Ukraine’s prime minister and its president has also been a key factor in delaying resolution of the dispute. We learn that officials from President Viktor Yushchenko’s office are now suggesting that the deal must be reopened later this year, leading to irascible phone calls between Brussels and Kiev.

“A plague o’ both your houses!” That must be the reaction of Bulgarians, Slovaks and others in south-east Europe as they contemplate the hardship inflicted on their populations and the damage which has been done to their economies.

Shakespeare’s curse also sums up the reaction of European Commission President Barroso to the crisis. He held nearly 30 phone conversations with leaders in Moscow and Kiev to seek a solution, but found that agreements were announced, then repudiated the next day. “This is the first time in my life that I saw agreements that were systematically not implemented. That has never happened with any other partner in the world. There was a complete contradiction between discourse and reality” he said.

The public dispute between governments is more or less in the open, with each player performing in character. We know what to expect. The shadowy role of the corporate sector and the relations between business and politics is much more difficult to penetrate.

Take RosUkrEnergo for instance, the Swiss-registered Ukrainian joint venture owned by Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen, which has long been the major distributor of Russian gas within and across Ukraine. There is clearly no love lost between RosUkrEnergo and Naftogaz, the main Ukrainian domestic supplier. Some argue that this was really at the heart of the dispute. It was certainly an element in the Moscow agreement.

There is little doubt that the crisis will have caused serious economic damage to both Russia and the Ukraine. It has lost them millions and undermined confidence in their reliability for production and for transit. It has stimulated the search for more diversified energy supplies and more efficient energy use across Europe.

The cutting off of supplies could not have come at a worse time. This winter is proving uncommonly hard. They were using icebreakers in Berlin’s Oder-Spree waterway to clear the way for coal barges. Hungary and its neighbours report many deaths caused by the cold. Bulgaria has threatened to reopen its Chernobyl-type nuclear power station which has been closed for two years under an EU-funded arrangement, while Slovakia is planning to bring back the nuclear plant which as part of its accession treaty was closed at the end of 2008.

Serbia said that its power grid was close to collapse as consumers were forced to switch to electricity during the crisis. The EU mobilised the civil protection mechanism for Moldova where 50,000 people were left with no fuel supplies. All those directly affected were the biggest losers of all. But at least this crisis has identified some of the pinch points for the evolution of European energy policy.

Posted in Energy, Russia | No Comments »

Russia – Ukraine gas dispute: business or politics?

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Is it business or politics? The official EU line is that the confrontation between Russia and the Ukraine on gas supplies is a commercial dispute which does not call for political intervention. This is far removed from the accusations of “pipeline politics” directed at Russia during the 2006 dispute.

Requests by the parties for the EU to act as honest broker have been refused, although the increasing impact on member countries led to a brief Presidency/Commission statement on January 6 which called for settlement of this “bilateral commercial dispute”, while EU officials continued to talk in Kiev and Moscow. Meanwhile the weather gets colder.

There is no denying the commercial issues which underlie this crisis, relating to gas prices and transit costs. Gazprom has suggested that Ukraine should pay between €250 and €450 per thousand cubic metres of gas where they currently pay €175. Other Europeans are paying €500, through contracts agreed at a time of sky-high oil prices, but it seems that gas prices follow oil prices with a six month time lag and the Ukrainians are no doubt holding out for the big price drop which everyone anticipates this spring. The contract arrangements for managing transit seem totally confused.

Circumstances have changed since 2006 when Gazprom last cut supplies through Ukraine. The Ukrainians themselves have substantially increased their gas storage capacity and so strengthened their negotiating position. Major consumers such as Italy and France also have much larger gas reserves (although others such as Turkey do not).

Gazprom itself has to demonstrate its reliability. It is heavily indebted, desperately needs to fund more capital investment and is no longer benefiting from surging prices. In order to fulfil its contracts it is diverting supplies via Belarus to Poland as well as drawing on its own reserves in western Europe.

So is the dispute part of the Great Game whereby Russia seeks to bring to heel the former Soviet republics, using the energy weapon to secure their compliance? Russian Prime Minister Putin can be relied upon to make it as political as possible, using a televised meeting with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller to approve the suspension of certain supplies to Ukraine. Many press reports have linked the dispute with Ukraine’s wish to join NATO and see it as chapter 2 following chapter 1 in Georgia last August.

I’m not convinced. If this dispute demonstrates anything, it is not only Europe’s dependence on Russia for its natural gas supplies (20 per cent and rising), but Russia’s dependence on its customers across Europe. The affair will certainly expand gas storage capacity in the consuming countries, encourage diversification of supply including LPG, and boost plans for alternative pipelines such as Nabucco, none of which will be much welcomed by Gazprom.

Everyone has an interest in stabilising the situation and replacing the extraordinarily muddled contractual arrangements between Russia and Ukraine with something more durable. That’s where the European Union should be applying its influence. Maybe we’ll get such an agreement by the end of this week.

Posted in Energy, International, Russia, Turkey | No Comments »

Reassuring words for an autumn vote in Ireland?

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

“The way forward is beginning to emerge”. So said Dick Roche, Ireland’s minister for European affairs, on the eve of the Brussels December summit. It looks like a second Irish referendum for the autumn of 2009.

The Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen is expected to tell EU colleagues that he will seek a second referendum in the autumn as long as some reassuring protocols can be agreed. These would deal with taxation (where corporate rates have been such a key factor in boosting inward investment), abortion (EU keep out!) and defence (no threat for Irish neutrality).

Putting a fence around Irish taxes may not go down well with those member states which dislike low corporate tax regimes, but reflects the realities of EU policy. On abortion and defence there should be no problem.

The Irish government will also call for the scrapping of Article 17 (5) of the Lisbon EU draft treaty which would reduce the number of commissioners by one third as from 2014, but I see that the Article itself provides that it can be changed by unanimity. My sympathies are with the Irish on Article 17. The Union is distant enough from the citizen as it is. One commissioner per country will certainly be unwieldy in an EU of 30 or more members, but is a price worth paying for smaller states to have someone of their own to engage with in Brussels.

Of course none of this will guarantee an Irish “yes”, but the tide of opinion may well have turned. Ireland has punched well above its economic weight as a financial services centre over the last 30 years, but faced with the credit crunch it is only the country’s eurozone membership and ECB support which have staved off an Icelandic-style financial disaster. The people have taken note.

The credit crisis has transformed the political and economic landscape for everyone. Denmark is now looking increasingly likely to hold its own referendum on adopting the euro to stabilise its economic position. And now we have Iceland desperate to join the EU and the eurozone to rebuild its economy.

So can the UK be far behind? Yes, far behind. Unless, that is, the global economic turbulence gets worse and the Bank of England no longer has adequate resources to bail out the financial services sector. I liked President Barroso’s provocative remarks noting the growing British interest in the euro, especially given his regular meetings with Gordon Brown and the curious spectacle of Sarkozy, Brown and Barroso all getting together in 10 Downing Street to praise each other’s expansionist policies and say, poker-faced, that they had no doubt Germany would join in. Chancellor Merkel is not so convinced.

As well as the Irish question and the financial crisis, EU leaders will be looking at some new dimensions in European defence policy. In one week we have seen the establishment of a naval task force to combat Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the transfer of policing powers in Kosovo from the United Nations to an EU police and justice mission. The European Security and Defence Policy seems to be evolving nicely, with or without Lisbon.

Posted in Defence, Elections, European politics, Finance, Kosovo, Treaty of Lisbon, UK politics | No Comments »

Europe prepares for Obama presidency

Monday, November 10th, 2008

After all the excitement of an amazing US presidential election, here we stand in the cold light of dawn, wondering what happens next. What can we Europeans expect of President Barack Obama? As others have pointed out, his first duty will be to serve the interests of those who elected him and not the political priorities of friends and neighbours, so we should not raise our hopes too high.

Yet things do seem very different this time. All the evidence suggests that Senator Obama will be a president who is deeply committed to a multilateral approach and who perceives international co-operation as fundamental to meeting the challenges which the US faces. His July trip around Europe gave a strong indication of his global perspective. The deeply unpopular image of America across the world causes him real distress.

Obama was careful during his campaign to avoid giving too many hostages to fortune, but trade was one exception, as the candidate argued that free trade agreements such as NAFTA were responsible for job losses and that outsourcing of production benefited businesses while damaging the interests of their workers.

A strengthened Democrat majority in Congress will not make it any easier to resist protectionist sentiment and no doubt we can expect some early measures such as support for the US auto industry – a distant echo of President Bush’s support to steel and farming in the early days of his first term. There may well be tax changes as well, which make outward investment less attractive to US firms.

There is a small window of opportunity. Over the coming weeks people will seek to breathe new life into global trade negotiations. The new trade commissioner Baroness Ashton has raised the hope of progress for the Doha Round in what I thought a rather convincing BBC interview and Pascal Lamy has offered to stay on at the WTO in pursuit of an agreement.

So will the November 15 summit in Washington open the way for trade talks as the Brazilians hope, I wonder? And will President Sarkozy speak for free trade during the meeting? Maybe it will be easier in the absence of ex-Commissioner Mandelson!

Climate change is an issue where we can confidently assume that the new president will chart a new course. Take a look at his manifesto on energy and climate change. He espouses emissions trading, wants renewables to provide 25 per cent of energy needs by 2025 and sees further investment in biofuels and new technologies. Nuclear power and energy saving also feature on his wishlist.

Europe should feel comfortable with this agenda, but faces some fundamental challenges of its own, in particular whether it can deliver on the commitments already made, without which its current position of leadership will melt away. The broader challenge is to bring China, India and similar economies more directly into global decisions. Real progress by Europe and the US will be an essential precursor of movement here.

The evolution of US policy towards Russia will be of special interest to Europe, intertwined as it is with the issue of Star Wars missile defence.

Medvedev’s clumsy reference to Russia’s anti-missile missiles in Kaliningrad (or are they anti-anti-missile-missiles?) is hardly likely to change US policy, but I suppose was intended to put pressure on the EU and to drive in deeper any wedge between the US and Europe. After all, Russia already has such armaments in situ. For Polish prime minister Donald Tusk Medvedev’s statement was political and not military.

Obama is a man who will take his time. Once in office he will no doubt weigh up the efficacy of the anti-ballistic missile system, its budgetary cost and its political implications. The Pentagon is asking for $65.5 billion for development at a time of severe budgetary pressures. Any improvements in US-Iran relations would also come into the picture. If there is a change in US policy it will be rationally thought through and set in a wider context than just providing comfort for Russia.

The Europeans are keen to seize the initiative on a reform of global economic management at the November 15 Washington summit and produced a detailed set of proposals when they met in Brussels on November 7. The current mood in the US will certainly be responsive to tougher regulation, maybe going further than the European Commission, for instance, would want. How far a new president will respond to giving more power to international organisations such as the IMF remains to be seen. Once again the Democratic dominance in Congress will be an important factor.

Finally there are those issues such as the Middle East conflict and the war in Afghanistan. While Europeans hope for a more proactive US role in the peace process they can also expect the new president to demand greater support against Al-Qaeda. This may be the most challenging element in transatlantic relations over what promises to be a period of far-reaching change.

Posted in Climate change, Defence, Energy, Finance, International, Russia, Trade | 1 Comment »

EU relations will test Russian intentions after Georgia invasion

Monday, September 8th, 2008

The OSCE seems to have serious doubts about Georgia’s role and there are even suggestions that the conflict was provoked by Vice President Cheney in order to boost McCain’s cause in the US elections.

Rash initiatives by the Georgian government in South Ossetia were almost certainly the trigger for the Russian action, but a trigger which Moscow had long been anticipating. The campaign was surely a far-reaching and thoroughly planned operation to damage the regime of President Mikhail Saakashvili, to assert Russia’s right to dictate political developments in its near abroad and to block NATO expansion in Ukraine and the Caucasus.

The tensions had been building for some time, apparently including a mounting level of cyber attacks on Georgian official websites similar to those previously experienced by Estonia, and reprisals against Russian sites by so-called “hacktivists” who specialise in DDOS – Distributed Denial of Service, where websites are sabotaged by swamping.

It is the scale of Russian actions in Georgia which may prove deeply counter-productive for Moscow. It seems likely to strengthen the US presence in the region and will raise the level of scepticism about Russia’s good faith in its international dealings. It will no doubt give quite a boost for those who wish to build new oil and gas pipelines which bypass Russia. Much will depend on how quickly the Russians withdraw from occupied Georgian territory and engage with OSCE and EU. There is no denying, though, that NATO expansion now looks much more challenging than it was before August 8. European members of the Alliance will have no enthusiasm for extending the guarantees of Article 5 to the Caucasus.

The European Union has acted quickly with its ceasefire proposals, some strong words and convening of a special summit in Brussels, where deep divisions of opinion were papered over and a united Franco-German position carried the day.

Europe is at pains to stress that the EU makes common cause with the Americans, but its rhetoric has been much more cautious. Sanctions have been rejected and dialogue sustained. If President Sarkozy and his colleagues can make real progress in their talks with the Russian leadership, even to the extent of launching a programme to resolve the “frozen conflicts” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then that would be a very considerable achievement

Russia needs the EU quite as much as the EU needs Russia, if only to counterbalance and moderate American policies in the region. While keeping the pinch of salt to hand (and remembering the black belt), it’s interesting to see what President Medvedev had to say to Euronews in defending the Russian position and expounding on the EU-Russia relationship.

Posted in Defence, Energy, Russia | No Comments »

This is not a Union – but Union of the Med may have potential

Friday, July 18th, 2008

So a new Club Med is born! More than 40 presidents and/or prime ministers turned up in Paris on July 13 for the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean. It was a welcome diplomatic triumph for President Sarkozy, embattled as he is by a disillusioned and critical French public opinion.

When asked many years ago what was the collective term for a gathering of political leaders, British Prime Minister Callaghan suggested it was a “Lack of Principals”, and of course everybody is highly sceptical about the purpose and the prospects of the new body. It embraces all 27 member countries of the EU, the Balkans, the countries of the Maghreb and the Middle Eastern countries bordering the Mediterranean – 44 states in all including the Palestinian Authority. There are a few conflicting interests among that lot!

I must declare some sympathy with Colonel Gadhafi of Libya, who refused the invitation to Paris and gave a speech explaining why. It was the word Union which really got to him, given his lifelong experience in striving to create unions which failed, between Arabs, the Africans, the Maghreb countries, Libya and Egypt, Libya and Tunisia etc etc.

For example, he said, how could one possibly envisage a union between the countries of North Africa and those in Scandinavia “where it is common to see people walk around naked”. Quite so. It’s those Danish summer beaches!

Let’s agree with the Libyan leader that this is not a Union. But that doesn’t mean that it has no potential value. When Sarkozy originally floated the idea following his election it had the marks of a personal ego trip. He saw its membership confined to countries bordering the Med, quite firmly under French leadership, albeit with some financial support from the EU budget and widely perceived as a half-way house for Turkey in place of EU membership.

This formulation was well calculated to upset the Germans and everyone else, which it duly did, but with the help of Angela Merkel, Sarkozy’s brainwave has been transformed into a full-fledged EU initiative under the Barcelona process. See Stanley Crossick’s blog.

The Paris launch seemed to have a far more substantial political dimension than the Barcelona meetings ever did, so maybe the organisation can provide a valuable new forum for engagement between Europe and its neighbours and between the neighbours themselves. It is certainly conceived as a more balanced relationship, with a joint presidency and a secretariat outside the EU.

Europe needs to find traction for its role in advancing peace in the Middle East and the Paris meeting was notable for constructive comments made by the Israeli prime minister and the Syrian leader – see Mark Mardell’s blog – although a commitment to deal with weapons of mass destruction in the region had rather a hollow ring. If the new Union could really tackle problems of that scale it would be something special indeed.

But let’s look at some of the more practical long-term aims, which could offer major benefits to the region, such as cleaning up the Med, managing water resources (which is one of the conflict triggers in the Middle East), developing solar energy capabilities, improving transport links and tackling natural disasters. Really effective action in these areas could be a major contribution to the wellbeing of the region as a whole – and an experience in working together.

One issue of fundamental importance to the non-EU participants is better access for their food exports to European markets, but I saw no mention of that in the communiqué or reports of the Paris meeting. Given Mr Sarkozy’s attacks on Commissioner Mandelson for his stance on Doha it looks like deliberate avoidance, yet must surely be a fundamental element in helping to build the economies of our southern neighbours.

As the Doha Round reaches its climax (or anti-climax) perhaps this issue will be decided in another forum.

The immediate challenge is to decide where the secretariat is to be based, with the aim of having a fully operational organisation by the end of 2008. Let’s hope some of the high-flown rhetoric can be translated into tangible results and above all that the Union of the Mediterranean will provide a mechanism for the EU to make a substantive contribution to peace in the Middle East.

Posted in Enlargement, European politics, International, Mediterranean, Turkey | No Comments »