Home > Europe must not buy Bush’s line
The Financial Times (UK)
September 18, 2003
Europe must not buy Bush’s line
By Michael Peel
Nobody should imagine it will be an easy conversation
when Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder
meet in Berlin for lunch on Saturday. There has been
a lot of bad blood between the big three leaders of
the European Union in the past 18 months. It will not
disappear in a day.
It was the inability of the British, French and German
leaders to agree on any common stance on Iraq that left
the EU emasculated in any effort to influence US policy.
And the bitter truth is that for many months they have
scarcely made any attempt to resolve their differences.
They have sulked in their tents and bad-mouthed each
other in private. So much for their supposed commitment
to forging a common EU foreign policy.
There is all the more reason, therefore, to welcome
their first trilateral meeting in two years. It should
not be seen as an attempt to dictate the EU agenda but
as a belated effort to prevent their own disagreements
from causing gridlock in the Union.
It is not just about Iraq. Indeed, it may not even be
primarily about Iraq - more about trying to find common
ground on the future of Europe. But Iraq has been the
poison in the process. Some sort of antidote must be
found.
That is not going to be easy. Will Mr Blair persuade his
continental counterparts to swallow their doubts and
sign up to the US-led reconstruction programme in Iraq?
Or will the other two persuade the UK prime minister to
distance himself, at least a fraction, from the
international agenda of President George W. Bush?
With luck, they will realise they share two fundamental
concerns. One is over the miserable state of
transatlantic relations. The other is a fear that
without new impetus from the top, the European project
may itself grind to a halt with the impending
enlargement to 25 member states.
As far as transatlantic ties are concerned, it is not
just about the lack of dinner invitations from the White
House. The normal lively exchange of ideas between
politicians and pundits from both sides has almost dried
up. Even Mr Chirac, quite wrongly seen in Washington as
an unreconstructed anti-American Gaullist, knows that
both sides are weaker as a result. But the three leaders
undoubtedly differ in their analysis of who was at
fault, and how to respond.
The Bush administration must bear much of the blame,
with its prickly unilateralism and fundamentalist
division of the world into good and evil. Its insistence
on trying to run the world with "coalitions of the
willing" has caused extraordinary bitterness among old
allies. But the EU is also at fault, because its leading
governments have been so divided, although their voters
were far more united.
A recent opinion poll by the German Marshall Fund* shows
that the war has had a disastrous effect on European
attitudes towards US leadership. Every single European
country polled, except Poland, showed a large majority
disapproving of US foreign policy. In Germany and France
more than 80 per cent disapproved. In Britain it was 57
per cent.
The surprising result was that Americans showed a much
more positive attitude towards Europe. A majority want
to see the EU become "a superpower capable of sharing
global responsibilities with the US" - even if it
sometimes opposes US policy.
That view coincides with reports from Washington that
the administration wants to revive its chilly European
ties, starting with a stronger Nato and leading to a
bigger European role in Iraq.
But is that simply an admission that the US wants more
troops in Iraq, from anywhere but home? It may be a
recognition that the US cannot succeed in stabilising
the country on its own, but there is still little sign
of realisation that it is because the US is seen as an
occupying power in Baghdad - not a liberator - that the
situation remains so chaotic. Nobody wants to make
matters worse but there is equally no international
enthusiasm for sending more troops - whether they are
Indian, Turkish or French - until the US starts to hand
over power.
This is not the right moment for Europe to swallow its
doubts about US foreign policy, just for the sake of
better transatlantic ties. There is a dangerous
temptation to sign up to the US security agenda, with
its focus on rogue states and weapons of mass
destruction. That was wrong after September 11 2001 and
it is wrong now. Europe is right to insist that tackling
the causes of terrorism is most important, and using the
tools of the multilateral system is essential.
It is too much to expect Mr Blair to admit so soon that
he got it wrong in Iraq. But he should be alarmed by the
continuing US obsession with ill-defined WMD. No one
makes the distinction between nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons. They are quite different threats
that require very different policies of containment. Yet
the rhetoric that was used against Iraq is now being
turned on Syria and Iran.
If Britain, France and Germany could settle their
differences on Iraq, they could at last become a
positive influence on Washington. This is the moment to
do so, when the mistakes of the US-led coalition are
becoming obvious to all but the most obtuse. It would
also be a vital signal to ordinary Europeans that their
Union can forge a common foreign policy on something
that really matters. Is that too much to ask?
* Transatlantic Trends 2003, www.transatlantictrends.org
This column now appears on Thursdays quentin.peel@ft.com