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CAN EUROPE BECOME A GREAT POWER ?

Pierre Buhler1

No two notions are so charged with meaning as Europe and power. Taken together, they hark back to centuries of European history and stake out the boundaries of our heated contemporary debates over the future of European construction. Time and again, over a period of decades, the concept of Europe as a power - seen by some as the only way forward and by others as a dead end - has been rejected in no uncertain terms, only to resurface again and again. What accounts for Europe's ambivalence towards power? It must be borne in mind that it was in Europe that power produced its most barbaric abuses; and also that it was Europe that invented the forms that power has taken in the modern world: concentration of power in the hands of the state, technological edge, military superiority, projection of power in the rest of the world, efficient systems for producing goods and services, ideologies for which power served as a crucible, and so on. The ruins of 1945, the mass graves and the crematoria, also part of this history, similarly shape attitudes towards power among Europe's individual citizens and nations alike.

Generations of European young people have studied the path taken by such founding fathers as Schuman, Monnet and Adenauer in their endeavour to safeguard the continent from the curse of power, the horrors of which were glaringly obvious at that time. "Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity." In uttering these historic words on 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman was describing a method imbued with realism and modesty. His proposal to place production of coal and steel, the two raw materials of the arms industry, under a supranational authority offered a way to circumvent military power and the evils associated with it in the aftermath of the war. Four years later, when the same method was applied to an attempt to integrate the European armed forces, it failed; and this failure was another watershed in the founding of Europe. West Germany would not be rearmed as part of the abandoned European Defence Community, but rather within the Atlantic ambit, under the leadership of the United States, seen as the only guarantee of Europe's security against the Soviet Union.

The initial impetus for European construction was therefore the restoration of German sovereignty and the safeguards put in place against a still-possible resurgence of German power (with the agreement, it should be noted, of the German leadership, itself alarmed by such a prospect). The resulting two-track European and Euro-Atlantic integration generated two processes, each driven by a constant tension between the need for discipline to support the common interest on the one hand and the tendency of Nation-States to pursue independent policies – on the other. Together, these two interacting integration processes shaped the matrix of Europe and wrote the major chapters of its contemporary history. Their abiding features still determine Europe's political equilibrium.

1 Associate Professor at Sciences Po. This article is an updated version, as of May 15, 2007, of an article published, in French, under the title « L'Europe et la puissance » in the Annuaire Français de Relations Internationales (French Yearbook on International Relations), Vol. VII, 2006.

The third factor affecting the status of power in Europe was power projection beyond the confines of Europe itself. The diplomatic fiasco of the Anglo-French Suez expedition in November 1956 suddenly revealed to the two colonial powers (unshielded by their status as permanent members of the Security Council) the extent to which their influence had been weakened and their margin for manoeuvre reduced with the emergence of the two superpowers. London and Paris drew diametrically opposite conclusions from this failure. Britain, and all successive Prime Ministers, chose to chart a course as close to the United States as possible in an attempt to safeguard British national interests and influence by making the most of the "special relationship". In contrast, France responded by affirming its political independence from the United States.

The "hour of Europe"?

But it was not until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War that the issue of power was again raised – and then not in terms of a political Europe, but rather in connection with the question of how power was to be re-distributed within Europe. The uncertainties revealed the old demons and rekindled the old anxieties about the "German question". And, once again, the two organising principles of the European order were called upon to absorb the "shock" of German reunification: the Atlantic Alliance (in which Germany remained integrated, with the approval of the USSR, after reunification), and the European Community, for which new ambitions were defined at the instigation of Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand. Epitomizing this new ambition was the Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1991,the most important step taken towards political union, even towards the classical form of the Nation-State, in the entire history of European construction. European citizenship was established; the creation of a single currency was decided; a common – albeit not a single - foreign and security policy (CFSP) was introduced; and issues until then considered to fall within the purview of member states, such as justice and home affairs, were included within the scope of Europe. In both its symbolism and its practical effects, the Maastricht Treaty marked a radical change in the European entity. This explains why agreement on it was so difficult to achieve and why it included procedures that very nearly proved disastrous in a number of countries, including France.

"The hour of Europe has come," said Luxembourg's Jacques Poos, President of the European Council, in the same year of 1991. This bravado was favourably received in the United States, just emerging from the first Gulf War, its first attempt to maintain order in the post-Cold-War world, and more than happy to hand over to its European allies responsibility for dealing with secondary conflicts such as the one brewing in Yugoslavia. In an irony of fate, the ink was hardly dry on the Maastrict Treaty when the Yugoslav conflict forced the embryonic common foreign policy to undergo baptism by fire. It was stretched far beyond its capacity. In a dire sequence of events, Europe, caught between a rock and a hard place, proved utterly powerless.

Once again, power relationships were revealed in the harsh light of day. The United States initially stayed on the sidelines for reasons of domestic policy and because it did not see its strategic interests as being seriously threatened. But when the Europeans bogged down, they called on the United States to step in to help resolve the Bosnian conflict and the United States responded. It employed the instruments, methods and reflexes of power, first orchestrating a reversal of the balance of power on the ground and then taking charge of negotiations. The United States then brought its full weight to bear to obtain an arrangement – albeit a ludicrously complex one – that achieved the goal set for it of ending hostilities. The

Europeans and the Russians were involved in the Dayton peace negotiations but their participation did little to gloss over their comparative lack of power and the bit parts assigned to them. In a similar situation - the NATO air campaign against Serbia – a few years later, involving the same protagonists minus Russia, the difference in the power projected by the Europeans and the Americans would again be apparent, not just in terms of operational capabilities but also in terms of the amount of military force each was willing to employ to achieve the stated political outcome.

Brick by brick, political Europe

Learning from their failure in Yugoslavia, the Europeans went back to the drawing board. In a series of revisions of the European Union Treaty and at European Council sessions and bilateral summits, they gradually put together the "toolbox" of political Europe. The CFSP was given prominence with the creation of the post of "High Representative for the CFSP"; an official "European Security and Defence Policy" (ESDP) was introduced; a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force was set up; crisis management structures were formed and the European arms industry was integrated. These steps, negotiated every inch of the way, buffeted about by the political ebb and flow, were wrested with difficulty at summit meetings only to be eroded at the implementation stage by diplomatic and above all military bureaucracies, most of which were Atlanticist in culture and had reservations about any significant European defence construction outside the Atlantic framework. Adamantly emphasizing the risk of redundancy and the legitimate need for transparency and consultation between the Atlantic and European structures, they managed to clip the wings of every alternative system able to operate independently.

Their opponents argued that one could not simultaneously deplore Europe's dearth of security analysis, decision and operational tools and hamper its efforts to acquire them. France, always in the forefront of the effort to re-balance roles and responsibilities – and, ultimately, the distribution of power – between America and Europe, consistently took this position. De Gaulle's proposed alternative lacked credibility in the context of the East-West divide, but subsequent, more realistic proposals proved no more successful. These included reactivation of the Western European Union (WEU), formation of a "European pillar of NATO", creation of a "European Security and Defence Identity" and even a conditional return of France to NATO's integrated military structures, with NATO re-balanced in favour of the Europeans. All sorts of reasons - inertia, bureaucratic turf wars, vested interests – have been suggested to explain this failure, but they cannot paper over the obvious fact that by definition power cannot be shared because it is indivisible. If only subliminally, this truism bolsters the arguments of those who believe Europe capable of accumulating power and of acquiring step by step, first on paper and then in fact, the tools, the culture and the experience needed to form one of the poles within the "multipolarity" that France and others are calling for.

This vision lies at the heart – and sometimes below the surface – of the ongoing debate about the meaning and the purpose of European construction. France may be its most fervent supporter, but France is not alone. The rationale is appealing and compelling: the combined military, political, economic and demographic potential of the EU member states lends the Union influence greater than that of the sum of its parts. This influence is felt first in the area geographically close to the Union - in the potential member states. They are hard at work adjusting their conduct to comply with its norms, and will then, by joining it, further increase its influence. Central and Eastern Europe have successfully followed this path. In the rest of the world, the EU basks in the prestige of its successful experiment. It also has tools that it has

patiently put together and can bring to bear – a series of agreements with states both small and large and with regional organisations; summit meetings; multi-faceted development assistance; expertise in support for state reconstruction; and common action, based on an intensive negotiating process, in a growing number of areas (generally areas in which there is low risk of disagreement and on which there is a broad consensus). Last but not least, the Union is now able to conduct comprehensive complex military operations. Examples include the Artemis operation in Congo (DRC) in June 2003 and the Althea operation in Bosnia in December 2004, which were broadly perceived as being in the public interest.

Of course there are many pitfalls along the way. The French and Dutch votes in the referenda in the spring of 2005 are a case in point. But, the argument goes, has Europe not experienced other setbacks and each time overcome them? Once the impact has been absorbed, will the inexorable momentum towards the creation of a "European power" not resume? Nothing could be less certain. As political integration proceeds, Europe is coming up against the limits – inherent in its nature, its procedures and its architecture - to its acquiring state power.

The "power equaliser"

These limits are first of all due to Europe's internal equilibrium. As Europe emerged from the Second World War, and as it has expanded in the course of successive enlargements, German reunification and the implosion of the Soviet bloc, Europe is not a blank slate but rather an area overlaid, even crowded, with pre-existing patterns of power. It is made up of coexisting states whose historic experience (particularly with respect to their position at the end of the Second World War), political culture, demographic and economic significance and simple national interest combine to define a specifically European distribution of power. Europe comprises two nuclear powers that are members of the UN Security Council, several economic powers that are members of the G7, allies that are members of NATO, formerly "neutral" states that are leery of power, dyed-in-the-wool Atlanticists, small states with no particular ambition to make their mark in the international arena and nations that spent decades under Soviet rule keeping a careful watch on Russia out of the corner of their eye.

But an excessively narrow geographic focus would overlook the United States as a European power. America belongs in Europ, not just as a result of the Cold War, in which its military presence formed the basis of the continent's security, but also as a result of the current security balance, defined less and less in regional and more and more in global terms. It took American intervention to put out the Yugoslavian fire and a large number of member states within the enlarged NATO see the United States as their best guarantor against destabilisation by Russia. Last but not least, the United States demonstrated in 1991 that it is the only power capable of ensuring security of oil supplies, of great benefit to the Europeans, and that it remains the watchdog of a world order that also serves European interests.

For decades, the constructive ambiguity that is the hallmark of the European project enabled Europe to move forward without upsetting this delicate political balance. It did so not by ignoring the equilibrium but by steering a delicate course within it and refraining from confronting it head-on. True, there have regularly been attempts to do so, each time generating resistance and skirmishing. There was, for example, the showdown between France and Germany at the December 2000 European Council in Nice over a re-distribution of qualified majority voting rights that broke with traditional Franco-German parity, and over the number of seats in the European Parliament. But when France and Germany consult each

other, as they often do, before taking initiatives or positions that may affect the European political balance, eyebrows are raised, suspicions are aroused and countermoves are prepared among the other Europeans, hostile to anything resembling a French-German "directorate" or a "directorate" of large European states, as well as to anything appearing to infringe on sovereign equality, however sterile, in decision-making.

And when a "European" interest impinges on or conflicts with an "Atlantic" interest, some states are inclined to support the latter. This is not surprising, when the power differential is overwhelming and they are dealing not with a European directorate but with US leadership, when NATO decision-making procedures carefully maintain an appearance of sovereign equality and when the virtually total control of the Alliance by a single political authority appears to guarantee reliability and security. In the view of many Europeans, the United States is a "power equaliser" that places all the Europeans into a separate category that is much less differentiated than if would be if Europe were authentically independent2. The United Kingdom sees its "special relationship" with the United States, carefully nurtured by all British Prime Ministers, as giving it a key role as a power multiplier, together with the attendant status and influence and extensive cooperation in the field of intelligence. This explains British reticence towards any assertion of European political identity. Last but not least, Germany has always taken care to avoid being forced to choose between its special relations with France and the United States. It took the internal stress caused by strong hostility to the impending war in Iraq, against the backdrop of the 2002 election campaign, for Chancellor Schröder to depart from this principle.

However, this almost organic relationship with the United States cannot be explained solely in terms of the internal European balance. Any substantive European political assertion also necessarily affects the distribution of power between the European entity and its American protector – and thus the transatlantic relationship. The history of the latter is littered with situations that ended with the Europeans being put in their place and their attempts, however feeble, at asserting strategic, military or political independence being nipped in the bud. The Europeans did unite time and again to oppose various American policies at odds with their interests, such as the Siberian gas pipeline in the 1980s, the extraterritorial D'Amato-Kennedy and Helms-Burton3 Acts in the 1990s and the pressure to obtain bilateral agreements granting immunity from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in 2002-2003. But in each of these instances, the issue was secondary and transatlantic ties were in no way jeopardised. All European states proclaim the importance of transatlantic ties; but the degree of importance varies from country to country, reflecting differing motivations and above all differing assessments of the risk of damaging transatlantic relations.

The 2003 Iraq war certainly revealed such differences. Eight EU members, including such large states as the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, as well as the ten future members of the Union sided with the Americans. Meanwhile, seven EU members, including France and Germany, disagreed with the United States about the wisdom of attacking Iraq in the absence

2

See in particular Nicole Gnesotto, La puissance et l’Europe, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 1998.

3 The Helms-Burton Act penalises non-American firms "guilty" of using assets nationalised by the Cuban government after 1959. The D'Amato-Kennedy Act sanctions companies, likewise non-American, that carry on trade of a certain intensity with Iran or Libya, in particular with respect to oil investments. These bills, submitted by Congress, were signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. All states affected by these Acts, particularly in Europe, Canada and Latin America, immediately lodged a strong protest against these illegal measures, and the EU adopted countermeasures. The Clinton administration was fully aware of the illegality and negotiated the necessary waivers with Congress to ensure that the measures were not implemented.

of proof of weapons of mass destruction or an Iraqi refusal to cooperate with United Nations inspectors. For the first group of countries, the issue was the transatlantic relationship rather than the merits of the case. None of these countries, even those (such as the United Kingdom) that were least reluctant to use military force, would have preferred intervention to continuing inspections, had it not been for the pressure of the Bush administration's operational and political timetable. In their view, the risk of openly opposing the United States outweighed the risk of a dangerous operation in Iraq or a rift within Europe. "I want a stronger Europe, more capable of speaking with a unified voice, but I don't want that Europe setting itself up in opposition to America, because (...) I think it will be dangerous and destabilising," said Tony Blair just after the Iraq4 war. Poland's President Kwasniewski, the Head of State of a country that had just been admitted to NATO and was inclined to see that organisation as a more reliable security guarantee than European arrangements, voiced the same viewpoint even more candidly, stating that "if this is President Bush's vision, it is mine."5

The United States is thus a fully-fledged European power, unlike the European Union. Any move by Europe towards becoming a power would substantially alter its relationship with the US – an undertaking on which few Europeans are willing to embark.

Shared decision-making

The limits of such an undertaking lie not only in the inertia due to the distribution of power in Europe but also in Europe's complex decision-making processes, which are extraordinarily open to influences of all sorts. The European system combines embryonic federalism and supranationality, dovetails national and European levels, operates permanent negotiation mechanisms in parallel with each other and involves not only the European Parliament but also a myriad of pressure groups and lobbyists alongside representatives of the member states. In consequence, decision-making is fragmented and spread among a large number of levels and fora. This pattern is not specific to European construction. It is typical of all advanced democratic systems, starting with that of the United States6. The process is of course less diffuse and dispersed on matters subject to intergovernmental cooperation. Here, states retain the main decision-making authority and decisions are taken at a high political level (European Council, Council of Ministers), so that states are able to bring their policy preferences to bear. But the large number of decision-makers, the importance of achieving consensus, the links among the various issues and the need to form coalitions all make for a modus operandi that stands in stark contrast to the exercise of power, if power is defined as the authority to arbitrate, unity in decision-making and unity in executing decisions.

The openness of the European system to outside influence gives the United States a remarkable ability to sway decisions on issues of importance to the Americans, without formal American participation in discussions. Quite a few EU member states are willing, for reasons of their own, to lend an ear and even a voice to American concerns. And not infrequently, representatives of the new member states circulate documents at meetings in Brussels that reproduce, with no attempt at camouflage, the "talking points" handed out by

U.S. Embassies in European capitals.

4 Interview in the Financial Times, 27 April 2003.

5 Quoted by David Sanger, “Threats and Responses”, The New York Times, 24 January 2003.

6 See in particular H. Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment”, in Anthony King (ed.) The New American Political System, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, 1978.

These practices cannot, however, be branded disreputable. Despite the existence of agreed common positions, there is at this stage no consolidated definition of a "European interest", at least nothing comparable to what is meant by "national interest". A French critic of Europe, Gabriel Robin, makes the well-taken point that "no European interest is as yet discernible because it is overshadowed by national interests. An international policy issue [can be looked at] twenty different ways, all equally arbitrary, all equally legitimate, depending on one's position, one's interests, one's project, in short, on one's policy. The idea that for every political issue there is an obvious, single European solution that applies across the board is a misconception."7 Pending the emergence of this "European interest", each party attempts to persuade the others that its own political preferences best express it.

This difficulty, inherent in European construction from the very beginning, will increase with expanding membership, as a result of a sort of "European law of physics", a term coined by Pascal Lamy at the time he was a member of the Commission. The law states that complexity increases not proportionally but exponentially with the number of EU member states. For lack of consensus, the EU's decision-making machinery has not been overhauled to offset the dissipating effects of successive enlargements, and these continue apace: Bulgaria and Romania were offered membership in 2007, the Thessaloniki European Council in June 2003 approved the opening of the accession procedure to the Balkan states, the Brussels European Council in December 2004 did the same for Turkey, and membership remains the stated objective of other European states such as Ukraine and non-European states such as Morocco. While these accessions have been postponed for the time being, ultimately the EU is set to become an entity of at least 30 members. This will make communication, expression of views and ultimate decision-making at European summit meetings difficult, if only from a practical and logistical point of view.

But the system in fact generates less chaos and paralysis than its configuration and complexity might suggest. This is because well-oiled and efficient machinery – national experts, negotiating uninterruptedly, and the apparatus of the High Representative in the case of the CFSP - prepares decisions upstream. In addition to his executive powers, the High Representative has responsibility for providing initiative, impetus and synthesis, and each state strives, through a variety of strategies (making experts and information available, direct contacts, etc.), to influence these by injecting its own policy preferences. However, this "smoothing" function ceases to operate when politically sensitive matters requiring arbitration or negotiation at European Council level are at issue.

Competing visions

In the well-worn caricature, European construction is presented as facing a fork in the road: in one direction, European power and political union, foreshadowing a "Westphalian" type state (this project is ascribed to France); and in the other, a vast European trade zone, open to competition, with little political integration, structured by the transatlantic relationship (this is assumed to be the goal of such countries as the United Kingdom, Denmark and the newly minted member countries of Central and Eastern Europe). In reality, the picture is more complex, marked by the wide diversity of historic and political cultures across member states, by their differing visions of the world and their role in it.

Over five decades of European construction, France has certainly been the most ardent advocate of endowing Europe with the resources of power, and in particular with military

7 Gabriel Robin, Entre empire et nations : penser la politique étrangère, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2004.

capabilities. These are seen as a prerequisite if not for independence, then at least for emancipation from the American protector. This objective was clearly in evidence in the first proposals for political union initiated by de Gaulle, and it reappears in French diplomacy with the consistency of a leitmotiv, driving an unremitting activism aimed at forging the CFSP and then the ESDP8 and ultimately lending credibility to the ambition, announced by President Chirac, for Europe9, this "formidable multiplier of power", to play a full role in a "multipolar world in which only the European Union has the critical size to establish a dialogue of equals with its major partners".10

In Germany, the most elaborate vision of the European project was probably formulated by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, in a speech given at Humboldt University in Berlin on 12 May 2000 in which he called for the creation of a highly integrated "European federation of nation states" – possibly starting with a "vanguard" of states bound by enhanced cooperation – operating on the principle of subsidiarity and supported by a strong parliament and an elected president. In April 2001, the SPD put forward its own project for Europe, likewise calling for a federal structure taking inspiration from the German experience and based on across-the-board application of the Community method, with an all- powerful Commission and a strengthened Parliament. However, both visions were low-key, even silent, on the subject of Europe as a power.

Yet another approach is taken by the United Kingdom. It bears little resemblance to its caricature as a Europe devoid of political substance, exposed to the onslaught of market capitalism. France found a partner in Tony Blair, who was distressed by Europe's powerlessness in the Balkan conflict, in Saint-Malo in December 1998. Together France and Britain supported setting up "a capability for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces (...) acting in conformity with our respective obligations in NATO", a capability that could be mobilised in cases "in which the Alliance as a whole is not engaged". In agreeing that defence could be an integral part of European construction and take the form of a "concrete project" (to quote Schuman's expression rather than the convoluted term used in an article of the Maastricht11 Treaty), the British Prime Minister was endeavouring to reinvigorate a faltering defence effort under the European banner. For the United Kingdom and France, the idea was to restore European credibility with a view to a future transatlantic division of labour – although, as Blair saw it, the September 11, 2001 attacks once again changed the circumstances and the order of priorities.

Within the European entity, there are therefore both federalists (Germany, the Netherlands, etc.) and states committed to sovereignty, a camp in which the French and the British are joined by the countries of the most recent wave of accessions, freed from Soviet domination and reluctant immediately to give up the new-found sovereignty that was so long denied them. But few are prepared to make a determined effort to provide Europe with power, especially military power. Most European nations see little need for it. They associate power with nationalism and its abuses, with Machtpolitik and its dire consequences and with the tragedies that afflicted their continent in the 20th century. Power is the spectre haunting the historic conscience of Europeans traumatised by the two world wars, and power has, for them, an aura of illegitimacy and immorality. No country is more steeped in this attitude than Germany, and

8 ESDP: European Security and Defence Policy.

9 Speech to the Bundestag, 27 June 2000.

10 Opening speech to the 13th Ambassadors' Conference, 29 August 2005.

11 Article J.4: “The common foreign and security policy shall include all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence".

it runs through the speech given at Humboldt University by Joschka Fischer, representing the Greens, a political party with roots in the pacifism of the 1980s: "The core of the concept of Europe after 1945 was, and still is, a rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648." The European project, undertaken as an endeavour to voluntarily dissolve German power and with it that of the other nations, was indeed built on a rejection of power, which, to be fair, only the protection afforded by American power made possible.

Robert Kagan, in his famous article, turns this reasoning on its head. He argues that European military weakness, hidden during the Cold War but now obvious, explains the Europeans' aversion to power and their preference for domesticating it through international law and multilateralism – an easier option than attempting to oppose the United States by accumulating power of the same type. Making a virtue of necessity, the Europeans not only see the world through the lens of their own post-modern experience but work to induce the community of nations to share their vision, as part of a new "civilising mission": "This is what many Europeans believe they have to offer the world: not power, but the transcendence of power."12 Indeed the projection of power by the United States – its "unilateralism" – is perceived as a rejection of the European model, as a challenge to the "viability of the European project".

The limits of the "European method"

This challenge comes not just from outside Europe but also from within the European ranks. And it is explained by Europe's dual handicap: it has run out of steam, and its method has inherent limits. It is not giving in to "Europessimism" to point out that Europe is languishing, that doubt has set in – not about the viability of the existing structure but about the extent to which it can be further developed. Europe has proven itself, true, and resoundingly so, but at the cost of forced marches and frequent battles waged by the vanguard, clustered around the French-German tandem, against the forces of inertia. The aura and legitimacy of European construction are of course rooted in these achievements, but so is the future progress that they promised. And today's doubts are indeed about these promises of future progress. "The fact that the Union manages a currency, regulates competition and distributes regional aid is not enough to ensure its future (... since) in Europe the common good is an ongoing day-to-day endeavour, and not a legacy of history," said the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, adding that, "in contrast to nations, the European Union is constantly called upon to justify its existence."13 There is growing doubt about the future of the Union because the edifice is now subject to more strain than ever before, first as a result of enlargement and second as a result of globalisation.

President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl were able to negotiate the first phase of the reunification of the European continent – the reunification of Germany – by including it in an energetic push for deepening and integration, culminating in the Maastricht Treaty and the creation of the euro. The second wave - the ineluctable accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to the European Union - was not accompanied by further deepening. Within a few short years, the number of member states jumped from 12 to 25, but there was no real reform of the institutional machinery, a few attempts notwithstanding. So the second wave was subject to Pascal Lamy's "European law of physics".

12 R. Kagan, “ Power and Weakness ”, Policy Review, No. 113, June-July 2002.

13 Jean Pisani-Ferry, “L’Europe sert-elle encore à quelque chose?”, in Zaki Laïdi, Le monde selon Telos, PUF, Paris, 2006, p. 296.

Enlargement did not, of course, paralyse Europe. But it did create a different Europe, whose centre of gravity has shifted towards Mitteleuropa, to use the old geopolitical concept. The new member states did not, however, find their place within the German sphere of influence, but rather in allegiance to the United States, seen as the power that freed them from Soviet domination and above all as the ultimate guarantor of the security of Central and Eastern Europe against a Russia bound to raise its head again. The move that symbolised this guarantee, admission to NATO, occurred much earlier than accession to the European Union, which was a long drawn-out process. The "American tropism" in the foreign policies of the Central and Eastern European countries therefore comes as no surprise. It was obvious in the "letter of the Ten" supporting United States military plans for Iraq in February 2003. It continues to be in evidence, less visibly but nevertheless clearly, whenever an American security issue has European ramifications - examples being Washington's attempts to give NATO a global dimension and the deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic of parts of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system.

Added to this is an upsurge in populism that transcends the left-right divide. It is represented by such leaders as Vaclav Klaus in Prague, the Kaczynski brothers in Poland and Robert Fico in Slovakia. This trend, which is out of step with the liberal values that from the outset have formed the framework of Europe's political philosophy, tends to reduce the European project to an accounting equation, in which the focus is on open, avowed utilitarianism or the "defence of legitimate interests" of the countries concerned. This is not to say that the enlarged Europe has run its course. The "ill wind of Eastern European populism", as French political scientist Jacques Rupnik 14 terms it, is probably only a passing phase in the history of these young democracies. But it fuels a climate of nationalist selfishness that is always present under the surface in the rest of Europe, waiting to emerge.

Globalisation is the second factor corroding the fabric, method and spirit of European construction. "Not only is globalisation unsettling Europe, it is tearing Europe apart," as political journalist Alain Duhamel15 aptly puts it. There is a paradox here. The European project was widely presented by the leaders of the member states as a way to control globalisation, ensure a "civilised" opening of the borders to free trade, reinforce the economy by making the most of the virtuous effects of the single market and export the "European social model" to the rest of the world. But instead, globalisation has inflicted a battering on Europe, bringing in its wake offshore relocations, loss of industrial jobs, tax and social dumping, deregulation and intensified rivalries. These scourges fuel a perception of growing poverty and economic insecurity. They were blamed on Europe by Europe's detractors and even, in many cases, by European leaders themselves in an attempt to pass the buck to a convenient scapegoat.

The French and Dutch no votes in the spring of 2005 were above all symptoms of accumulated grievances, rather than an answer to the question put in the referenda. The votes nevertheless fed the vicious circle of the crisis, creating an image of institutional paralysis and a perception that Europe had lost its way. Though it is not possible to disentangle cause and effect, the uncertainty about the direction of Europe, its borders and its cohesion in the brutal global competition, as well as the ongoing scepticism about its influence have in recent years created the impression that Europe is engaged in a headlong rush to failure. Even icons of

14 Jacques Rupnik, “Le vent mauvais du populisme est-européen”, www.telos-eu.com, 3 November 2006.

15 Alain Duhamel, “Le crépuscule de l’Europe française”, Libération, 21 March 2007.

Europe's industrial success, such as Airbus and Galileo, showed cracks, revealing, under the pressure of national rivalries, the weakness of the political processes that had created them.

There is also uncertainty about Europe's ability to take collective action. This is not because the rejection of the constitution delayed the establishment of a European diplomatic corps headed by a "European Minister of Foreign Affairs", but rather – far more seriously - because there is no compelling reason why 27 different national interests and 27 foreign policies should come together to form a European interest and a European foreign policy. Nevertheless, the CFSP is not an empty shell. There is scope for consensus on certain issues, which has resulted in successful action being taken under the European flag on the European periphery, as in Bosnia, and farther afield, as in Aceh in Indonesia.

But when it comes to the truly decisive issues of international policy - starting with the main one, security - the situation is different. These issues involve relations with the United States, Russia and China, as well as energy supplies and Mid-East policy, and here nothing compels cohesion. Each more or less serious test reveals how difficult it is to achieve a consensus when there is no common interest to cement it. Quite apart from the split over the Iraq war, recent threats to interrupt Russian natural gas and oil deliveries have demonstrated, once again, the toothlessness of the European Union and the risk of division amongst Europeans whenever power relationships are involved – in this case the threat to cut off Europe's fuel supplies in the dead of winter.

The paradox of a "European power"

Europe is, ultimately, a paradox. While Europe is "genetically programmed" to reject power and while most of its protagonists are leery of power, the entire European construction process - which has already chalked up a number of successes, such as the single currency - makes the acquisition of the forms and tools of power an end in itself and makes power an ultimate objective. The explanation for the paradox probably lies in the different visions coexisting within the European project and in the resulting compromises, which are borne by the widely held belief that the edifice as a whole will only be cohesive and stable if there is uninterrupted progress towards integration. But the compromises do not by themselves provide a compelling definition of the ultimate purpose of the European endeavour. Is the goal to create a fully-fledged federal Nation-State? Is it to achieve a more balanced distribution of responsibility in the transatlantic relationship? Or is it to achieve convergence of European interests in order to better fit them into the machinery of world governance?

The paradox and the purpose of Europe are directly related to the two basic constituents of power – security and the state. Security, in the original meaning of the word - the preservation of the physical integrity of a group against possible attempts by other groups to harm it – is the foundation of power. The United States has performed this all-important task for the European states since 11 December 1941, when Germany and Italy declared war four days after Pearl Harbor. Having triumphed over the Axis powers and removed the mortal threat to security that they represented, the United States then faced the new and equally threatening prospect of a takeover of Europe by the Soviet Union. Against the backdrop of "globalised" security, the western part of Europe was therefore placed under American protection, while the eastern part came under Soviet occupation. Without going into this last aspect, it is fair to say that American protection – and the enlistment of the Europeans to contribute to it – left a lasting mark on European political life. First, it provided a cocoon and a spur for European construction, which could be carried forward without the burden of providing for defence.

Second, it spared the Europeans, or at least most of them, responsibility for ensuring the security of their states. Lastly, it packaged this lopsided relationship in a deft political contract, the Atlantic Alliance, that preserved the appearance of sovereignty for each of its members.

The Soviet threat has now been removed and the threats to European security are no longer what they were in the days of the clearly delineated Soviet bloc, when the "iron curtain" was clearly identified by a wall, watchtowers, etc. Nevertheless, against the current backdrop of diffuse and global threats compounded by the experience of conflict in the Balkans, the transatlantic relationship is as relevant as ever. This has deterred the Europeans from taking action that could prompt a rift and from giving up the comfortable status quo to launch into the unknown, which would entail taking on responsibilities that could be costly (in budget terms) and therefore run counter to the political preferences of their constituents.

The result is a fundamental difference in the way the Europeans see the world and themselves, a shift in their Weltanschauung. "The Europeans do not feel themselves to be and do not see themselves as the ultimate guarantors of their own security," says French political scientist Zaki Laïdi. This means that "they must constantly address the prerequisites for their existential survival, the extreme situations that could jeopardise it and the close interconnections between the various dimensions of power - political and military power, economic power and the power of identity, defined as the ideas and values that a human group sees as underpinning its survival."16 Europe shares this peculiarity with Japan, another country that has been burned by the excesses of power, in striking contrast to existing powers like the United States and Russia and emerging powers like China and India. A number of postures are possible on that basis, and they overlap in the European political landscape. Some states seek fragments of power, including military power, while others seek "avoidance" – "a more or less pronounced refusal to deal with the implications of this absence of autonomy" – and yet others seek diversion, focusing on threats to human security and ignoring threats to the security of each country taken individually17. Here we have, between the lines and minus the spirit of provocation, Kagan's line of reasoning.

The second constituent of power is the state. It is consubstantially related to power, not because of some abstract or metaphysical connection but because power is derived from command. "Command is power," wrote the French philosopher Julien Freund18. And although command can be delegated, it cannot be divided. It is therefore impossible to seek power, in the sense of political command, for both the European entity and its constituent parts. Vesting such extended power in Europe would necessarily mean entrusting its exercise to a single political entity. This ultimate transfer of sovereignty – minus a residual state sovereignty in the form of a right of each "federated" entity to secede – would radically change the nature of the Union. And it would raise a large number of issues: the expression of national identities, the representation of the specific interests of each of the constituent parties, the legitimacy of a European authority, the powers to be vested in such an authority and the cohesion and stability of that entity. In reality, no one in Europe is prepared to take this ultimate leap into the unknown. This is true of European political elites and even more true of European public opinion. Public opinion everywhere demands the right to be consulted. In the past it has

16 Zaki Laïdi, La norme sans la force. L’énigme de la puissance européenne ("Norms without force: the enigma of European power"), Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2005, pp. 16-18.

17 Ibid. pp. 24-25.

18 Julien Freund, L’essence du politique, 3rd edition, Dalloz, Paris, 2003, p. 135.

exercised this right, opposing decisions taken by governments and rejecting much more modest transfers of sovereignty, and in most cases untroubled by Europe's political weakness.

If the main basis of power is considered to be the security imperative, only responsibility for security can endow Europe with conventional power. But for Europe - as opposed to individual European states, or the United States - to be perceived as the best framework in which to vest this responsibility, there would have to be a serious apparent or actual threat that is specific to Europe; a "European interest" outweighing national interest would have to be formed and sustained; and finally, Europeans would have to agree to defence spending on a much higher level than the current 1.7% of GDP19. There are currently no signs of Europe moving in that direction.

Power reinvented

So does this mean that power can only be vested in the conventional unitary state and that Europe can only acquire power if it follows that model? In forging the concept of soft power, American political scientist Joseph Nye20 attempted to show that power can be diffuse and multiform and that it can be defined as the ability to influence, resist, persuade, attract, negotiate and sanction. In these terms, the construction of Europe has, through its method and its approach, changed the way power is exercised. Europe has invented new forms of power. By postulating that power-based rivalry has been transcended in one region of the world, and by putting that postulate into practice, the builders of Europe have patiently put together a model of interstate relations in which the risk of the use of force has bit by bit been dissipated and Kant's model of "perpetual peace" has come into its own. The change is perhaps partly due to Europeans growing tired of war. But it is doubtlessly due to Europe's decision to employ a method that borrows from domestic politics within a single state, in which the rule of law, codes, procedures, discussion and arbitration prevail. Europe applies a tightly meshed network of norms to its constituent parts and enforces them with a court of justice. In this way it is able, on behalf of an acknowledged public good, to transcend national sovereignties without abolishing them.

Europe does not confine itself to applying these norms internally. It considers that they have universal, global validity. This is seen as a corollary to Europe's recognition by third parties as more than a mere regional technical arrangement. In a sense, Europe is a "normative power", a recently formed concept21 that harks back to the traditional projection - by the European colonial powers up until the Second World War and by the United States thereafter

- of norms and values throughout the world. The difference is that in the past, such projection was always backed by military force, in contrast to Europe's projection of power today. Unable to deploy military force, the rejection of which is one of the foundations of its existence, Europe offers not an alternative to military force or a model to be emulated, but rather a tried and true method for managing relations among states. Such relations are

19 The $186 billion defence budget total for the 25 member states of the EU in 2004 is merely a statistical construct. A comparison with the $454 billion dollars spent on defence by the United States that same year does not take account of the gap in operational capacity between the two continents. See Gustav Lindstrom, “EU-US burdensharing: who does what?”, Les Cahiers de Chaillot, No. 82, September 2005.

20 Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, Basic Books, New York, 1990.

21 After François Duchêne coined the concept of "civil power" in the 1970s, the first reference to "normative power" occurs in Robert Rosencrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World, Basic Books, New York, 1986. It was formalised by Ian Manners in “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?”, Journal of Common Market Studies, 40 (2), 2002.

admittedly often still governed by the use of force and by an obsession with the ultimate guarantee of security; but they are also increasingly being governed by norms, rules and procedures.

Power is of course not absent from the European decision-making process and states are of course the most important stakeholders jockeying for influence. States can bring their interests and policy preferences to bear in negotiations. In practice their ability to do so is determined by their relative weight, i.e. their "power". And though it is true that no major decision can be taken if a "large" member state opposes it, the system also protects less populous States from being humiliated or crushed, thanks to the political obligation to achieve results, an unspoken consensus rule and the maintenance of unanimity voting procedures on issues deemed crucial. Each party attempts, in the process, to convince the others that its national position is the one that best reflects the "European interest"; and, driven by the need to achieve a compromise, the European interest is ultimately worked out on the basis of the different positions taken. It is distinct from national interests and carries greater legitimacy.

But it is even more through external projection, through effects on third parties that the European Community and then the European Union have invented a new way of exercising and expressing power, based on ongoing consultations on each and every issue. This is the approach taken to set priorities, decide on the terms in which issues are formulated, interpreted and addressed, achieve the trade-offs that produce decisions, policies and actions and last but not least implement decisions. The process enables states to express their national interests, inject their political preferences and make their "red lines" known, while accommodating the sensitivities and interests of others, including other states such as the United States and Japan and non-state organisations. In this way, a "structural solidarity" is ultimately forged around common positions and policies that commit member states and broadly serve as a reference framework for their national policies.

Clearly, this mechanism is not perfectly reliable or fully transparent. Not infrequently, states fail in significant ways to follow the common position adopted. There are occasional bilateral attempts to sway the debate in its early stages, and secret coalitions are sometimes formed to support one or another cause, to the great irritation of those who are left out. When a number of European states signalled their support for the Iraq war in early 2003 the CFSP was plunged, as we have seen, into the most serious crisis of its brief history. But the move was motivated by allegiance to the United Sates on an issue considered to involve an essential American interest, and because it exceeded the usual threshold of tolerance for European revolts, it constituted an exception to the rule.

The rule is solidarity, though, and solidarity has enabled the Europeans to present a united front on most of the major foreign policy issues. This applies to an even greater extent to trade issues, on which member states have long supported the Commission in its negotiations with Europe's major partners, especially the United States. The Europeans were not prevailed upon by American pressure to forgo construction of the Galileo satellite navigation system; but similar pressures did manage to persuade them in 2005 to drop the idea of lifting the embargo on the sale of arms to China. In these cases, the Europeans were not so much asserting their identity by opposing the United States (on issues lying below a certain threshold of strategic interest) as adopting a set of long-term policies that have clear-cut objectives and are backed by the resources and capabilities required to implement them. Ultimately, these policies constitute an organising principle for the international order through the effects they induce. These effects are felt first and foremost in the current and potential candidate countries, which

alter their conduct in an endeavour to "Europeanise" themselves, and in other third countries as well.

Europe has thus been projecting itself in the world order for decades. It has done so through its trade policy; through its strong development assistance policy, backed by some 48 billion euros22 (55% of total world official development assistance and triple the amount spent by the United States, which has a GDP of a similar order of magnitude); through special access to the European market; and through a competition policy that applies to all companies operating in the single market, regardless of their nationality. The European Central Bank may not be controlled by national authorities, but the single currency has acquired strong symbolic value and is increasingly being used as a reserve currency. The CFSP, at times rent by European disagreements and hamstrung by the failure of the constitutional treaty, nevertheless continues to make progress in non-controversial areas. Because it is pragmatic, because the 25 consult each other intensively, because a structure has been developed to support the High Representative and because a range of financial, diplomatic, military, and humanitarian instruments have been introduced, the Union is able to take action, to respond quickly and to make its voice heard and its presence felt in the international arena. Javier Solana's mediation played a crucial role in resolving the political crisis in Ukraine in November 2004. The Union has demonstrated that it can conduct nation-building operations and is carrying out a total of ten missions in several parts of the world. A "European Defence Agency" was set up in 2004 to foster convergence of national arms and military research efforts.

In all these endeavours, even those that have a military dimension, it is difficult to discern the pressure, coercion, intimidation and use or threatened use of force that are the hallmark of hard power. Even when member states of the European Union do apply hard power – in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq for example – it is under a national or the NATO flag or as part of a "coalition of the willing", and not under the European flag. Conversely, in its "normative" dimension Europe offers what is probably the best illustration of the concept of soft power, resulting precisely from the universal vocation assigned to the norms it produces. These have proven themselves by standing the test of rigorous negotiation; and they enjoy the legitimacy that comes from being supported by a large number of countries. They also benefit from the aura that attaches to highly successful undertakings.

Values, interests and preferences

Some of these norms are part of the core identity of Europe, indeed of the West as a whole. They comprise such features as democracy, market economics, rule of law, human rights, social justice, non-discrimination and the obligation to lend a helping hand to the rest of the world. Other norms reflect the common preferences and interests of a set of relatively advanced, prosperous economies and societies that are protected by well-developed welfare systems and have ageing populations. This includes a rejection of Realpolitik, defined as the expression of an international order marked by anarchy and rivalry among states focused exclusively on furthering their national interests. The European soul rebels against this paradigm, which accepts force as a way of settling conflict and holds the forms of organisation of the international system to which Europe is committed - multilateralism, governance, cooperation and development assistance, international organisations – to be inferior, or at least subordinate. This is quite close to the contrast Kagan, comparing the Europeans and the Americans, sarcastically drew between Mars and Venus.

22 Total national and EU contributions in 2006.

There is also a belief in the socialising force of trade. Trade was the guiding principle of European construction from the Common Market to the creation of the euro. But this was trade between countries having the same level of development – the European countries among themselves and the United States. The brutality of global competition, in which the emerging countries of Asia and Latin America have entered the picture, has upset these rules of the game and is fuelling a renewed call for norms and regulation to support the third category of European preferences - non-commercial social values. These were revealed in stark detail when trade liberalisation began to jeopardise them. They cover environmental protection, including the protection of rural landscapes shaped by agriculture, food and health safety, compliance with fundamental labour standards and cultural diversity. The debate about the precautionary principle, GMOs, traceability, biodiversity, climate change and child labour in certain countries reflects this set of collective European preferences23.

Europe seeks to inject these norms into the many channels of global governance, the main area in which Europe can contribute to shaping the world order. The unspoken hope is that the European model and method will spread, under the banner of rationalism and humanism, as a pattern for international relations to replace the iniquitous brutality of a world dominated by power. This approach and this goal can be read between the lines in the speeches given by European Union leaders and are seen more explicitly in the vein of European political philosophy represented by the eminent German thinker Jürgen Habermas24 and in the concept of "tranquil power"25 coined by the French philosopher Tzvetan Todorov, for example.

But in fact, these norms are handled differently depending on proximity to the European Union: the states nearest to it, the existing and aspiring candidates for accession, readily adopt them and implement them, interpreting them to their advantage where possible. Other states that hope to gain something – market access, development assistance or concessions of various descriptions – from the EU also take them on board, albeit in a more formal and rhetorical way. With even more caveats, the major emerging powers and Russia see dialogue

– or "strategic partnership" – with the European Union as an ad-hoc alliance to challenge the power monopoly of the United States, but not as the starting point for a repudiation of power or a conversion to the European post-modern model.

In the United States, the image of the European entity is not monolithic – the smooth advent of the euro proved a number of peremptory prophecies wrong – but the Republican and even the Democratic party leadership see the EU as a set of complex machinery that can promote norms at odds with American preferences – on the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court for example – but that can be circumvented by adept preventive diplomacy and bilateral pressure. However, outside the context of trade negotiations, the European Union is not considered to be a fully-fledged player on the international scene. And in the rest of the world, all those who remain remote from the magnetic pull of the European Union tend to interpret those collective preferences to which the EU claims to assign universal value, as no more than a defence of the vested interests of a group of rich countries.

The clear divide between soft power, which is fairly easily projected internationally, and hard power, which is in the hands of Nation-States or integrated in NATO, sustains the doubts as to Europe's ability to handle power. Some think that it disqualifies the entire endeavour to make Europe a power, purely and simply. What credibility can a foreign policy have when it

23 See Z. Laïdi, op. cit. pp. 65-103.

24 Jürgen Habermas, Après l’Etat-nation, une nouvelle constellation politique, Fayard, Paris, 2000.

25 Tzvetan Todorov, Le nouveau désordre mondial, Réflexions d’un Européen, Robert Laffont, Paris, 2003.

is devoid of the ultimate power to coerce, which the EU has, as its founding principle, rejected? . Can a construct like Europe morph into a conventional power able to ensure its own security without destroying its singularity and cohesion?

These are legitimate questions. But put in this way, they hark back to the age-old experience of power and ignore the new avenues that Europe is exploring in its pursuit of political projects in which the primacy of security has faded away, either because the project involves states that have forsworn the use of force in their mutual relations or because security and defence are provided by others, the United States in this instance. There is broad and promising scope for this new kind of power, and Europe is pioneering it.

But having invented many of the forms and norms of post-modern power, the Europeans cannot simply rest on their moral authority and prestige, content to see collective wisdom as the ultimate virtue or rationality and trusting that the rest of the world will follow their lead. The rest of the world, which accounts for nine-tenths of the world's population and five-sixths of the world's states, continues to adhere to the old paradigm of state power, under the last resort oversight of the United States. And the rest of the world continues to accumulate the economic, military and demographic instruments and resources of power. The few regional organisations that have been formed here and there in no way resemble integrated Europe. The differences among their members are too great, or they have been unable to break out of the formal framework of sovereignty and find a way to abandon it.

Moreover, the prestige and authority that Europe has acquired as a result of its economic and political success have been, as we have seen, dented by its homegrown troubles as well as the widening gap in competitiveness with the United States. Like Russia and Japan, Europe's population is beginning to shrink and to age. Unless this is offset by a policy of massive immigration, the result will be declining economic performance and a need for trade-offs to support the ageing population with social spending. The growth curves of the major immigration countries and the economic upsurge of Asia – which has chosen a path that ultimately owes very little to the European model – reflect these long-wave trends and reduce the impact of Europe's message to the rest of the world. Last but not least, it is not surprising that on serious issues, power ignores Europe and deals only with states.

There is, however, a place for Europe in the conventional power system and Europe has methodically and efficiently carved out a position for itself there. This place is not of course in the field of military force or security. Instead, it is in the area of trade, competition and currency – all areas to which, it will be noted, the méthode communautaire, the method that lends European construction its singularity and its strength, is particularly suited. "The only areas in which the European Union has managed to win the respect of its partners, including the United States, are those in which its interests and the interests of its members are defended by the Commission," said a former French ambassador to the United States, Jacques Andréani26, a few years ago.

This remains true to this day. If Europe is to acquire the capabilities of power, its achievement must be reinforced and consolidated. The European approach cannot, of course, be progressively extended to cover every issue on which states take action. But some issues - notably the politically charged environment and energy issues - do lend themselves by nature to the tried and true méthode communautaire . But although some progress has occurred, it is

26 Jacques Andréani, “Les Européens auront les Américains qu’ils méritent”, Commentaire No. 94, summer 2001, p. 299.

in the field of research and higher education, which form the basis for power in developed countries, that Europe is seriously hampered by the inertia and inefficiency of national policies. The "Lisbon Strategy", which aims to make Europe "the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy by 2010" has remained wishful thinking. It is high time to get the European Union to work on an issue crucial to Europe's power in future..