Publisher: ECFR European Council on Foreign Relations

NEW WORLD ORDER: THE BALANCE OF SOFT POWER AND THE RISE OF HERBIVOROUS POWERS

NEW WORLD ORDER: THE BALANCE OF SOFT POWER AND THE RISE OF HERBIVOROUS POWERS

Author(s): Ivan Yotov Krastev,Mark Leonard / Language(s): English

Keywords: EU Soft Power;

The largest survey of public opinion in the world shows support for a more multipolar world and a greater role for ‘herbivorous powers’ – countries not widely perceived as military superpowers. // There is mistrust of the Cold War powers as well as Islamist-inspired Iranian autocracy. More people want to see a decline rather than an increase in the power of Russia (29% decline, 23% increase), of China (32% decline, 24% increase), of the United States (37% decline, 26% increase), and of Iran (39% decline, 14% increase). On the other hand, there is strong support for an increase in the power of fast-developing powers such as South Africa, India and Brazil. The European Union is the most popular great power. Uniquely among great powers, more people across all continents want to see its power increase than decrease. This demand for more European power extends to many former European colonies. // Whilst American soft power has declined, the rise of China has led to the resurgence in support for American power in Asia. Increasing Russian influence in Eastern Europe is paralleled by a demand for a greater American role. Outside Europe, ‘the West’ is still seen to some extent as a single actor: countries suspicious of American power tend also to be against EU power.

№ 02 A Power Audit of EU-Russia Relations

№ 02 A Power Audit of EU-Russia Relations

Author(s): Mark Leonard,Nicu Popescu / Language(s): English

Keywords: European Power; Russia-EU Relations;

In this project, we have tried to implement some practices which will guide our future activities as the ECFR takes its work into new policy areas. First, we have tried to look at several dimensions of European power. We have explored how Moscow sees the EU and uses its power to influence it; how each member state relates to Russia; as well as the links between Moscow and EU institutions. This report draws on data gathered by a team of researchers from all 27 EU member states. Each conducted a survey of their country’s economic, political and military relations with Russia. // Secondly, we have tried to avoid the euphemistic phrases and diplomatic practices that cloak tensions within the EU and between the EU and third countries. In order to promote a common European approach, we have illustrated some of the areas where the policies of individual member states have undercut common European objectives. The goal is not to stigmatise particular countries. Future reports on European foreign policy issues will put the spotlight on the policies of other states. // Thirdly, we have done our best to understand the issues from the perspective of policymakers. A senior EU official complained to one of the authors about the propensity of outside observers to simplify complex issues and to imply that the only thing standing in the way of a successful EU foreign policy is the stupidity of officials. We have tried to heed this plea and have not offered any easy, ready-made solutions. We are grateful to the many officials who have provided us with useful guidance at every step of the research process, in particular those who took part in a round-table discussion of the interim findings, attended by officials from all EU institutions and a majority of EU member states.

POLAND’S SECOND RETURN TO EUROPE?

POLAND’S SECOND RETURN TO EUROPE?

Author(s): Paweł Świeboda / Language(s): English

Keywords: Weimar Triangle; Donald Tusk;

Donald Tusk, the new Polish Prime Minister, wants to bring Poland back to the heart of Europe, rebuilding ties with Germany and France to create a ‘Weimar Triangle’, lessening tensions with Russia, and trying to make the country a genuine player in European foreign policy. The new Government will try to rebalance ist relationship with the United States, slowing down the move towards missile defence and withdrawing its troops from Iraq. Although there will be a change of style on contentious issues like Russia, the new government will still be an ‘assertive partner’ opting out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights; unlikely to join the euro; and likely to put up a fi ght against reform of the EU budget.Co-habitation with President Lech Kaczyński will create tensions but the government has the constitutional powers and the moral clout to set the agenda.

BEYOND DEPENDENCE: HOW TO DEAL WITH RUSSIAN GAS

BEYOND DEPENDENCE: HOW TO DEAL WITH RUSSIAN GAS

Author(s): Pierre Noël / Language(s): English

Keywords: Russian Gas for Europe; gas security;

The gas relationship with Russia has become an extremely contentious issue among EU Member States. It is a major reason for the EU’s failure to develop the common policy approach towards Moscow it so badly needs. Yet the relationship is often misunderstood. Russia is the largest external gas supplier to the EU, but it is far from a monopoly provider. Since 1980, Europe’s diversification of its gas supply has seen Russia’s share of EU gas imports roughly halve, from 80% to 40%. Russian gas represents just 6.5% of the EU primary energy supply, a figure that has remained essentially unchanged over 20 years. And contrary to widely held belief, Russian gas exports to Europe are unlikely to increase significantly in the foreseeable future. So calls for Europe to diversify its energy supply even further miss the point. The problem is divisiveness, not dependence. Russian gas is divisive because Europe’s gas market is dysfunctional and segmented. Most of the EU’s imports of Russian gas go to a few countries in western Europe, where supply is diversified, while several Member States in central and eastern Europe consume relatively little Russian gas but have no other external suppliers. Only the emergence of a single competitive European gas market can create real solidarity between consumers and ‘Europeanise’ the current large bilateral contracts between European importers and Gazprom.To address the specific concerns of central and eastern European Member States, the EU should build on the 2004 directive on security of supply in natural gas, and help these Member States devise and implement national action plans for gas security.

THE EU AND HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE UN – 2009 REVIEW

THE EU AND HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE UN – 2009 REVIEW

Author(s): Richard Gowan,Franziska Brantner / Language(s): English

Keywords: Human Rights policy;

Last September, the European Council on Foreign Relations published a report warning that the European Union faced a “slow-motion crisis” at the United Nations, as a growing number of its former allies were beginning to oppose its vision of multilateralism and human rights. While the EU had grown increasingly internally cohesive on human rights votes, its reluctance to use ist leverage and its failure to reach out to moderate states were handing the initiative to defenders of traditional sovereignty like China, Russia and their allies. // This is the first in an ongoing series of annual updates on the EU’s performance in human rights debates at the UN, published in the run-up to the opening of the UN General Assembly. It covers the most recent Assembly session, from September 2008 to July 2009.

№ 17 CLIMATE POLICIES AFTER COPENHAGEN

№ 17 CLIMATE POLICIES AFTER COPENHAGEN

Author(s): Jean-François Di Meglio,Mathieu Duchâtel,François Godement,Anne Rulliat,Thomas Vendryes / Language(s): English

Keywords: China’s foreign policy;

Strategic culture, power balances and the analysis of geopolitical shifts are a long-standing Chinese obsession. Academic institutions, think-tanks, journals and web-based debate are growing in number and quality. They work to give China’s foreign policies breadth and depth. China Analysis introduces European audiences to the debates inside China’s expert and think-tank world, and helps the European policy community understand how China’s leadership thinks about domestic and foreign policy issues. While freedom of expression and information remain restricted in China’s media, these published sources and debates are the only available access we have to understand emerging trends within China. China Analysis mainly draws on Chinese mainland sources, but also monitors content in Chinese language publications from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Reports from Hong Kong and Taiwan reflect the diversity of Chinese thinking, with occasional news and analysis unpublished in the mainland.Each issue of China Analysis in English is focused on a specific theme, and presents policy debates which are relevant to Europeans. It is available at www.ecfr.eu. A French version of China Analysis exists since 2005 and can be accessed at www.centreasia.org

THE EU AND HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE UN: 2010 REVIEW

THE EU AND HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE UN: 2010 REVIEW

Author(s): Richard Gowan,Franziska Brantner / Language(s): English

Keywords: human rights policy; human rights in UN;

Over the last year, the EU has struggled to make an impact on human rights at the UN, despite working more closely with the Obama administration than it was able to do with the previous administration. As a result, it is now clear that deepening divisions over human rights at the UN were not just a by-product of Bushism. The EU’s ‘voting coincidence score’ – reflecting the level of support from other countries for its positions on human rights in the General Assembly – has fallen from 52% last year to 42% this year. There have also been splits within the EU on votes in the Human Rights Council on Israeli actions in the Middle East, which has weakened the EU’s reputation for coherence on fundamental values at the UN. // This update – the second annual update to ECFR’s 2008 report on the EU and human rights at the UN – underlines important longterm trends. The Obama administration’s policy of engagement at the UN has only persuaded a few countries to shift their stances on human rights and big non-Western democracies – especially Brazil – continue to drift away from the EU’s positions. Attempts to reverse this trend through technical reforms in the UN’s human rights system will likely fail. A European drive for broader UN reforms such as expanding the Security Council would be a gamble but could persuade rising powers to rethink their positions on human rights.

№ 25 THE SPECTRE OF A MULTIPOLAR EUROPE

№ 25 THE SPECTRE OF A MULTIPOLAR EUROPE

Author(s): Ivan Yotov Krastev,Mark Leonard,Dimitar Bechev,Jana Kobzova,Andrew Wilson / Language(s): English

The EU’s ‘unipolar moment’ is over. In the 1990s, the EU’s grand hope was that American hard power would underpin the spread of European soft power and the integration of all Europe’s powers into a liberal order – embodied in NATO and the EU – in which the rule of law, pooled sovereignty and interdependence would gradually replace military conflict, the balance of power and spheres of influence. However, the prospects for this unipolar multilateral European order are fading. The dilemma facing the European Union in its own continent is somewhat similar to that faced by the US at a global level. The EU can do little to prevent Europe’s evolution from a unipolar to a multipolar order; but it can do a lot to shape the relations between its emerging poles. The new approach would take advantage of a political opening created by Moscow’s desire to modernise and Turkey’s search for a regional role, and recast the continent’s institutional order for a world in which Europe is increasingly peripheral and in which a weak neighbour can be as frightening as a strong one. It would be the first step towards creating a trilateral rather than a tripolar Europe: a new institutional order in the continent that (to paraphrase Lord Ismay) keeps the EU united, Russia post-imperial and Turkey European.

BEYOND MAASTRICHT: A NEW DEAL FOR THE EUROZONE

BEYOND MAASTRICHT: A NEW DEAL FOR THE EUROZONE

Author(s): Thomas Klau,François Godement,José Ignacio Torreblanca / Language(s): English

Keywords: EURO-Zone;

Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union has been an extraordinary achievement. But the events of 2010 have made it apparent that its political governance was designed for fair weather. Having reluctantly taken the first steps this year, European leaders must now make it storm-proof. The move to an agreement to establish a permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to replace the EFSF in 2013 represents a fundamental and encouraging change in the approach of European leaders to the future of the eurozone. But the new model of eurozone governance currently envisaged by the EU, which is based once more on the Maastricht Treaty, will be vulnerable to failure for the same reasons as its predecessors. // If Europe wants to remain a serious player and help shape the twenty-first century, it should instead go beyond Maastricht and finally build a monetary and economic system strong enough to last. There are at least three other solutions – Eurobonds, a euro-TARP and an expansion of the federal budget. Yet each of them is opposed above all by Germany, the eurozone’s dominant power, which feels its robust growth vindicates its own economic model even though its political model for a rule- and sanctions-based governance of the eurozone looks to have failed. // Europe now faces a choice between a future of permanent tensions within the EU and a new grand bargain. Europe needs clearheaded, forward-looking German leadership that would anchor a European Germany in a more German Europe.

THE NEW GERMAN QUESTION: HOW EUROPE CAN GET THE GERMANY IT NEEDS

THE NEW GERMAN QUESTION: HOW EUROPE CAN GET THE GERMANY IT NEEDS

Author(s): Ulrike Guerot,Mark Leonard / Language(s): English

Since the beginning of the euro crisis last year, there has been a kind of “unipolar moment” within the eurozone: no solution to the crisis was possible without Germany or against Germany. Although Germany has now signalled it will do what it takes to save the euro, much of Europe is worried about the way this will be done and even resentful about where Germany seems to be heading. Germans, on the other hand, feel betrayed by the European project with which they once identified perhaps more than any other member state. In fact, whereas Germans once saw the EU as the embodiment of post-war German virtues such as fiscal rectitude, stability and consensus, they now see it as a threat to those same virtues.###This brief aims to move beyond this dialogue of the deaf and outline what a new deal between Germany and the rest of Europe might look like. It shows how an increasingly eurosceptic Germany is tempted to “go global alone”. Meanwhile other member states are responding to the new Germany with a mixture of “hugging Germany close” and forming coalitions that could one day be used to balance German power if Berlin fails to recreate a legitimate basis for its role in the EU. It argues that Germany needs to recast its approach to economic governance to avoid the creation of a two-speed Europe; work with other big states to reinvent the European security architecture; and put its economic might at the heart of a push to develop a global Europe.

A CHANCE TO REFORM: HOW THE EU CAN SUPPORT DEMOCRATIC EVOLUTION IN MOROCCO

A CHANCE TO REFORM: HOW THE EU CAN SUPPORT DEMOCRATIC EVOLUTION IN MOROCCO

Author(s): Susi Dennison,Nicu Popescu,José Ignacio Torreblanca / Language(s): English

Keywords: Maghreb; EU and Morocco; Arab Spring;

While Morocco is usually seen as more stable, more advanced and more democratic than many other countries in North Africa, it too has potential for unrest. Although there is no immediate prospect of a revolution as in Egypt or Tunisia, Moroccans are increasingly frustrated with the country’s veneer of democracy. They are now demanding more limits on royal power and an end to corruption and clientelism. In short, they want a king who, as a slogan of the 20th February protest movement puts it, “reigns, but does not govern”. This situation presents the EU with a different kind of challenge than those it faces in Egypt or Tunisia. // With its European outlook and its close economic and commercial ties with EU states, Morocco highly values its privileged status within the EU’s southern neighbourhood. This brief, based on a research visit by the authors to Rabat in April, argues that the EU should now use the considerable leverage it has to put greater pressure on Morocco to create real democracy. The EU should put its weight behind a more inclusive constitutional commission, engage with youth movements, including Islamists, and offer better trade terms. It is in the EU’s interest to push for political reform now rather than react to a Syrian-style crackdown and instability in a few months’ time.

CHINA’S JANUS-FACED RESPONSE TO THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

CHINA’S JANUS-FACED RESPONSE TO THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

Author(s): Jonas Parello-Plesner,Raffaelo Pantucci / Language(s): English

Keywords: Arab spring; Muammar Gaddafi; Ai Weiwei;

China’s response to the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa was two-faced like the Roman god Janus. In a pragmatic break with its sovereigntist approach to international relations, China inter-vened to protect thousands of its citizens and its growing commercial interests in North Africa and sup-ported UN sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi. However, since February there has also been a wi-despread crackdown to prevent the wave of protests that had engulfed the Middle East and North Africa spreading to China. The arrest of artist Ai Weiwei at the beginning of April brought this crack-down to the attention of the world. // This Janus-faced response presents a dilemma for the European Union. On the one hand, it suggests that China could in the future become a partner for the EU in crisis management and that it is moving towards a more proactive foreign policy. On the other hand, China’s response to protests at home represents a clear challenge to the EU’s newfound commitment to de-mocracy promotion. The EU should therefore seek to do more crisis-management planning together with China while remaining vocal and consistent on China’s human rights and internal reform process, even if it incites Chinese anger and results in a reaction in other fields.

HOW TO STOP THE DEMILITARISATION OF EUROPE

HOW TO STOP THE DEMILITARISATION OF EUROPE

Author(s): Nick Witney / Language(s): English

Keywords: NATO; soft power;

Discounting threats of armed attack and disillusioned with liberal interventionism, Europeans are shrin-king their militaries and banking on “soft” power. But this betrays a failure to understand the nature of the new, multiplayer global environment that will determine Europe’s future security and prosperity. The value of Europe’s armed forces is less in countering specific “threats” than as necessary instruments of power and influence in a rapidly changing world, where militaries still matter. Unless it gets over its discomfort with hard power, Europe’s half-hearted efforts to improve the efficiency of its defence spending will continue to fail. // This Policy Brief argues that Europeans now need to reassess their strategic environment, reconsider the role that hard power should play in it and relaunch their efforts to combine their defence efforts and resources. The Weimar Triangle – Germany, France and Poland – should jointly press for a heavyweight commission to conduct a European Defence Review, which would examine member states’ defence policies, much as the budget plans of eurozone members are now reviewed in a “European semester”; rewrite the European Security Strategy; and present to Euro-pean leaders a menu of big, bold proposals for decisive further defence integration. The alternative will be not just the end of the common defence policy but the steady erosion of Europe’s ability to defend its interests and values in the twenty-first century.

№ 04 AFGHANISTAN: EUROPE’S FORGOTTEN WAR

№ 04 AFGHANISTAN: EUROPE’S FORGOTTEN WAR

Author(s): Daniel Korski / Language(s): English

The international community has a second chance in Afghanistan. The appointment of a new UN special envoy and the upcoming NATO summit in Bucharest offer a chance for the coalition partners to adopt a new strategy and avert disaster. The problems are well known. The rule of Hamid Karzai’s government extends only weakly outside of Kabul. The Taliban insurgency will continue to grow stronger as winter ends. Despite the billions of euros spent, most ordinary Afghans have yet to see the benefits in terms of security, access to justice and delivery of basic services. All these difficulties have been exacerbated by European and American policy disagreements. In their key criticisms of each other Europeans and Americans each have a valid point. While Americans tend to treat a political problem as a military one, Europeans have lagged behind the US in terms of financial and military commitments, and have even failed to co-ordinate their own activities. In the run-up to Bucharest there will be an opportunity for both partners to strike a new ‘grand bargain’ where Europeans agree to increase their investment in exchange for a change in American strategy. A new common approach should be based around a strategy for political inclusion, increased resources, and stronger international leadership. This new strategy should be cemented in a new Bonn-type conference, which would bring together heads of states from the US, UN, EU and all of Afghanistan’s regional partners.

№ 06 RE-ENERGISING EUROPE’S SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

№ 06 RE-ENERGISING EUROPE’S SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

Author(s): Nick Witney / Language(s): English

Ten years after the launch of the EU’s defence effort at a Franco-British summit in St Malo, the European Security and Defence Policy badly needs a shot in the arm. Procrastination, weak coordination, and persistent absenteeism by some Member States have hobbled the Union’s ability to tackle the real threats to its citizens’ security, and to make a significant contribution to maintaining international peace. Europe’s leaders have agreed what is needed, in the 2003 European Security Strategy. They have acknowledged that security for Europeans today lies not in manning the ramparts or preparing to resist invasion, but in tackling crises abroad before they become breeding-grounds for terrorism, international trafficking, and unmanageable immigration flows. As this report will argue, this situation demands a concerted effort to revitalise the European Union’s Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The EU’s individual Member States, even France and Britain, have lost and will never regain the ability to finance all the necessary new capabilities by themselves. Today, only cooperation amongst Europeans can eliminate the massive waste associated with the duplication of resources by Member States, and help transform Europe’s armed forces into modern militaries capable of contributing to global security.

№ 08 A GLOBAL FORCE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS? AN AUDIT OF EUROPEAN POWER AT THE UN

№ 08 A GLOBAL FORCE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS? AN AUDIT OF EUROPEAN POWER AT THE UN

Author(s): Richard Gowan,Franziska Brantner / Language(s): English

The European Union (EU) is suffering a slow-motion crisis at the United Nations (UN). The problem is not a lack of internal cohesion, which has improved markedly since the nadir of the Iraq War. The problem is fading power to set the rules of the game. The EU’s members insist that the UN is central to their vision of international order and universal human rights – but the UN is increasingly being shaped by China, Russia and their allies. This paradox has come to the fore in 2008 as the EU has tried to work through the UN on Burma and Zimbabwe, yet been unable to get Security Council resolutions for action. These defeats come on top of previous setbacks for the EU at the UN in cases from Kosovo to Darfur. This is partially due to geopolitical shifts. But this report shows that the EU has also been the architect of its own misfortune. Europe has lost ground because of a reluctance to use its leverage, and a tendency to look inwards – with 1,000 coordination meetings in New York alone each year – rather than talk to others. It is also weakened by a failure to address flaws in its reputation as a leader on human rights and multilateralism. If Europe can no longer win support at the UN for international action on human rights and justice, overriding national sovereignty in extreme cases, it will have been defeated over one of its deepest convictions about international politics as a whole. This is particularly true in cases involving the Responsibility to Protect against genocide and mass atrocities, when the humanitarian consequences of inaction are most severe.

№ 12 A POWER AUDIT OF EU-CHINA RELATIONS

№ 12 A POWER AUDIT OF EU-CHINA RELATIONS

Author(s): John Fox,François Godement / Language(s): English

Keywords: EU-China-relations;

Europe’s approach to China is stuck in the past. China is now a global power: decisions taken in Beijing are central to virtually all the EU’s pressing global concerns, whether climate change, nuclear proliferation, or rebuilding economic stability. China’s tightly controlled economic and industrial policies strongly affect the EU’s economic wellbeing. China’s policies in Africa are transforming parts of a neighbouring continent whose development is important to Europe. Yet the EU continues to treat China as the emerging power it used to be, rather than the global force it has become. A “power audit” we have conducted shows that the 27 EU Member States are split over two main issues: how to manage China’s impact on the European economy and how to engage China politically. We assigned scores to Member States’ individual policies and actions towards China, and the chart overleaf translates this evaluation on to a horizontal axis for politics and a vertical axis for economics.

№ 14 THE LIMITS OF ENLARGEMENT-LITE: EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN POWER IN THE TROUBLED NEIGHBOURHOOD

№ 14 THE LIMITS OF ENLARGEMENT-LITE: EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN POWER IN THE TROUBLED NEIGHBOURHOOD

Author(s): Nicu Popescu,Andrew Wilson / Language(s): English

Over the past year, war in Georgia, the Ukrainian gas crisis and the burning of the Moldovan parliament have all dominated the front pages of European newspapers. But behind the headlines the story is just as bleak: politics in the “neighbourhood” is a toxic mixture of authoritarianism and stalled democracy, ongoing secessionist tensions continue to stoke fears of violent conflict, and the economic crisis is wreaking havoc throughout the region. The implications for the EU are profound. Renewed hostilities or economic collapse could see an influx of immigrants into eastern Member States. Several banks in western Member States are exposed to the imploding economies in the east. But beyond these immediate dangers, there is an emerging contest between the EU and Russia over the political rules that are to govern the neighbourhood. Since the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine, Russia has been working tirelessly to draw the countries of the region into its sphere of influence while the EU has continued to pursue a technocratic strategy best described as “enlargement-lite” – offering the neighbourhood states the prospect of eventual political and economic alignment with the EU while dampening down any hopes of actual accession.

№ 16 THE LIMITS OF ENLARGEMENT-LITE: EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN POWER IN THE TROUBLED NEIGHBOURHOOD

№ 16 THE LIMITS OF ENLARGEMENT-LITE: EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN POWER IN THE TROUBLED NEIGHBOURHOOD

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Keywords: Russia; Putin Consensus; Russian Regime; authoritarian democracy; fake democracy; Russian political class; Medvedev Initiative;

INTRODUCTION What does Russia think? (by Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard and Andrew Wilson, pp. 1-13) THE “PUTIN CONSENSUS ”The “Putin consensus” Explained (by Vyacheslav Glazychev, pp.9-14) The School of Consensus and the War of the Majority (by Modest Kolerov, pp. 15-20) An Ideological Self-Portrait of the Russian Regime (by Leonid Polyakov, pp. 21-24) DILEMMAS OF RUSSIA’S MODERNIZATION Authoritarian Modernization of Russia in the 2000s (Olga Kryshtanovskaya, pp. 27-34) A Bit of Luck: The Development of the Political System in Russia (by Aleksey Chesnakov, pp. 35-40 )Has the Economic Crisis Changed the World View of the Russian Political Class? (by Valery Fadeev, pp. 41-46) Dilemmas of Russia’s Modernization (by Vladislav Inozemtsev, pp. 47-51) RUSSIA AND THE WORLD: MEDVEDEV’S “EUROPEAN SECURITY TREATY” PROPOSAL Rethinking Security in “Greater Europe” (by Fyodor Lukyanov, pp. 55-60) Multipolarity, Anarchy and Security (by Timofey Bordachev, pp.61-66) The Medvedev Initiative: The Origins and Development of a Political Project (by Boris Mezhuyev, pp. 67-71) AFTERWORD How the West Misunderstands Russia (by Gleb Pavlovsky, pp-73-78)

№ 18 CAN THE EU REBUILD FAILING STATES? A REVIEW OF EUROPE’S CIVILIAN CAPACiTIES

№ 18 CAN THE EU REBUILD FAILING STATES? A REVIEW OF EUROPE’S CIVILIAN CAPACiTIES

Author(s): Daniel Korski,Richard Gowan,Jean-Marie Guéhenno / Language(s): English

Keywords: Failed State;

In the next two decades, the persistent weakness of some states and regions may well prove a greater strategic challenge to the international community than the emergence of new powers like China. Having been in charge of UN peacekeeping for eight years, I believe we are not prepared to meet this challenge. We have been used to balancing power with power, but we are ill-equipped to deal with weakness: fragile states may require military deployments of peacekeepers, but strengthening them or managing their collapse requires much more complex strategies, drawing heavily on civilian capacities. One would expect the European Union, supposedly the civilian power par excellence, to be at the forefront of this effort, and certainly well ahead of the US, which has often been criticised for a Pentagon-dominated approach. Yet the Americans are fast learning the lessons of their difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and energetically building their civilian capacities. The Europeans, despite having set themselves ambitious “civilian headline goals” in 2004, are at risk of being left behind. This report is severe on the performance of the EU as a “civilian power”. Tough love, perhaps. But the good news is that no group of countries in the world has more civilian capacity potential than the EU, and that opinion polls conducted across more than 50 countries find more support for a rise in the EU’s global influence than for any other major power. This is an extraordinary vote of confidence. Can Europe live up to it?