Ambition and international relations in the EU Posted by Max Bergmann

Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard has an interesting oped -via the Economist's Europe blogger Charlemagne - in which he argues that the problems facing the EU are not due to organizational chaos as a result of expansion, but that these small countries that were brought in lacked the same global ambition, as existing members like France. Charlemagne translates:

Many of us dreamed of a federal Europe. We, meaning the French, as well as perhaps most of the peoples of the founding nations of Europe, saw European construction as a way of securing a dominant global role for our civilisation, for our very way of life. The idea was to give new life to our past glories, to the time when we led the world. Except that federal Europe died on us. It was killed by enlargement. The "little" countries that joined the union had never run the world. They were not looking to meddle in global problems, but to shelter from them. They had no need of our "Europe of strength"."

This is an interesting point, but I think its a little flawed. While France - especially under Sarkozy - does not lack the ambition to play a big role on the international stage, it seems pretty clear that Germany - Europe's economic engine - does. I recently argued in World Politics Review that Germany is at a moment where it has the opportunity to emerge as Europe's leader and take a more promenient role on the international stage. Not only has the economic crisis increased Germany's importance within the EU, but the U.S. is increasingly vocal about its hopes that Germany - and therefore Europe - take on a larger international role. But Germany has been reluctant. They have lacked the neccessary ambition, as Rocard would say.

In the same WPR series, Regina Karp argues, in a very interesting piece, that Germany lacks ambition, because the defining aspect of its post-WWII foreign policy has been to abandon its international assertiveness and embedd itself in NATO and the European community. Now that the EU and NATO look increasingly adrift, she argues that, Germany will have to move away from its emphasis on embedding itself in multilateral institutions and:

embrace the concept of the national interest, not as a return to power politics but as a legitimate instrument of statehood. This is the price of reunification. Notions of civilian power need not be abandoned, but they must become more than a mantra.

This to me however, is too narrow a conception of "national interest." One of the main drivers in France's support for the European project has been its global ambition. France has seen the EU historically as very much in their national interests. The EU was seen as having tremendous global potential, since a united Europe would have much greater clout on the international stage than France could have on its own. The problem of Germany's timidity on the international stage is therefore not the result of it blindly supporting multilateral institutions, or of Germany neglecting its national interests, it is that Germany's definition of what is in its national interests lacks any sense of ambition.

So instead of blaming the lack of ambition of the new members for the slowing of the European project, Rocard should blame his direct neighbor to the east.

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The Eastern European countries have done a lot to impede any unified and coherent Euroepean foreign policy when it comes to dealing with the Middle East and Russia. The Eastern European countries sided withe the United States in foreign policy disputes during the Bush administration and one could say acted as surrogates for that administration within the EU. If those countreis were not included into the EU in the nineties than there would have been more of coherent and stronger EU foreign policy. As for Germany not being too committed to developing and more stronger EU that is also due to enlargement of the EU. Germany has to devote a large amount of attention to its own domestic economy due to the lingering effects of reunification and the global recession. But Germany also to give the Eastern European countries money to reform their economies since they belong to the EU. So Rocard appears to be right in blaming the problems of the EU primariy on enlargement.

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