WHAT
NEW TRANSATLANTIC INSTITUTIONS? By
Charles Grant and Mark Leonard
Earlier this year, Gerhard Schröder caused a stir with a speech to the
Munich Security Conference. When he said that NATO was no longer the forum for
top level strategic discussions between Europeans and Americans he was stating
the obvious. But he missed a bigger opportunity when he suggested convening
a panel of the "Great and Good" to fix NATO.
The new NATO of 26 members is a useful and important organisation. It helps
integrate former Soviet states into the West, keeps the peace in Kosovo and
Afghanistan, and helps allied forces to learn to work alongside each other.
But NATO is not the place where Americans or Europeans want to talk about big
strategic questions. None of the existing transatlantic institutions allows
for high-level strategic discussions on important subjects such as democracy
in the Middle East or the rise of China. As a result, American and European
leaders often fail to comprehend each others' positions, thereby increasing
the likelihood of confrontation. Take the current mess over the EU's plan to
lift its arms embargo on China. The rows across the Atlantic have been foreseeable
for over a year, but nobody on the EU or US side did any meaningful forward
planning to defuse them.
Every year there is an EU-US summit, consisting of, on the European side, the
Commission president, the High Representative for foreign policy (Javier Solana)
and the prime minister of the country holding the EU's rotating presidency (currently
Luxembourg); and on the US side of the President, Vice-President, Secretary
of State, Secretary of Commerce, National Security Adviser, and occasionally
other senior officials. But the last summit lasted just three hours and although
it issued worthy declarations on economic ties, HIV-Aids, Iraq, Sudan and weapons
of mass destruction, there were no substantive discussions on these issues.
With neutral Ireland in the chair, and none of the big three EU countries (Britain,
France and Germany) represented, that was not entirely surprising.
At a lower level, several groups of senior officials attempt to manage the
EU-US relationship, the Europeans being represented by the Commission, the Council
and the presidency, and the Americans by the State Department and the National
Security Council. But because these groups are not preparing for a real decision-making
forum, other American departments such as Commerce, Treasury and Defence are
not represented, and senior State Department officials are reluctant to participate.
When it comes to co-operation on intelligence, the US agencies have a number
of bilateral relationships with EU countries, but feed nothing to the EU's Situation
Centre ('SitCen'), its intelligence co-ordinating body in the Council of Ministers.
For example, according to one EU official, the organisation had been given "nothing
on Hezbollah that we had not already read in the Washington Post".
The deeper problem lurking behind these inadequate transatlantic institutions
is a European one. The sad truth is that European leaders do not discuss Iraq
or China in a strategic way even among themselves, while the EU's insistence
on granting even the smallest member-states the same status as France or Germany
makes it hard for the Union to become a credible international partner. So the
Europeans should use the current debate over transatlantic institutions as a
trigger not to tinker with NATO but to put their own house in order.
They should try to build on the fairly successful example of informal, smaller
forums such as the 'EU Three' group of Britain, France and Germany, plus Solana,
that has negotiated with Iran for the past two years. Europeans need to recognise
that the larger member-states have more to say on many of the big issues. Austria,
for example, has strong views on the Balkans but not on Kashmir, Congo or Algeria.
This is not to say that the big countries necessarily have the best analysis
or prescriptions: the uncritical attitude of the French, German and Italian
governments towards Russia in recent years has been embarrassing. Smaller countries
should be involved when they have something to contribute, just as Poland and
Lithuania worked with Solana in defusing the Ukraine crisis.
The same principle should apply to transatlantic relations. At the highest level
there should be an annual gathering in a quiet retreat, for walks in the woods
and fireside chats. No more than five European leaders (probably those of Britain,
France, Germany and the Commission, plus Solana) should take part, plus the
US president and four of his most senior colleagues. The purpose would be free
and frank strategic discussions, with no more than one official per politician
allowed. There would be no press conference. In addition, the EU and the US
should set up 'contact groups' to discuss specific issues. These should consist
of the relevant EU foreign ministers and Solana, plus the US Secretary of State
and perhaps other Americans. On North Africa, for example, the EU's Mediterranean
countries should take part.
At a lower level, US departments other than State need to take part in the groups
of senior EU and US officials. There are too few people in Washington who think
about or know about the EU. Furthermore, the CIA should send a senior representative
to the SitCen, feeding in intelligence when appropriate (the CIA already does
this with the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee). The Americans are understandably
reluctant to share anything with a multilateral bureaucracy. But if they want
to influence EU foreign policy they should think of following the Israeli example.
In March 2005 Israeli intelligence briefed the European Parliament's foreign
affairs committee on Hezbollah and its apparent links to terrorism. As a result
the European Parliament passed a motion calling for tough measures against Hezbollah.
Many smaller EU members will bristle at the idea of forums dominated by big
countries. But they might be reconciled in three ways. First, the contact groups
would include the relevant small countries. Second, the contact groups would
not be decision-making bodies. They could make suggestions, but any EU decision
would require the contact group to convince the Council of Ministers. Third,
Solana should have a senior deputy tasked with listening to the views of small
states, feeding them into the contact groups, and reporting back to them. In
the enlarged EU, various sub-groups are inevitable, on an informal basis. Think,
for example, of the regular meetings of the Baltic and Nordic countries. These
meetings will happen whether people like them or not.
Our proposals recognise that a viable transatlantic relationship depends on
a more coherent EU foreign policy. When the Europeans are split, transatlantic
talks on any subject will be harder to manage, with the Americans inevitably
playing different governments against each other. In visiting the EU and praising
it, George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice seem to have abandoned their earlier
indifference, and perhaps moved beyond the Clinton administration's preference
for conducting transatlantic links bilaterally or through NATO. This apparent
openness to a different kind of EU-US institutional relationship may stem as
much from NATO's waning salience as the allure of a strong European Union. But
it still presents the Europeans with an opportunity to recast the relationship
- if they are mature enough to seize it.
Charles Grant is director of the CER and Mark Leonard is the CER's director
of foreign policy.
