Directing the Diplomats

By KERRY BROWN

By KERRY BROWN

Directing the Diplomats

By KERRY BROWN

Europe’s foreign affairs head faces knotty problem of developing new structure

COURTESY OF KERRY BROWN

Catherine Ashton was appointed as the EU’s new high representative for foreign affairs and security policy by the 27 member states of the union last November. The announcement surprised many. Betterknown names such as current British Foreign Minister David Miliband and former Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten had been suggested. Ashton’s previous career had been as the Labour Party leader of the British House of Lords, and before that in the British National Health Service. In both,her main focus was on UK domestic issues.

Her job as trade commissioner did give her international experience, but during her hearing before the European Parliament in January 2010, one of the main issues that members concentrated on was her lack of foreign policy exposure. One German member of the European Parliament (MEP)complained after her appearance he had no clearer idea on what her vision for the EU in the world was, and where she wanted to take the union in global relationships. But, crucially, she dealt with most of the questions put to her reasonably confidently. Having passed this test, she must now proceed to implement the sections of the Lisbon Treaty relevant to her brief.

That means establishing, somehow, a new European diplomatic service. It is still not entirely clear how she will do this. As U.S.-based Irish scholar Perry Anderson wrote in his recently published study of Europe,The New Old World, the EU is frequently a mystery to its own citizens,let alone those outside of it. At least until the Lisbon Treaty took effect in December 2009 it consisted of four main pillars: the European Commission, a group of officials who administer and run the EU’s affairs;the European Parliament, elected by citizens across the 27 member states with widely different levels of turnout; the European Court of Justice; and finally the Council of Ministers, where the relevant leaders in each area of the 27 states meet at a higher level, almost along the lines of a cabinet,to decide key policy issues. Despite much criticism from some member states, in fact the bureaucracy that runs this huge entity is small—18,000 people at most. And they run it on a surprisingly small budget, less than 1 percent of the EU’s GDP.

The Lisbon Treaty recon fi gures the power and functions of these four pillars. The European Parliament is now upgraded, having powers like congresses in most places,sanctioning and scrutinizing new legislation.From this arises the right of the MEPs to question Ashton, and to authorize her final appointment. But there is some confusion over how the current parts of the European Commission dealing with external affairs will function once a new European diplomatic service is set up. New entry procedures for EU diplomats need to be decided, along with issues about how many people each country can have, and what sort of representation is needed at the highest level. Already the UK is anxious because its quota of current EU of fi cials at a senior level is falling. These issues need to be set out over coming months.

A vision on China

Ashton takes China seriously. When she was EU trade commissioner she made several visits to China, the last in September 2009,where she co-chaired an EU-China trade dialogue with Vice Premier Wang Qishan. But just as it is not clear what her overall vision of the EU’s global role is, so it is not clear where China fi ts into how she sees the EU’s priorities over the next few years.

Reports that she has been reading Mark Leonard’s short 2008 bookWhat Does China Think?at least reveal that she is starting to think in more depth about this issue. Leonard was one of the policy thinkers most favored by the new Labour government during and after its election in 1997 after 18 years out of power. He set up with others the Foreign Policy Center, which had, in particular, close links with the then British Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook. Leonard in particular argued for the EU being a model for the rest of the world to look at, including the United States,in terms of how it delivered accountable,transparent and stable governance. InWhy Europe Will Run the 21st Centuryhe argues that “those who believe Europe is weak and ineffectual are wrong...Europe is remaking the world in its own image through its unique ‘transformative power.’”

InWhat Does China Think?, Leonard,the head of the European Council on ForeignRelations since 2007, sets out what he sees as the key ideas that academics, of fi cials and policy makers in Beijing are working on for the modernization of the administrative and political system. During a visit to China in 2007, when he was a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,Leonard met with a number of prominent Chinese intellectuals, and talked with them about their vision for China in the next decade. The range of views he gathered was presented in an accessible and easy style.He also referred to experiments in local administration being undertaken in cities like Chongqing.

ONE VOICE: Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, at a press conference on helping Haitian earthquake relief at the EU headquarters in Brussels on January 18, along with Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Miguel Angel Moratinos and Karel De Gucht,at the time European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid

It was clear that there was a need for a brief overview of what Chinese thinkers themselves felt about the development of their own country. While there are many commentators outside China who set out,at some length, where China is, and what it needs to do, in order to modernize further in the future, there are very few Chinese writers who have any sort of coverage and exposure in the West.Yu Keping, from Peking University, and Wang Hui,from Tsinghua University,have both published works in English about where they see modern China standing.But beyond China specialists, their works have failed to reach a wider audience.Leonard, who already had a wide following because of broader work in the 1990s on foreign policy at the Foreign Policy Center, was able to leverage the interest he had created in his arguments over the EU to bring a new audience to look at the issues China faces. It is recognition of that therefore that Baroness Ashton may have chosen his book to start orientating herself as she deals with China in her new position.

Leonard explains various key challenges that China is currently facing—from a need to continuing satisfying its increasing energy needs, to doing something about its huge environmental issues, and continuing to grow its economy, at a time when the rest of the world is just emerging from global recession and only just beginning to post positive growth rates. In each of these areas, the EU is a good partner. It has some of the world’s best environmental technology. It is China’s largest trading partner.And it is seeking to work with China on energy ef fi ciency issues.

But what should be a marriage made in heaven has all too often in the last few years been marred by frustration between both sides, with clear evidence of a lack of understanding about each other’s needs. The EU remains frustrated at what it perceives as lack of market access in China. The rising trade deficit continues to be a political problem. For Chinese, the EU’s lack of unity on key issues continues to confuse. Unlike the United States, it continues to fail to speak with one voice. It sways between being merely a huge free trade area on some interpretations, to being a union between separate sovereign states with far greater and more sweeping ambition. These internal uncertainties affect the way it presents itself to the world outside.

For Chinese,the EU’s lack of unity on key issues continues to confuse

The issue of who now runs the EU as an organization is a good illustration of this. Is it the current President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, who was appointed for a further five years last year? Is it its newly appointed President Herman Van Rompuy,whose position was announced alongside Baroness Ashton’s last November? Is it the holder of the six monthly rotating presidency of the EU member states, currently the prime minister of Spain? Or is it the head

of the European Parliament,under new powers granted in the Lisbon Treaty? There is still a lack of clarity over how these four relate to each other, who leads in which areas, and who, in the end,can be said to be in charge.Once more, for those outside the EU things are even more confusing. Who exactly will China be speaking to about important political and economic issues in the months and years ahead? And who does China accord the highest protocol to when they visit China—Rompuy, Barroso or someone else?

These are not the problems that can be solved overnight. For Ashton’s specific area, having a cadre of China specialists in Europe might be a first step. That will need a great deal more detail than what is in Leonard’s short book. With the best will in the world, his account served only as a guide for beginners, and not as something to be used as a basis for detailed policy making. The EU, pre-Lisbon Treaty, has already done a lot of work on this. There is plenty to work from. Now the challenge will be to address issues of disunity,lack of clarity, and lack of a united vision over policy making toward China and other countries, which existed before. For this, Ashton will not need a book calledWhat Does China Think?, but something far trickier:What Does the EU Think of China?And, alas, that book remains unwritten.

(The viewpoints in this article do not necessarily represent those ofBeijing Review)

The author is a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in Britain

By KERRY BROWN