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| Opportunities & Exposures: Politics |
Pax Europa
Mark Leonard
11/01/2005
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A new global order is being shaped in the one place where most Americans would
least expect to find it: Old Europe. Despite its messy politics and the recent
rejection by France and the Netherlands of its constitution, the European Union
increasingly finds itself writing the rules of the 21st century. Consequently,
for the first time in 50 years, it is the United States that needs Europe’s
help, rather than the other way around.
On each American priority, there is a
Europe-shaped solution whether it is stopping the flow of weapons of mass
destruction, spreading democracy in the Middle East and former Soviet bloc or
resolving longstanding regional disputes. In Ukraine it was a European dream
that brought people to the streets in the Orange Revolution in 2004. In Turkey,
a Muslim government has implemented eight legislative packages (banning the
death penalty, dealing with torture in prisons and minority rights) simply to
strengthen its case to join the European club. After years of strife in Bosnia,
European forces now keep the peace. In Ramallah and Gaza, the European Union
trains and equips the Palestinian police force.
The EU has been
at the forefront of
building a post–Cold
War order
to deal
with the challenges
of globalization. |
The United States built the
global institutions that defined the Cold War: NATO, the UN, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Yet Europeans have filled a global diplomatic
vacuum created by the current U.S. administration. The EU has been at the
forefront of building a post–Cold War order to deal with the challenges of
globalization. Under the leadership of indefatigable Irishman Peter Sutherland,
Europeans pioneered the creation of the World Trade Organization. On climate
change, Europeans ratified and implemented the Kyoto Treaty, even after
President Bush declared it dead. The same happened with the International
Criminal Court. When it comes to the regulation of the economy, even mighty
Microsoft is bending to rules set in Brussels.
In its slow and chaotic way,
the EU has used the size of its market and diplomacy to develop a transformative
power. Europe does not project its power by threatening to invade other
countries. Instead it is the threat of exclusion from one day joining the
European club, or being unable to trade with the single market, that allows
Europe to get its way. This kind of passive aggression drove Serbia to hand over
war criminals to the international court and Russia to sign the Kyoto
Protocol.
The EU’s secret weapon is law, which it uses to transform other
countries from the inside out. The EU used it to change Polish society, from its
economic policies to its property laws and its treatment of minorities. Each
country that joins the EU must absorb 80,000 pages of new laws on everything
from gay rights to food safety. The EU is now trying to use the same technique
of making access to its market and aid contingent on political and economic
reform in countries that are not candidates for membership. It has signed
agreements with countries in the Middle East, North Africa and from the former
Soviet bloc that contain action plans on human rights, proliferation and the
rule of law. If this new policy approach, known as the European Neighborhood
Policy, is successful, it will have a dramatic impact on one of the world’s most
unstable regions.
The recent French and Dutch “no” votes are bad news for
Europeans—and for Americans who want a partner in global affaiAments than of a
united Europe per se, and they do not destroy any of the structures that the EU
has built in the last 50 years. The European single market, the euro, the common
European defense policy and 34 volumes of European laws are all here to stay.
For all the talk of European decline in the media, the worst thing the United
States can do is to ignore an emerging superpower that is increasingly writing
the rules for global politics.
Mark Leonard is director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London and author of Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century.
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