Lisbon Pact Failing to Lift the E.U. on Global Stage

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Je kunt natuurlijk wel van mening zijn dat het in het belang van Amerika
is om de EU-landen tegen elkaar uit te spelen, maar we laten het
natuurlijk wel gebeuren ... als het al gebeurt ;)

Groet / Cees

PS. In welke EU-krant wordt deze kant van de gang van zaken zo belicht?
Dan neem ik daar een abonnement op ;)

February 23, 2010
Lisbon Pact Failing to Lift the E.U. on Global Stage
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/world/europe/23iht-union.html
By STEPHEN CASTLE

BRUSSELS — Three months after the European Union introduced a new rule
book that was supposed to elevate its status on the global stage, an
awkward question is unavoidably being asked within the bloc: Has the
Lisbon Treaty actually made things worse?

The agreement finally became law in December at the end of an eight-year
battle to reform Europe’s ramshackle structures and to invest the
world’s largest trading bloc with equivalent diplomatic weight for its
27 member nations.

But during the treaty’s brief life thus far, confusion about the bloc’s
leadership has deepened, President Barack Obama has decided not to
attend a European summit meeting, a series of turf wars has broken out,
and there has been criticism of the low profile of the Union’s first
full-time president, Herman Van Rompuy, and its new foreign policy
chief, Catherine Ashton.

On Monday, the infighting worsened with news of a written complaint to
Ms. Ashton from the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, about the way
that the bloc’s new ambassador to Washington, João Vale de Almeida, was
appointed.

And, while the Union may use some new powers under the Lisbon Treaty to
deal with the Greek debt crisis, the treaty did not help avert it. On
Monday, the Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, said E.U.
leaders were “not up to the scale of the task” in dealing with the
crisis, The Associated Press reported.

Though some see the problems as predictable — and point out that it took
the new U.S. administration many months to get organized — most
observers accept that the Lisbon agreement got off to a bad start. The
question is whether it is suffering growing pains or symptoms of
something worse.

Thomas Klau, senior political analyst at the European Council on Foreign
Relations, argues that like “any organization restructuring its
management” the Union is suffering “a period of turmoil, tension, some
uncertainty and some loss of efficiency.”

But Ron Asmus, executive director of the Transatlantic Center at the
German Marshall Fund of the United States, believes that new players,
including Ms. Ashton, must assert themselves, and fast. “If there is a
vacuum of power, someone fills it,” said Mr. Asmus, a former U.S. deputy
assistant secretary of state for Europe, who supports a greater global
role for the Union. “The institutions and new people have to fill that
vacuum fairly quickly.”

Mr. Asmus said U.S. policymakers were asking whether the Union was
serious about its global ambitions. “People argue ‘if they wanted to
play that role wouldn’t they be handling things differently?”’ he said.
“‘If it were a priority for Europe to boost its presence on the global
stage, would they not choose their leaders differently and work harder
to create more clarity?”’

The Lisbon Treaty was intended to revamp a system under which each of
the E.U. nations held the presidency of the bloc for six months on a
rotating basis. It created a new full-time presidency and a more
powerful foreign policy chief to be reinforced by a diplomatic service.

But because it was unclear before December exactly when the treaty would
come into force, Spain prepared for a full stint as E.U. president and,
said Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the European Policy
Center in Brussels, “is not particularly happy at having to hand over
everything to new bodies.”

Spanish efforts to retain a high profile have been damaging because they
have undermined one of the Lisbon pact’s main selling points:
streamlining European leadership.

Spain’s determination to hold an E.U.-U.S. summit meeting in Madrid have
backfired and Spanish attempts to grab the limelight illustrate one of
the flaws in the treaty, which does not completely end the rotating
presidency.

On issues from the environment to social affairs, ministerial meetings
will continue to be led by politicians from the rotating presidency.
However, the duties of the prime minister and foreign minister are
mostly handled by Mr. Van Rompuy or Ms. Ashton.

The problem ought to diminish in July, when Belgium assumes the rotating
presidency, because Brussels says it will play a lower-key role than
Spain. Nevertheless, prime ministers or foreign ministers from countries
holding future rotating E.U. presidencies may not take kindly to being
sidelined.

Meanwhile, the Lisbon Treaty is vague on many issues — like who is in
charge of international policy on climate change — leaving the new
personalities to establish lines of demarcation.

Ms. Ashton’s job is unique because she is both a vice president of the
European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, and a representative
of the European Council, where national governments meet.

The idea behind her appointment was to put all of the Union’s foreign
policy financing — once in the hands of the commission — behind
strategic policy goals agreed to by national governments in the council.

But that has sparked a fierce turf war, as the commission battles to
retain as many powers as possible.

At the same time, the regulations setting up the new E.U. diplomatic
service — or External Action Service — have yet to be framed, prompting
intense in-fighting over the relative roles of the European Commission,
which has a network of foreign representatives, other E.U. officials and
diplomats from national governments.

The announcement last week that Mr. Vale de Almeida — until recently the
closest aide to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European
Commission — will take up the job of E.U. representative in Washington
was seen by some as a pre-emptive strike by the commission.

In the meantime, Ms. Ashton has been operating with a skeleton team. The
speed and visibility of the Union’s response to the earthquake in Haiti
was criticized publicly by France’s Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche.
At one press conference, Ms. Ashton; the Spanish foreign minister,
Miguel Ángel Moratinos; and the former European commissioner for
development, Karel De Gucht, contradicted one another’s figures on how
much the Union was spending in Haiti.

Meanwhile, Mr. Van Rompuy has been trying to mark out economic policy,
traditionally a preserve of the commission, as his main priority. That
has caused tension with Mr. Barroso.

Mr. Van Rompuy is also now arguing for a seat on the Group of 20, in
addition to Mr. Barroso’s G-20 seat, even though the United States
believes that Europeans are overrepresented.

“You always have that kind of gray zone where people have to lean to
know where their limits are,” a European diplomat said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

At the same time, the new powers of the European Parliament look certain
to complicate the making of decisions on the international stage.
Earlier this month, Washington was rebuffed by the Parliament, which —
emboldened by its new Lisbon Treaty powers — voted down the so-called
Swift agreement allowing the United States access to information on bank
transfers.

Under Lisbon, the deputies will have the power to reject trade deals and
have a powerful say on agriculture legislation. Mr. Missiroli said that
the Parliament was growing into a role similar to that of Congress in
the United States.

Supporters of the treaty argue that it was never going to deliver
instant results. “It is difficult,” said Charles Grant, director of the
Center for European Reform, “to write off what has not been built,”
referring the new European diplomatic corps.

“Turf wars are a characteristic of bureaucracies since 10,000 years
B.C.,” he said. “Bureaucracies fight other bureaucracies. Everyone knew
this would happen.”

The consensus is that it will take anything from one to five years for
the system to start delivering.

“It may be that we will have to sing a requiem of broken hopes in two
years’ time,” Mr. Klau said, “but it is certainly too early now.”

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