I wrote earlier this month about the European Union's bid to get full speaking rights at this year's United Nations meetings. That effort failed:
The EU hoped to get the new diplomatic season off to a
flying start with a UN General Assembly resolution to secure it
enhanced participation rights, from being one of a mass of observers to
one with virtually full rights to participate, speak and make
proposals. The initiative failed when a counter-resolution to
postpone a decision passed by 76 votes to 71. The 76 included most of
the African, Caribbean and Pacific beneficiaries of EU aid. The
objections seem mainly to have been on matters of diplomatic process
rather than substance, so it may pass when put forward again.
On its own, whether the EU is treated as an observer at the U.N. or on par with member states is of little consequence to anyone but lawyers in Brussels and a smattering of law professors. But underlying the debate is the more significant issue of whether the EU is developing a coherent foreign policy. And on that perennial question, recent evidence is mixed at best. On the architectural front, the EU's External Action Service -- a corps of Euro-diplomats designed to give human faces to a common foreign policy -- is lurching forward, although with plenty of sniping and bruised feelings about appointments and budgets.
Substantively, there are a few bright spots. When I was in Europe recently, several diplomats were trumpeting the EU's success in getting Serbia to moderate its proposed General Assembly resolution on Kosovo and adopt a more constructive tone generally. Helpful no doubt, but hardly Camp David stuff. More broadly though, recent conversations have left me gloomy about the EU's ability to spearhead the diplomatic effort necessary to stop Bosnia's dangerous political backsliding.
Beyond Europe's backyard, the picture is even muddier. I asked Sudan activist John Prendergast today about whether the EU was playing any meaningful role in the diplomatic efforts on Darfur or southern Sudan. The answer, in short, was no. As he describes it, several European diplomats are circulating around the edges of the talks but not exerting major influence and certainly not marshalling the full weight of the union. When activists talk about what might be the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis, they will talk for hours about the nuances in the policies of Scott Gration, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, and of course the president himself. Catherine Ashton, Herman van Rompuy, and Jose Manuel Barrosso don't merit a mention.
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