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Evidence Session No. 11 Heard in Public Questions 124 - 137
Members present
Baroness Billingham
Baroness Coussins
Lord Dubs
Lord Horam
Earl of Oxford and Asquith
Lord Risby
Lord Stirrup
Baroness Suttie
Lord Triesman
Lord Tugendhat (Chairman)
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Examination of Witnesses
Professor Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics, Tufts University, and Dr Lars-Erik Lundin, Distinguished Associate Fellow, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and former EU Ambassador to the International Organisations in Vienna
Q124 The Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here ahead of time, which is a great convenience. As Dr Lundin at least had the opportunity to hear the previous session, you have an idea of the way in which we will proceed. For the sake of formality, let me make the point that this is an on-the-record meeting as part of our inquiry into the EU’s strategic review. What you say is being taken down, but if there is anything you want to say off the record, please let us know. After the meeting, if there is anything you want to write to us about or clarify, again please let us know. Let me kick off, and then colleagues will come in and ask you questions. If you happen to agree, there is no need to repeat the previous answer, but if you have different views do not hesitate to disagree. Germany has been described as a reluctant hegemon in European integration. It has been expected by other Member States to take on a leadership role and then criticised when demonstrating leadership. We see that very clearly. How do you feel other EU Member States, particularly Britain and France, respond to Germany becoming more assertive in EU foreign and security policy?
Professor Daniel Drezner: Thank you for having me here. I apologise in advance. I came on the red-eye flight last night, so if my answers are incoherent I will blame it on jet lag rather than my own shortcomings.
I would describe Germany as a less reluctant hegemon than it used to be. If we were having this hearing 15 or 20 years ago, you could probably have made that statement. With respect to European integration, Germany has been a somewhat more enthusiastic hegemon, particularly since the beginning of the eurozone crisis, which is to say that simultaneously Germany is still very keen on maintaining the European Union and strengthening the eurozone. It wants to do that by making the rest of the eurozone in particular look much more like Germany, in the belief that part of what ails the southern Mediterranean states, or other states deleteriously affected by the 2008 financial crisis, is that their microeconomic institutions do not look enough like Germany’s. Their grand bargain is that Germany is willing to step up in the provision of public good, provided that the other countries are willing to reform their institutions to look much more like Germany’s. That is the eurozone question.
To some extent, they are also less reluctant with respect to foreign and security policy. The fact that Germany has taken the lead in the response to Putin’s intervention in Ukraine suggests that it was not that Angela Merkel was extremely reluctant to go forward; Germany was quite willing to take a leadership role there. The question of how other EU Member States should respond is in some ways a function of the degree to which those foreign policy preferences are at variance with Germany. Here you run into the issue that, while Germany has been more assertive, it also has a clear set of policy preferences that are probably distinct from those of Great Britain and France, particularly with respect to the use of military force. Within the last 15 years, any time the option of escalating something to the actual use of military force, even under multilateral auspices, has come up, whatever German leader has been in power has strongly resisted it, which is not to say that it is necessarily the wrong instinct every time, but it seems to be the instinct in Berlin. There are certain cases where perhaps there will be a clash of interests.
The Chairman: Can I press you on that? If I understood you correctly, you said that whenever the question of the use of force has come up Germany has resisted. To go back a little way, but not so far, was Germany not responsible for NATO taking a very forward position in Croatia at the time Douglas Hurd was Foreign Secretary?
Professor Daniel Drezner: That is a fair statement, and you can argue that in some ways the first example in the post-Cold War era of Germany taking a leadership role was the decision to recognise Croatia and Slovenia. That said, it is the exception rather than the rule. With respect to Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, and Ukraine last year and this year, regardless of who has been in power, the instinct to rely on military force or use military statecraft has generally been resisted by German leaders, but I grant you that it is not always the case.
The Chairman: I understand the general point you are making, and I agree with it. The reason I raised Croatia is that something we picked up when we were in Brussels was that there is a difference in the way Germany reacts to external or foreign affairs issues if they touch directly on domestic politics and the way in which it reacts if they do not. That is true of many countries. Croatia touched directly on German domestic politics. Therefore, I wonder whether the general theory you enunciated will apply equally in the future, when a number of other issues in the neighbourhood are likely to touch directly on German domestic politics, and we might perhaps see a change in the German approach.
Professor Daniel Drezner: That is certainly a possibility, but if we take a look at how Germany responded to events in Ukraine, I suggest it would take a great deal for German domestic interests to drive German actions. It is worth remembering that in some ways Germany moved very slowly in responding to the annexation of the Crimea and the escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It was not until the Malaysian airliner was shot down that you saw a switch in German domestic interests. Until that moment the pressure from German domestic lobbies was against an escalation of tension with Russia. The BDI and others did not want to risk what was a reasonably deep economic relationship between Berlin and Moscow. It was not until the airliner was shot down that you saw recognition among key German domestic interest groups that the game had changed, as it were, and that therefore it was right for Germany to take more aggressive and appropriate action.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: Thank you for inviting me, Lord Chairman. I appear here in my personal capacity, being a free man after active service. I am now a researcher but not a professional one in the way the professor is. I have two lives behind me. One was as a Swedish diplomat for 20 years, basically outside the EU but working with the EU and Germany, and then for 15 years as a diplomat inside EU institutions, ending up as EU ambassador in Vienna. My experience with Germany started with arms control negotiations in Stockholm in the mid-1980s, on confidence and security-building measures, and then a posting to the embassy in Bonn in the second half of the 1980s. Then I worked with the Germans under Mr Genscher’s chairmanship of the OSCE from the early 1990s until 2011.
My experience of German diplomacy, from the level at which I was able to observe, which was very often ministerial level as I represented the European Commission for many years in defence ministers’ meetings and other ministerial occasions, was that they had a huge agenda after the Cold War with the Two Plus Four agreement, enlargement, stabilising the new situation in Europe and putting the whole house in order. In order to achieve that, they were very impatient; they wanted to get things done, and I was impressed by the degree of co-operation I had with German colleagues once we could really do something. When we did not meet expectations, either at the multilateral level or in co-operation between key partners—German-French co-operation was already an important topic in the 1980s—whether that could leverage action, and there was even a book about German-UK co-operation in the second half of the 1980s.
To me, it has very much to do with frustration, not least increased domestic frustration in Germany. I have great respect for the complexity of domestic politics in Germany, having been there, if there are problems mobilising there, the frustration will become considerable. In later years, a number of crises occurring one after the other have mobilised opinion. The European Council at the level of Heads of State or Government for quite a number of years was occupied fully with the financial crisis, but this year and last year, starting with Ukraine and then Charlie Hebdo and migration, we have seen a number of cases where Europe and the world are not ready to face crisis. This has led to a stronger German hand, just as it has led to greater frustration in many other capitals. The German hand has been noticed more openly because it is a strong hand in the EU.
Q125 The Chairman: If the UK were to leave the EU—speaking for myself, I hope it does not happen—how do you think it would affect German leadership in European integration, with particular reference to foreign and security policy?
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: Some would say that Germany would gather friends around itself and continue business as usual, but I have another view. I have friendships with many UK colleagues, some of whom you have heard earlier in this Committee, and they tell me that Germany will see the EU as much, much weaker after a UK exit. I should be glad to come back with case study examples of this from different areas. I am not studying it myself, but I am trying to gather material from a great number of case studies relevant to your strategic review, and in almost every case the UK contribution to the work achieved in the last 15 or 20 years has been absolutely crucial.
Professor Daniel Drezner: From an international relations perspective, Germany would be a bigger fish but in a smaller pond if the United Kingdom were to leave. There is no question but that Germany would probably be able to get its way more with respect to common foreign and security policy if the UK was no longer part of the European Union. That said, the weight that that common foreign and security policy would carry would be considerably less. My hunch is that most Germans would not be willing to make that trade-off. If the trade-off was forced upon them, obviously that is a different question. Germany might be somewhat less inhibited by its history. I do not think it is in any way less attached to multilateralism than it has been in the past, and in some ways that is the essence of its approach to the European Union.
Q126 Lord Stirrup: The EU has a long-standing ambition for a comprehensive approach to crisis management. This is sometimes seen as a particular asset and a potential strength of the EU, but a comprehensive approach means blending the civilian and military instruments in appropriate quantities depending on the circumstances, and the purely EU use of the military instrument so far has been at a very low level. We have heard that EU-NATO co‑operation is fairly ineffective for political reasons. Do you agree with the assessment that a comprehensive approach is a particular EU asset? What can the strategic review point to in order to improve the EU’s capabilities in that regard?
Professor Daniel Drezner: I should preface my answer by pointing out that, coming from the United States, the argument there is also for, ideally, a comprehensive approach, except that in our case it is usually the civilian side of exercising power that we have been particularly bad at. In some ways this is a sort of clichéd answer, but I tend to agree with that assessment. The European Union certainly has a comparative advantage with respect to the civilian use of power, but on the military side it punches far below its weight. As you say, part of the issue is the relationship between the European Union and NATO. I have heard stories that in Brussels you would have meetings first of the NATO representatives and then the EU representatives. The EU representatives meet and a country will take a position that obviously makes life difficult for NATO, and then in a subsequent meeting the very same person will blast the EU for being so obstreperous about its policy towards NATO. To some extent, the multiple forums that exist for trying to conduct security policy probably make it less efficacious in this case.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: Member States have taken a position on the comprehensive approach which they have adopted for the EU. They made Council conclusions last year and followed up with an action plan for 2015. There is also some language in the strategic review document itself that points to what I think is a healthy development: namely, that we are moving away from the notion of the comprehensive approach as an overall policy and towards the perhaps trivial recognition that you need a comprehensive approach methodology in what you do. To take a case in point, I was in Rome last week, where I was working on the maritime security strategy of the EU, which will come into the strategic review as a subheading, so to speak. The sheer task of getting our act together in the international community on maritime security was made evident in the Gulf of Aden and the whole area through to the Indian Ocean due to piracy and so on. In the EU it meant bringing together more than 300 different stakeholders already inside EU institutions. To refer to what the Chairman said earlier about the Commission, I would not focus necessarily just on the Commission but on the fact that national Ministers in Member State Governments have competencies in various issues relating to maritime security that have to be brought into this—the shipping industry, insurance and everything that can do something to help. It is a question of private security firms, fuel prices for tankers, shipping, security regulations and what have you. In that part of the world we have seen a very successful effort, embedded in the comprehensive approach for the region, developed not only by the EU but with the United States taking a very active part. Even China, Russia, India and other navies have been involved. For the moment, that has removed the problem of piracy. Investors (into organized crime) have moved to other things.
This is a very interesting case—an area where we have had active EU naval deployments. I think most of the 10 ships deployed in the CSDP context were deployed on Atalanta, but it was embedded in a much broader context. First, there needs to be a comprehensive approach methodology if you want to do something serious, and then you have to realise that it is going to take some effort; it is not just a document or a few words on paper but a system. We debated in Rome what makes the difference. Is it the presence of private security firms on the ships? Is it the fact that there was live fire from the CSDP operation at one time, or what is it? The answer from the experts, many of them British, was no; it is the system as a whole that makes the difference and creates something more—added value.
Q127 Baroness Billingham: The promotion of effective multilateralism in international affairs has in the past been identified as a key strategic priority in the EU. Do you think this is still the case today, given the changed international environment in the EU itself? What should the EU do to strengthen multilateral forums in international affairs, and how effective is it in pursuing European interests in those forums?
The Chairman: To some degree you answered that in your previous response, but perhaps you would like to add to it.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: I must be open on one issue: I do not believe that it is mainly a legal issue. Effective multilateralism is not primarily an issue of the status of the European Union in international forums, but in my experience, not least as an EU ambassador in Vienna, it is the extent to which we can achieve something in reality. There were a couple of concrete cases in my career where I think we had sterling co‑operation between EU ambassadors preparing for a summit level meeting in the OSCE and were able to achieve something using informal coalition building through policy dialogue with the United States and other like-minded countries. They were able to build up joint positions in support of not only European but international commitments and values. I had that experience when it came to human commitments in the OSCE, not least the Moscow mechanism, which may be known to some of you, which we reaffirmed at the OSCE summit in Astana in 2010, or the Middle East resolutions in the IAEA where we tried to protect the integrity of the non‑proliferation treaty process through excellent co‑operation with the United States and like-minded countries. That was an informal co‑operation too, where the EU delegation played a role but where the essential thing was that we worked together. Effective multilateralism has to do with results rather than focusing on procedure and details.
Professor Daniel Drezner: There is no question: it is tougher now than it was, if for no other reason than that you are operating in a thicker multilateral environment, and in this case thicker does not necessarily mean better. We are now operating in a world where it is no longer just the United States and the European Union that are creating multilateral structures. Take a look at the BRICs, the AIIB and the whole panoply of Chinese-created organisations, none of which necessarily has EU participation, or, for that matter, United States participation. As a result, you have a situation where there are simply more multilateral organisations in the same issue area, and that leads to further opportunities for forum shopping in particular, which in some ways can eventually erode the legitimacy of particular multilateral organisations.
The particular challenge for the European Union in promoting multilateralism going forward is that in some cases, particularly involving economic institutions, the best way to maintain their legitimacy is to reapportion the distribution of power and influence within those organisations better to reflect what the distribution of power looks like in the rest of the world. The problem is that that means by definition that the European Union has to have less power, because relative to its economic weight 20 or 30 years ago and so on it should have less influence in that sense. Paradoxically, the best way for the European Union in some cases to strengthen multilateral forums is to diminish the European Union voice within those multilateral forums.
Q128 Lord Triesman: I was intrigued by the concept of thicker multilateral environments. I recognise that and the possibilities for forum shopping as well. There are lots of actors in a very crowded field in crisis management, and the EU has been trying to upgrade its co‑operation, particularly with the UN. I would be grateful if you could tell us whether you think these upgrades are working and are successful.
Could I add another thought? Having spent quite a lot of time in a UK Government context dealing with the African Union, one of the things I observed—I do not know whether it is still the case—was that a good deal of work was done by the EU. I saw it being done during the presidency in 2005 when we were directly involved, but I also saw in relation to the African Union that both the Commonwealth and the Francophonie would run completely separate and, without question, on occasions competitive operations in that environment. Does that pull in the opposite direction to enhancing co‑operation?
Professor Daniel Drezner: Yes. To clarify what I said before, the thicker multilateral environment in which we operate can be an opportunity as well as a risk. The risk comes from forum shopping. The opportunity comes from an instance in which you have more and more multilateral structures all pushing towards the same goal in theory and there is not necessarily that much jockeying for power. For example, you can argue that in crisis management the multiple voices that are interested in participating might not necessarily be crowding each other out, although the example you gave of the Commonwealth and the former French organisation would seem to be another instance of that; it is remarkable to see the degree of forum shopping even in areas where you would think there would be no dispute about particular preferences. That said, everything I have heard—I stress that I have not necessarily heard that much, because it is not my area of expertise—suggests that the European Union contribution to, say, the African Union on peacekeeping and so forth has been, generally speaking, salutary. That is not an example where we saw much in the way of forum shopping.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: I have been through in a book project with a number of colleagues who worked with the African Union and the United Nations at different levels. It was published by Routledge not too long ago. We posed some questions in that book about the way the triangle of the United Nations, the African Union and the EU worked. The point of view of many of the authors in the volume, who were also peace researchers, was that the UN should take the primary lead in setting the strategy for co‑operation with the African Union as a regional organisation under Chapter 8. Whether formally or informally I do not know, but it should be seen in that way and the EU should then adapt. Of course, the EU has been very proud to do capacity building with Community funds through the African Peace Facility. We now have AMISOM, and I think almost €10 million a month is being transferred there. I believe that capacity building is going to be increasingly important in the context of CSDP, to do things on the ground in areas where the EU does not feel comfortable about intervening with its own staff. We see in many countries in Africa, all the way down to Mali, Niger and so on, increasing risk to all kinds of staff, so we need much more capacity-building. The way we do that, with co‑ordination between the three, will need to be worked on further to make sure that we work in harmony with New York, and that the main players in New York are reasonably comfortable with what the EU is doing.
By the way, one of the things we discussed in Rome, without any details, is the fact that capacity building now may lead to completely different results down the road. Resources may be diverted by corruption. We have all kinds of problems that may lead to capacity building running in the wrong direction. One has to think slowly in this context.
Q129 Lord Triesman: In most of the descriptions we have just shared, we have been talking about institutions and their capacity either to co‑operate or add something, or to overdetermine an outcome that might be the desirable one, but we have not really talked about personalities. Sometimes it seems to me that the generation of people who are doing much of this work in those organisations is now an ageing one, and they all know each other very well. They may not like each other all that much, but everybody knows each other very well, to the level of knowing about their kids, grandkids and so on. Some kind of fabric is woven there. My observation is that, if you go on a little bit, hardly anybody knows anybody. Is that accurate or is there a danger in that, because just having a little context can often get things going on a rather better footing?
Professor Daniel Drezner: I cannot speak right now too much in terms of first-hand experience. That said, I worked at the Treasury for a while, and one of the interesting things from that experience was the degree to which groupings that have regular, routinised meetings tend to produce the kind of familiarity you are talking about, not just among leaders but very often at staff level. If I was in charge of trying to put together a G7 Finance Ministers’ communiqué, we would start with a draft, which would be circulated among all the different parties. We would email each of the seven finance ministries. There would be back and forth at the various summits, Sous-Sherpa meetings and so on. Over time you get to know people that way, and you can argue that that is taking place right now with respect to the G20 rather than the G7. That is different from the organisations you are talking about, and I would not venture to guess at that level, but probably the more routinised the meetings, the more likely that the kind of personal networks you are talking about can be fostered. I do not know whether that affects anything except really on the margins—I stress that—but I understand the concern.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: A very interesting study about so-called epistemic communities inside the European Union came out a few years ago. It illustrates the fact that one needs not only policy guidelines, money and staff, but to establish a link between different types of communities. One case study in that book was the EU Military Committee, but in peacekeeping, mediation, conflict prevention and security sector reform—a number of areas of expertise that have developed over the last 30 years—a strong community of friendship and expertise has been extremely important. I certainly hope it will continue.
One of the things I would like to promote in this context is the need to focus more on training, not least in the wider context inside the European Union, to broaden that epistemic community. One of the outcomes of the strategic review that I certainly hope for as a global strategy would be a decision to upgrade the training systems in the European Union on security, broadly speaking, to empower people inside and outside the institutions to understand the scope of the challenges we are now facing in terms of security.
Q130 Lord Horam: Could I ask you about the United States and its view of the European Union as a foreign policy actor, in particular whether that view has changed very much as a result of all the recent events in Syria, the migration crisis and the actions of Putin and so forth?
Professor Daniel Drezner: As a professor, I occasionally have the good fortune to go to Washington to talk to people in government, including at the policy principal level. Even though those conversations are nominally off the record, people will usually be extremely guarded in what they tell me, except if I ask them about the European Union, at which point they will be somewhat blunter, and I do not necessarily mean that in a good way. In some ways, the perception in Washington of the European Union has not changed all that much over 20 years; if you read Richard Holbrooke’s memoir about how the Dayton accord was negotiated, although the European Union was present as an actor, he found it incredibly difficult to deal with it because basically the French, the British and, I believe, the Germans, who were there as well, all told him, “Don’t talk to the European Union person. Talk to us directly”. Things have changed somewhat, but not that much. The joke Henry Kissinger always tells in Washington is: who do you call with respect to Europe? I think that over the last few years what has changed is that the answer is now Angela Merkel, which was not necessarily the case before.
That said, there are three frustrations Washington has with the European Union as an actor. I would add that in part this is because the United States is no longer quite as hegemonically powerful as it was 20 years ago, and in some ways would need the European Union now more than it did perhaps 15 or 20 years ago. The first concern is the degree to which the European Union is inward rather than outward looking. Every few years a crisis grips the European Union about events within the EU, and that renders the EU somewhat less capable or less interested in taking a role outside its borders. The second concern, which has lessened somewhat but is still true, is when the European Union is speaking as a single actor and there are multiple countries within the EU speaking individually. This is incredibly flummoxing on occasion to policymakers in Washington. The final and most important problem from the US perspective is the lack of capacity-building within the European Union when it comes to things like foreign policy. To give you just one example, the crafting of economic sanctions against Russia was an important part of how the US thought it would respond to Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, and the United States certainly has a comparative advantage in the use of these sanctions as a way of punishing actors who transgress international norms. Whenever I talk to US officials about the degree to which the European Union is on board with the sanctions, there is a general recognition that usually the European Union has agreed in principle with the idea of sanctions; the problem is the enforcement of them and the machinery for monitoring them. For example, the United States has something called OFAC—the Office of Foreign Assets Control—which is the agency that truly runs and monitors sanctions and deals with the financial sector to make sure they are enforced. I believe the European Union has fewer than 10 staffers in total devoted to this question. As a result, it becomes incredibly difficult, if it is an EU sanctions directive, for the United States to know with whom to co‑ordinate either in Brussels or in the country capitals.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: When I started as Commission head of delegation in Vienna in 1996, the American ambassador—who was a good friend; we are still friends—was instructed more or less to ignore my presence. This changed dramatically over the years. I remember a question to us from a prominent US Representative when we discussed the coming into force of the Lisbon treaty: “Is the EU now coming together? Are we going to be able to discuss everything in one single policy dialogue? Are we also able to discuss capacity?” Of course, most of the capacities were on the Commission side, it being endowed with the only operational budget in the EU system. We said, “Yes, it should happen”. Obviously, they are still not happy about the way this is becoming true. Gradually, the High Representative is taking up her position as Vice President of the Commission as well, and, as head of the cluster of Commissioners responsible for external relations, she is starting to mobilise resources from the Commission system, but it has taken a long time after the Lisbon treaty came into force. As an example, I know for a fact that only one or two people in the External Action Service were able to work on the cybersecurity strategy, which was a huge endeavour.
My main point in my writings is that Member States should use what they pay for, namely the enormous resources they have put at the disposal of the community system, and make sure that is properly valorised in the entire system. I think that was what my American colleagues thought as well. We then have to bring substance into the policy dialogue with the United States. I am proud to say that when I was in Vienna I had a one-hour policy dialogue with my OSCE counterpart, the US ambassador, every week from 2007 to 2011, over the war in Georgia and so on. It was very substantial. They were very happy with that.
Q131 Lord Risby: Turning to Syria and the Middle East, Secretary Kerry said that it was like walking out of hell. I want to move to that particular part of the world because there has been one considerable European success story, the E3+3, which I think was well recognised as an honest and neutral broker. Could you express a view on any possible role in trying to resolve the Syrian crisis? We have a situation where Russia is setting the agenda, a country with very little respect for the European Union. Nevertheless, is there any role where, echoing the situation in Iran, the European Union could have a constructive part, which presumably the United States would welcome, given that the challenge is openly admitted by the US as being a problem that is apparently intractable?
Professor Daniel Drezner: The blunt way of putting it is that I do not see how it can hurt, given the situation in Syria and, for that matter, the exhaustion in Washington with respect to any kind of policy to seek a way out of the crisis in Syria. I would challenge somewhat the notion that Putin is setting the agenda there. While I recognise that he is seen as taking proactive steps, I suspect that increasingly over time it will prove just as challenging for Putin as it was for the coalition that is supposedly there to fight ISIS, in terms of changing facts on the ground. In that sense my suggestion would be that while it is possible that the European Union could play a valuable role as a neutral broker, the timing right now might not be all that propitious. The timing might be better when Vladimir Putin realises he is not going to be able to change facts on the ground in Syria in the same way he did in Crimea, precisely because there are limits to Russian capacity, as well as to Iranian capacity, in Syria. As a result, it is only going to be when they are looking for an alternative solution to what they are doing now, and that kind of learning takes time. That said, once that learning takes place—I strongly believe it will—that would strike me as a moment when the European Union could potentially play a role akin to the Iran nuclear negotiations, as you said.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: I have enormous respect for the work done by Javier Solana and his successors on EU3+3. I know a little about the basis on which that was built up, since I was accredited to the IAEA during many of those years. It was based on an enormous allocation of the time of the High Representative to the task, in a very small group of people working under absolute confidentiality. For instance, in my delegation in Vienna I said to my American counterpart, “Don’t talk to me about Iran”, because we were treating it in a special way to preserve the confidence of the permanent members of the Security Council, and the EU3+3 system entrusted that role to the High Representative.
My problem right now is, first, the multitasking capability of the EU. During the Ukraine crisis, we had the problem that the High Representative was unable to go into the Ukraine issue at the same time as she was fully occupied with the Iran negotiations. Something must be done in order to increase the multitasking capability in such cases. Secondly, there has to be clarification of the shuttle diplomacy that would have to take place—which stations would be allowed, so to speak. We now know that in Afghanistan, for instance, a dialogue is starting with the Taliban. What will the stations be? That will definitely be linked to the strategic review, in the sense that the EU has to clarify its positions on the parties to the conflict. What would be the instructions to such a negotiator, who would also need to have the full trust of the EU Member States? It is a huge question.
I agree. I do not think that Russia is setting the agenda. I am very annoyed, as are many others, but not from that point of view, rather that they are deliberately trying to interdict good work that could be done by the Americans and others. The work with Iran and the United States and the links there could have brought more progress than we have seen so far, and now this is being interdicted in reality by Russia.
Q132 Baroness Suttie: Last week when we were in Brussels, on several occasions we heard from the people we had meetings with that EU foreign policy might currently be going through a sort of transformational shift, from viewing itself as a transformational foreign policy power to one that is more transactional in nature. What is your assessment of the balance to be struck between attempting to transform countries based on values and a more transactional approach?
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: The hesitations are related very much to failure. The fact is that we have not really understood how to apply a values-based foreign policy, and the Arab uprisings, as they are now called, are a good case in point. We have not developed a strategy to handle the link not only between democracy and dictatorship but between democracy and corruption. There are a number of cases where coups d’état have taken place in different countries, not least in Africa, as a protest against corruption and then elections take place. What is really happening is that people are becoming more modest—the word used by Pierre Vimont—or humble. He has been saying that for several years. We have to see the situation in more detail to analyse it. We cannot just make across-the-board prescriptions not only for the neighbourhood but for others. I very much agree with that. We need to know much more about the countries in which we are working to have a simple recipe for progress.
The Chairman: Professor Drezner, what do you say looking at it from your perspective?
Professor Daniel Drezner: I think that in part it is less to do with the European Union and more to do with the way the rest of the world looks now, as opposed to 10 or 15 years ago. Ten or 15 years ago Russia, for example, was thought of as an actor you wanted to try to export values to. Now it is a country that clearly takes great pride in resistance and the articulation of an alternative set of values. Part of the issue is that when the European Union is dealing with countries like Russia, China and Iran it is harder to articulate the idea of transformational diplomacy, because those are transactional relationships among great or moderate-sized powers. Therefore, any kind of transformational diplomacy cannot be front and centre; it would have to be of the soft power—track 2—variety. There are limits to what can be done officially.
The other issue is that in some ways there are more black knights out there in the world. The most obvious place where the European Union could presumably have this kind of transformational effect is Africa, for a variety of reasons, including the EU’s economic weight. The problem is that if those countries can also look to China or India as alternative sources of investment, or alternative strategic partnerships, suddenly the EU’s transformational diplomacy is automatically going to be somewhat diluted, because there are limits to what the EU can do in exercising more coercive pressure, much in the same way as the United States has discovered with respect to Latin America as China has taken a greater economic interest there. Part of this is just a recognition of reality. It does not mean that transformational diplomacy cannot continue to be a part of the European Union’s strategy; it just has to be a different component of it, perhaps not front and centre and perhaps not something you would expect to achieve in the order of a few years, but rather a much longer-term, softer power project.
Q133 Lord Dubs: You have dealt partly with what my question is about, but let me ask it anyway in case you want to add to it. The EU has been described as a normative power. Do you agree with that assessment? What do you think the consequences are of a decline in the EU’s power of attraction for its ability to promote European values internationally?
Professor Daniel Drezner: I would argue that perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the European Union in its entire history has been the integration of eastern Europe into the European Union. In some ways, the greatest success of the European Union is the dog that did not bark after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the falling apart of the Warsaw Pact. I am old enough to remember that when that happened there was a great deal of concern that the eastern European countries would take a turn towards authoritarianism and ethnic strife, because of the placement of various minorities. Instead, what wound up happening was that almost all those countries were so desperate and driven to join the European Union, because they saw it as the mark of modernity and being part of the West, that they swallowed whole the entire acquis communautaire, which meant that a whole host of policies were implemented that in some ways prevented those fears being realised.
I entirely agree that the EU’s principal success has been as a normative power, but that has come from actors who want to join the European Union. In some ways that is what makes the EU unique, because it can potentially expand further if it so chooses and if there are other willing actors. If the continued debilitation of the eurozone and the European economy is a turn-off for other countries that might contemplate wanting to join the European Union, without question that represents a blow—an erosion of the EU’s normative power. You can also see that with respect to other regional organisations. If we were having this conversation 10 or 15 years ago, the EU would be considered the exemplar for any regional organisation contemplating further integration to push towards. I do not think you can make that case now, for a variety of reasons.
Q134 The Chairman: When one looks at what is happening right now over migration and the criticisms of Germany being voiced in Hungary, now in Poland and to a lesser extent in the Czech Republic, one sees a challenge to values, does one not? I agree with you that in the past for all kinds of reasons those countries were willing to swallow a great deal because they wanted to become members. Now they are members and there is a great refugee crisis, and in a sense they are putting up quite a different value system from that represented by Germany, but not only by Germany. What they are saying is quite a challenge.
Professor Daniel Drezner: I completely agree. I would argue that the greatest existential threat to the European Union is the Hungarian Prime Minister’s articulation of the notion that liberal democracy as we know it is a failed model. I believe he explicitly said in a speech last year: “I am looking to Vladimir Putin as my political exemplar. I don’t think that liberal democracy has much of a future”. I think that is entirely wrong; I do not think that Prime Minister Orbán is correct in that, but what is interesting is that he felt he could say it and make a case for it. I agree with you that it is extremely disconcerting.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: For me, the issue of values and the political importance of values is very much a question of perceptions. Almost from the perspective of the realist school of politics, we must be perceived in the EU as a force for good. To the extent that we are not seen as compassionate to normal people in other parts of the world, our effectiveness will be drastically reduced. We will radicalise people through our actions and encourage corruption and other activities that make it almost impossible for us to work effectively in the field. For instance, I note that now in Afghanistan on both a bilateral and multilateral basis it is very difficult for all our countries to work outside our embassies and compounds. I was myself protected by the UK compound in 2006 when I visited there with an EU delegation, after the tragic death of Sérgio Vieira de Mello.
We need to be seen as a force for good. I would hope that as a result of the strategic review there will be a dramatically increased investment in Eurobarometers—we already have an Afrobarometer—and the kinds of studies that have been made. I think a transatlantic survey has been done of how Americans and Europeans are seen in countries such as Pakistan. We already know that in Russia our popularity has gone down; that is a pity as regards the general population, because we would like to have friendship with them, and it is essential for the future. In that sense, if we can be seen as a force for good, that makes us a good normative power.
Q135 Baroness Billingham: I want to ask the same supplementary as you did, Lord Chairman. It is about the inadequate response to the refugee crisis and how that is perceived internationally. Does it give you any feeling of optimism or pessimism as to the future of the role of the EU? For us, this is the hot topic, and we are dealing with it totally inadequately and are made to look absolutely useless. What is the world thinking about us?
Professor Daniel Drezner: Before I answer, I should acknowledge that the US’s culpability, at least by inaction, is potentially one of the root causes of the refugee crisis. It is not just you. That said, unfortunately the refugee crisis plays into a pre-existing stereotype about the European Union, at least in the United States, which is that it is a problem that creeps up and suddenly consumes the EU to the point where it seems incapable of addressing other issues. Furthermore, Angela Merkel’s initial impulse to welcome the refugees has undercut the statement I made before—that you could have thought, at least recently, that Merkel was in some ways the spokesperson for EU foreign policy. I do not think that will necessarily be the case going forward, precisely because of the degree of political blowback both within Germany and among other EU Member States about how Germany responded to this and the negative externalities it created.
Q136 The Chairman: To add to Baroness Billingham’s question, I mentioned the way in which the Hungarians, Poles and others are speaking. Looking at it from a different direction, the EU put Turkey on the back burner for quite a long time, and from time to time took quite a strong view about the way in which the Turkish Government regarded human rights, the Kurds and so forth. Now we find the EU falling over itself to offer goodies to Turkey, even to the point of reopening the question of accession, and those other rather moral issues are falling by the wayside. Obviously, all of us are victims of circumstance and we have to deal with the problems that confront us. You replied to the two questions Baroness Billingham and I put, but how would you see the EU response to Turkey?
Professor Daniel Drezner: Unfortunately, that depends crucially on what the elections reveal. I believe they are this week or relatively soon. To be fair, I am sure that part of the reason Turkey was put on the back burner was EU reticence, but there was also reticence of the AKP and Erdogan with respect to the European Union. One could see a potential window of political opportunity after the elections either from a weakened Erdogan or from an alternative party that suddenly wants to turn back to Europe, especially given that their no-problems policy in the Middle East has produced nothing but problems. One could see a potential opportunity post-election for some degree of greater co‑operation between Turkey and the European Union. I would be optimistic about that.
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: I have always thought that the issue of enlargement is one of process. In particular, in the case of Turkey it needs to be seen as a process rather than just looking at the end result: Turkey as an EU member or not. Therefore, it is surprising to me that we did not apply the comprehensive approach methodology to Turkey already some time ago. If we had, we would not have made statements giving the impression that we were putting them on a back burner. In the list of strategic partners of the EU, we did not list Turkey as one of the strategic partners because we thought they were in a special category, but they have to be seen as a strategic partner of the EU and we need to engage with them, even if there are problems. If we had done that, the problems of continuity in our policies would have been fewer, although one must also recognise that the President of Turkey has had to change his policies considerably in the last few years, going from zero problems in external relations to a considerable palette of different problems now. It is difficult for us to follow the very quick changes in the region.
Q137 Lord Stirrup: While there is still much it can do, do you believe that it is possible for the EU to have a truly effective security strategy without finding a more effective modus vivendi with NATO?
Professor Daniel Drezner: No.
The Chairman: That is clear. Would you agree with that, Dr Lundin?
Dr Lars-Erik Lundin: I would add one word. I think that more effective and intensive policy dialogue with the United States and Canada is essential. Experience over the past 10 years, not least in the region you alluded to, shows that we needed a much stronger European voice on what should have been done in different regions around the world. We need a stronger European voice.
The Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. We are most grateful. It was a very interesting session.