Editor’s note: For another perspective, check out staff writer Nicholas Bonstow’s article, “Europe’s New Rise.”
Nowadays, when we think of the UN, we think of old Westerners sitting at a table, working out issues for some unfortunate and unrelated country that direly needs foreign aid. A general sense of Eurocentrism permeates these images of international deal making, and for good reason: it was, admittedly, the European world that led the establishment of supranational bodies such as the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court. But in fifty years or so, will we continue to think of European involvement as the lynchpin of diplomacy? I’m not inclined to think so.
There is no doubt that Europe created the diplomatic system that we know today, with foreign diplomats from all corners of the world employing terms like demarche and vin d’honneur in their daily work. As the first area of the world to truly industrialize and initiate the globalization of the economy, Europe has spread its reach far and wide as the international forum’s center of gravity, and, until the 20th century, all world powers were European.
But due to the current economic crisis and changes in the international system, European foreign services are facing more and more budget cuts and must thoroughly re-evaluate their involvement on the international playing field. And with increasingly complex issues that cannot uniformly be answered by dollars or troops, smaller, regional countries that have had experience with similar issues have become more prominent in an increasing number of more complicated deals. As such, the international paradigm has started shifting away from relying on Western diplomacy and towards holding close ties with geopolitical neighbors, and the latest wave of international development has only made these organic ties much more available. With ethnic and localized conflicts, such as those in Central African Republic and Sri Lanka, rising up the ranks of the international issue hierarchy, it will take more than just the catch-all solution to remain relevant in international discussions.
Significant budgetary re-allocations resulting from the economic crisis and Europe’s relative decline in comparison to the United States and China have pushed European foreign policy away from development assistance and towards boosting trade for its own benefit. One prominent example, such as the European Union’s Operation Atalanta, addresses the piracy problem in Somalia by enforcing security of the critical trading artery in the Gulf of Aden, instead of providing long-term state-building assistance to the war-torn country. And the efforts of the European Union in rebuilding conflict-stricken states, such as post-Gaddafi Libya, have been minimal beyond those that ensure the accessibility of oil ports.
Diplomatic missions abroad have also seen increasing cuts, especially those dealing with social services: consulates and embassies that abound in foreign countries on behalf of European nations are in the process of being shut down or consolidated. More specifically, Spain cut spending on development cooperation from .43% of GDP in 2010 to .23% in 2012. Moreover, the number of national diplomatic missions undertaken has dropped significantly in countries such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Italy.
The narrowing of European foreign policy to trade promotion from a previously wide array of global endeavors (such as the late 20th century initiation of development schedules in Africa, many of which have not been checked upon) also makes it difficult to forge political unity within member states of the European Union. Indonesia, one of Europe’s previous development aid recipients whose current national development strategy with the EU expires later this year, is one such case. The EU has not attempted to renew the current cycle of the assistance program that has helped Indonesia with education, economic development, climate change, and environment funding, and instead has instituted another schedule that supports Indonesian government agencies in enhancing Indonesia’s export infrastructure.
And while European nations have attempted to strengthen their diplomatic presence in China, fewer have dedicated their international efforts to a formation of a unified foreign policy front. As we pass the three-year anniversary of the founding of the EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS) led by Catherine Ashton, it has become increasingly clear that European governments are too occupied with the Eurozone crisis to focus much on foreign policy far from their own borders, and as a result have resorted to rolling back diplomatic efforts to self-interested policies that seek only to benefit their own economies. International experts have criticized the EEAS as another institutional barrier to Europe’s policy-making calculus, formed under the pretense that it could produce a coherent European foreign policy through cooperation. But European diplomats now find themselves with far less power to shape the world than before, a reality that contrasts starkly with the enthusiasm associated with the initial formation of EEAS.
Pressing cross-border issues such as irregular migration, proliferation of weapons, and cyber-security require a different level of involvement beyond the umbrella aid packages so often used in the teenage years of the United Nations, and require more complex solutions than afforded to European foreign ministers by their governments back home. These new international challenges level the diplomatic playing field by encouraging specialization: countries with more extensive histories dealing within specific issues can take the helm in such negotiations.
With the recent Iran deal struck between President Rouhani and the P5+1, this decline in European involvement has become ever clearer. Primarily, rolling back uranium deposits required a more in-depth solution that required local intermediaries instead of European dominants to assist in brokering a compromise, namely Oman (the US’s rubber glove to approaching electric groups such as the Taliban and the Islamic Republic) and the UAE. President Barack Obama’s secret meetings in Oman are no surprise when such alliances could very possibly have established direct lines to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a capacity well outside the reach of Europe’s diplomats. The meetings were done outside the purview of European powers, due to the lack of negotiating potential these nations have held on issues in the region.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’ refusal to accept the Iran deal and attempt to leverage for more compromises on behalf of Iran have not helped the European position. Long-held grudges between France and the Islamic Republic catalyzed the development of Fabius’ hard line but failed to yield any meaningful results in his favor, although officially France claims that its strict stance allowed an “anchoring” of tougher terms. France eventually gave in to the P5+1 consensus because there was a strong desire on both sides to hammer out a substantive deal. Fabius’ intransigence was viewed as unnecessary and extraneous, and he had little choice but to back down from the extreme position he had taken.
With the increasing number of these types of negotiations, Europe will find itself having less and less say on the matter. The direction of foreign policy has seemingly reversed for the European Union, and it has, as shown throughout these examples, switched from addressing external affairs to repairing domestic problems. And as Europe struggles with its own issues back home, the old days of diplomatic hegemony may in fact be over. Who knows—one can only hope that the international community will fit its description as a truly global one within the next couple of decades. And the wishful can expect this to lead to more comprehensive and inclusive efforts on behalf of all nations and to bolster multilateral policy approaches, albeit at Europe’s expense as their role on the international field continues to diminish.
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