The EU will soon expand from the present 15 to 25 members.

The EU’s annual economic output is about eight trillion dollars, compared with America’s $10 trillion. The euro, introduced only in the year 2000, has become the currency of choice in many financial centers, threatening the dollar’s global dominance.

No less strong is the EU’s foreign affairs and diplomatic muscle. It is engaged in many regional hot spots, from the Balkans, to Africa, to the Middle East and Afghanistan. And as the debates over Iraq show, Europe can indeed raise obstacles to its most powerful ally, the United States. The EU is also the world’s largest international aid donor, making its strength felt in far-flung places.

 

As the EU works toward futher integration it is also confronting a series of global threats.

But, says Simon Serfaty, Director for European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, for all its successes, the European Union is at a crossroads that can make or break its future. He says the EU is faced with a daunting agenda that has to be fulfilled in a relatively short time span. He points to number one on the list: reinforcing its monetary union, which not all of the EU member states, including Britain and Sweden, have joined.

“France and Germany wish now to reassess the terms of the deal they have made in order to launch the euro a number of years ago,” he says. “They also have to cope with the consequences of enlargement. Traumatic consequences because it involves reorganization of the European Union from within as it grows from 15 to 25 members. Most of the new members are very small and very poor. It needs to write its constitution to literally complete, in a formal manner, the ways in which limitations have been placed on national sovereignty.”

Mr. Serfaty adds all this has to be done amidst new global threats, about which the largest EU members are in disagreement.

“The war against terrorism is only beginning,” he says. “Iraq is only one stop on the way. I am concerned about the way France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain will be able to move on with that agenda. And from the United States’ standpoint, I hope they will because the worst that could happen to a Europe that is united and strong is a Europe that is divided and weak.”

But the Europeans seem to be confident they will reach their lofty goals. Just recently, Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy noted the Union is almost exclusively a product of compromise and negotiations, which guarantees its durability.

Dieter Dettke, the Washington executive director of the German-based Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which promotes transatlantic dialogue, says regardless of divisions over Iraq, what has been termed the “old” and “new” Europe are in agreement over the EU’s future agenda.

“As fragile as the instruments that we founded for the constitution might appear,” he says, “it is a big project. This is something that has never happened before. This is a unique effort and the new Europe was able to come back to focus on our own European agenda. We do have an area of consensus where we can make progress. And in 2004 the constitution will be ratified. And it will move Europe forward again.”

The process, by which the EU has been knitting itself together, is also driven by a uniquely European political and social culture. It is a path divergent from America’s, says Emilio Viano, professor of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington. Europeans take a dim view of gun ownership and capital punishment. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Europeans have a new sense of security, believing their continent is well on its way to becoming permanently free of war. Many now consider use of military force only as an alternative of last resort. Professor Viano says Europeans favor “soft power” persuasion, diplomacy, and economic aid -- to “hard power.”

 

Most Europeans no longer believe in the concept of a just war.

“An American intervention is seen as a surgery,” he says, “very invasive and very disfiguring, and in a certain sense cruel. The Europeans think it is best to go to the root cause of the problem like poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity, lack of democracy, the status of women, infant mortality.”

A recent survey done by the German Marshall Fund shows that most Americans still believe that it is possible to have a just war, and most Europeans do not. Many Europeans say they reject war not because they are pacifists, but because the vision of a Europe united in peace and freedom rests on the ashes of its brutal past. As German foreign minister Joschka Fischer put it recently, “Europeans are not from Venus, but children of Mars.”

Nevertheless, Dieter Dettke notes Europe is not all about soft power. The EU, he says, supported use of force in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and in places in Africa. And he adds the EU’s hard power should not be underestimated.

 

France sent forces to the Ivory Coast earlier this year. Though much is made of the EU's soft power, Europe has a strong military.

“Europe is not all and only about weakness,” he says. “We are not that weak if you look into the details. We have two nuclear powers. (Britain and France) We have many more military personnel than the U.S., almost twice as much. Technologically, we are not lagging behind that much. We have a great educational facility and capacity. I don’t think there is need to be pessimistic about Europe’s weakness.” Does an increasingly self-assured and rising Europe pose a challenge to the United States?

Charles Kupchan is senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a prestigious think-tank in Washington. He says change is occurring in the geopolitical landscape comparable to the ascendancy of the United States in the late 19th century.

“I like to compare the moment today to the late 19th century,” he says, “when the U.S. slowly came together as a federation, and eventually by the 1890’s said to Europe ‘move over Uncle Sam is here.’ What I think is happening now is Europe is gradually coming together, gradually finding greater collective identity and saying to the U.S., ‘move over, we want more voice.’”

Mr. Kupchan says with the end of the Cold War, and more so after the September 11th terrorist attacks, America’s priorities also changed irreversibly. In his view, the United States is relinquishing its role as Europe’s protector and stepping away from multilaterism to be free to deal with global threats of the new century. The changed circumstances have already deeply frayed the transatlantic partnership. He warns further drifting apart could threaten Atlantic security.

 

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was strongly against U.S. military action in Iraq. Does Europe's opposition to the Iraq War signal a more serious rift in the trans-Atlantic relationship?

“The key is to realize that there are these powerful structural forces pushing America and Europe apart,” he says. “It’s not inconceivable that as America and Europe drift apart that they could in fact become rivals. The fact that Germany and France campaigned against the U.S. in the Security Council over Iraq is an indicator of the potential of strategic rivalry to re-emerge. Should that happen and the balance of power sneaks back into Atlantic relations, then we are really witnessing a historical setback.”

Most analysts agree that Europe is increasingly willing to fashion its own vision of international order and part company with the United States, when there are disagreements. They say the challenge for the two sides of the Atlantic is to reformulate their partnership in a way that avoids adverse consequences brought on by shifts in power, so they can continue to be the foundation for a peaceful world order -- just as they have for the past 50 years.

Voa News - Oct 2003