Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Foreign policy for 27 countries?

The growing pains for the new EU foreign policy are obvious. Especially in times of turmoil, making, publicizing, and implementing policy in one nation can be difficult. What if you're working with 27 nations? And, do you know why she's competing with the European Commission?

Europe’s Foreign Policy Chief, Struggling for Mandate, Faces Criticism on Uprisings

After President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt refused to step down… the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, issued a sharp statement saying that “the time for change is now” and that Mr. Mubarak “has not yet opened the way to faster and deeper reforms.”

Her rapid response was a marked change from the past few weeks, when she has been increasingly criticized as being painfully slow to respond to the crisis in Egypt and elsewhere…

It has been very difficult for Ms. Ashton, whose job was created in December 2009 by the Lisbon Treaty, to get ahead of the curve.

She must maneuver among the 27 member states — all with their own foreign ministers — as well as the European Union bureaucracy and the European Commission, run by José Manuel Barroso, who has foreign policy aspirations of his own…

On Jan. 29, to her embarrassment, the leaders of the most influential nations in the European Union — Germany, France and Britain — issued a statement calling for free and fair elections in Egypt in advance of a European foreign ministers’ meeting set for two days later, at which Ms. Ashton was scheduled to try to find a European consensus…

A senior aide to Ms. Ashton said that a clear European mandate was hard to achieve, with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy “saying Mubarak is great, France saying you can’t talk of free and fair elections now, and others saying you can’t tell Egyptians what to do.”…

“They want her to be Hillary Clinton, and that’s what she tries to be and wants to be,” the aide said. “But the states have to give her the tools and the mandate. If they want her to be the Hillary Clinton of Europe, give her the power.”

Part of Ms. Ashton’s problem is exactly that: the member states do not want to give her the power. They do not really want a European foreign minister…