With the euro crisis and its attendant intra-European tension dominating headlines, it would be logical to assume that Europe's common foreign policy has suffered. But has it? Jan Techau of the Carnegie Endowment provides here an insightful, and mostly upbeat, assessment of Europe's role in the world. Financial chaos notwithstanding, Europe has hung together on Iran and been surprisingly coherent on the Arab spring. Perhaps most importantly, he argues, the U.S.-Europe relationship may have actually benefited from the euro crisis:
[D]espite the frequent warnings that America is drifting away from
Europe, the euro crisis has actually brought America and Europe closer
together. The Obama administration, banks, and the business community in
the United States clearly understand that Europe must remain stable or
the ramifications for America will be horrific. They need stability in
Europe, and they need Europe to tackle this crisis and to manage it well
in order to survive themselves.
It’s very clear that President Obama is on the phone with Germany’s
Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy of France all the time, and that the
U.S.-based financial institutions have a very strong stake in the euro
crisis—there is a lot of coordination going on across the Atlantic. It
may not be for positive reasons that they are cooperating, but they do
and that’s basically a good thing.
Techau acknowledges that the EU's new foreign policy arm--the External Action Service--has stumbled out of the gate. But even here, he sees cause for optimism. And, once again, the financial crisis may be having some salutary side effects:
[T]here are signs that the service is gaining a little bit of traction.
The financial crisis has absorbed a lot of capacity in the member states
to deal with international affairs. Now, they are looking at Brussels
and at the relatively large External Action Service, with its capacity
and its brain power, to actually give them ideas as well. It’s happening
under the radar, behind this financial crisis and nobody really looks
at foreign policy institutions.
Europe has been struggling for decades to fashion a more coherent foreign policy while maintaining its traditional links with the United States. At least in the short term, the euro crisis might actually be advancing those goals.
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