Type of Paper: Code

Q&A The EU in the World: Foreign Policy After Economic Crisis Baroness Falkner of Margravine House of Lords Professor Dominique Moïsi Co-founder and Senior Adviser, Institut Français des Relations Internationales Dr Richard Youngs Senior Associate, Democracy and Rule of Law Program, Carnegie Europe; Author, The Uncertainty Legacy of Crisis: European Foreign Policy Faces the Future Chair: John Peet Europe Editor, The Economist 5 March 2014 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/ speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. Q&A: The EU in the World: Foreign Policy After Economic Crisis Question 1: The question I have is related to trade, because you raised the commercial aspects in terms of the EU and you mentioned the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) as far as one of the areas. What happens if the TTIP does not succeed? Baroness Falkner: I think it will be an enormous setback for all of us, on both sides. Of course, it’s more important almost to the EU than it is to the US, and at a time when you have a multipolar world this is an opportunity that was a long time to get there, and the idea that we might blow it partly because of institutional structures, Congress versus the European Parliament, but partly because we can’t reach consensus on issues naturally, NSA and data and all of that, plus France’s other objections, cultural and so on, it would be an enormous setback at a time when we ought to be doing more of these agreements and bigger agreements to lose it, and I fervently hope that we won’t. I’m actually partially optimistic that we won’t. Question 2: I’d like to ask Richard, I was surprised when you said that the EU was being more active and more present outside the commercial and economic field in Asia. I’d be grateful if you could illustrate that. My other point is about Ukraine. It seems to me that we had a Ukrainian policy and you can say it’s been effective or ineffective or not well judged, but we had a policy, it was the agreement with Ukraine and supporting democracy and all the rest of it. The trouble is suddenly it didn’t work any more and what we haven’t had and have never had, and what we now see, is we haven’t had a policy towards Russia. It’s the Russian response to the Ukrainian crisis that we haven’t a clue how to manage, which is actually to me a very severe criticism, because I think if we think about it for more than about 20 seconds we should have seen this coming. Why the hell? All the experts, all of them, all the ones I heard and read said [Vladimir] Putin wouldn’t do this, and yet if you think back a bit, it’s not a bit surprising that he’s done it. www.chathamhouse.org 2 Q&A: The EU in the World: Foreign Policy After Economic Crisis Richard Youngs: Asia? So I think the commercial dimension of the EU policy in Asia is still by far and away the predominant dimension, but I think there has been an effort from about mid-2012 on to inject at least a little bit more of a political dimension to Asia policy. The EU has devised a new set of guidelines that do talk about the EU’s strategic interest in the region and try and look at the connections between the economic and the more political objectives. The EU now has a series of strategic partnerships across the region that, again do build into the dialogue and cooperation on more political issues. These have not taken off in a really substantive or tangible way so far, but at least they do begin to recognize the need for a more political presence. And then with partners like Korea for example the EU has begun partnerships on things like human rights, the support of democracy, dialogue on changes to the multilateral order. I agree it’s at a very early stage so far, but a part of the realization of the effect of the crisis is that we need a policy in Asia that is not purely commercial in nature. I think you’re right on Ukraine and Russia, what we’re seeing basically is the challenge of Ukraine and the challenge of Russia policy now conjoining. You’re right, people were predicting from two, three months ago that the issue of Crimea would be problematic and that essentially it comes down to Ukraine having to design a political system that’s fully inclusive, that is seen as fully legitimate by all parts of its population. People were predicting that this would be a problem; even from six weeks ago people were arguing that the problem might not be so much [Viktor] Yanukovych per se, as what would happen is if he made a very quick exit from the scene that we would be left with a power vacuum that could trigger this kind of instability we’ve seen. Baroness Falkner: To Brian, on we didn’t see this coming, I’m reminded today of course is the day of Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech 68 years ago at Fulton Missouri. Dominique Moïsi: On Russia, well in 1995, if I remember well, there was a British diplomat who formulated the motto for western policy vis-à-vis Russia; let’s integrate Russia if we can, let’s contain Russia if we must and at the time that was Yeltsin Russia, and somewhere we’ve stayed with that formula without realizing that things have changed and that the priority was to set up limits for Russia and www.chathamhouse.org 3 Q&A: The EU in the World: Foreign Policy After Economic Crisis we did exactly the reverse, which means we sent signals to Russia emphasizing our weakness. That’s what we did clearly in Syria. That’s what in fact we’ve been doing in most cases on most issues, Georgia too. And so today we have to be united in setting up limits for Putin, but that presupposes a clear understanding of what he wants and, if I were to say something, I would say that Putin is at the same time a great tactician, a deep ideologue, and a poor strategist, and this combination of three factors should guide us in our policy, but we should have a clear vision. He is an ideologue. He really thinks this is the time to redress the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, the disappearance of the Soviet Union. He really believes that autocracy are the future, that democracies are corrupt, inefficient, etc. and he really believes there is a Russian civilization role in between the east and the west of the world. And he is a tactician, that’s clear. He prepared the invasion of Crimea for quite a long time. You don’t do that like that. He was waiting for the right moment and the right moment was right after Sochi when suddenly history accelerated, but he was ready for that. But I think he’s a poor strategist because somewhere he is completely anachronistic in his vision of Russia, in his vision of Russia’s means and possibilities in the world, and probably though the Russian people are quite nationalistic I’m not sure they would follow him if that meant for Russian elite that they would have to choose between power and wealth. Usually you get power in order to be wealthier, but suddenly if you accumulate power and you become poorer, that’s not exactly what people will look for; Putin maybe, but not the oligarchs around him. John Peet: And when you talk about Putin as being a tactician, one of the other things he seems to have done very effectively is to divide Europe. Germany has often had a very different policy towards Russia from the policy of France and Britain and Italy also. Do you think that’s part of the problem? Dominique Moïsi: Well, I think the Franco-German relationship on Russia is very complex. On the one hand there’s a specific relationship of Germany with Russia based on history, and history means a lot of things; the crimes committed by the German army but also the long historical links, the geography, the culture. For Germany, Germany’s relation with Russia is unique and specific. I’ve had long conversations with various leaders of Germany, from Helmut Schmidt in www.chathamhouse.org 4 Q&A: The EU in the World: Foreign Policy After Economic Crisis the 1970s to Angela Merkel in the last few months, and they both emphasize the specificity of their country’s relationship with Russia.

Load more