The EU and Effective Multilateralism

Internal and external reform practices

Edith Drieskens, Louise G. van Schaik, Edith Drieskens, Louise G. van Schaik

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138377455
• eBook ISBN: 9781134716050
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book investigates the extent to which the EU has defined and operationalised the notion of effective multilateralism.

Reform has dominated the agenda of the EU in recent years with the adoption and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. However, various international organisations have also been in reform mode in an attempt to adjust their structure to the changing polarity and counter criticisms about a lack of legitimacy, accountability and effectiveness.

The EU and Effective Multilateralism examines the EU's intention to make multilateral settings more effective, as formulated by the European Security Strategy in December 2003. Firmly grounded in new empirical research, it provides a balanced account of the fit between internal reform (the institutional reform within the EU, notably following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty) and external reform (the institutional reform of the international reform in which the EU operates).

This book will be of much interest to students of EU politics, European security, international organisations, foreign policy and IR in general.

1	Introduction

A framework for analysing effective multilateralism

Edith Drieskens

Introduction

This volume builds upon a workshop that was organized by the Clingendael Institute in February 2012. Bringing academics and policy officials together, the workshop explored the European Union (EU)’s functioning in international settings following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. In their contributions, most participants discussed processes of coordination and representation to evaluate whether or not the EU’s newest treaty makes it a more effective international actor. Doing so, they gave the notion of reform a predominantly internal interpretation.

Bringing an external reform dimension into the picture and addressing the question what has become of the EU’s intention to make multilateral settings more effective, as formulated by the European Security Strategy (ESS) in December 2003, this volume aims to provide a balanced empirical account of the fit between internal and external reform.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to set the scene, introduce the focus, outline the framework of analysis and provide an overview of the various contributions. It starts with discussing the main characteristics of the reform dimensions around which this volume is structured, namely internal and external reform. The former covers institutional reform within the EU; the latter refers to the institutional reform of the international settings in which the EU operates.

Dimensions

Looking from an EU perspective, the Lisbon Treaty (in full: Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community) can be seen as the most comprehensive internal reform effort for many years. Signed in Lisbon in December 2007 and in force since November 2009, its main aim is to increase the EU’s coherence and consistency on the international level, thus transforming the EU into a more effective international actor. To this aim, it introduces a more permanent system of external representation, at least for matters falling within the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the old system, the EU was represented for those issues by the member state holding the rotating presidency, thus by a different country every six months, which resulted in criticisms of inconsistency both in academic and policy circles.

Somewhat ironically, then, the new set-up includes more faces than before. Probably most visible are the appointments of Herman Van Rompuy as first permanent President of the European Council and Catherine Ashton as first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security. The President of the European Council convenes and chairs the meetings, sets the agenda, takes care of the follow-up and represents it vis-à-vis the other EU institutions. Also, he represents the EU at the level of heads of state and government with third countries, including in multilateral settings. Merging three roles into one, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security combines the functions of the former High Representative for the CFSP (a position held by Javier Solana between 1999 and 2009), the Commissioner for External Relations and the foreign minister of the country holding the rotating presidency (Kajnc et al. 2012; Vanhoonacker et al. 2012). As High Representative, Ashton has to contribute to the development of the CFSP and ensures the implementation of the decisions adopted by the European Council and the Council of Ministers of the European Union. In addition, she has to ensure the unity, consistency and effectiveness of the EU’s action, represents the EU for CFSP matters, presides over the Foreign Affairs Council, takes part in the work of the European Council and is vice-president of the Commission. Also, being first, Ashton had to manage the complex logistical operation of establishing the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is to support her work.

The EEAS was officially launched in September 2011, but has known a slow start also because the organizational set-up was a main focus in the first year of operation. Slowly but surely, however, the new diplomatic service has changed the EU’s functioning not only in Brussels, but also around the world (Drieskens 2012). The delegations of the European Commission in third countries and at international organizations – about 140 offices worldwide – were upgraded to EU delegations and became responsible for representing the EU at the local level. Exploring the EU’s post-Lisbon functioning in seven centres for multilateral diplomacy – Brussels, Geneva, Nairobi, New York, Rome, The Hague and Vienna – this volume shows that the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty is still work in progress, not least because the implementation has created resistance from both the EU member states and third countries.

Unfinished business and criticism notwithstanding, the EU decided to go one step further in December 2012. Without giving it much publicity, the EU embarked on a campaign to progressively improve its status in various international organizations, aligning it with the objectives of the Lisbon Treaty. When this volume was submitted to the publisher in June 2013, it was too early to evaluate the campaign, but the Arctic Council had given a first indication that it would not be smooth sailing for the EU. Permanent access to the meetings of this body is seen as increasingly important following the melting of the Arctic ice and the subsequent availability of transport routes and mineral resources. However, while the EU’s request for permanent observer status was affirmatively received at the meeting in Kiruna on 15 May 2013, a final decision was postponed. By contrast, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Italy managed to secure their seats. Like the EU’s upgrade in the UN General Assembly (UNGA; see Chapter 2), the course of events illustrates that the EU may have the ambition to upgrade its status internationally, but that it can only do so by virtue of its international partners. Most probably, to realize its ambitions at the Arctic Council, the EU will have to accommodate Canada and meet its concerns over trade in seal fur.

Awareness that international status requires external recognition may seem to grow rather slowly within the EU, but there was a large consensus during the negotiations of the Lisbon Treaty on the need to define the underlying principles and general objectives of the EU’s external action in a way that would be clear to the EU’s partners (European Convention 2002: 2). Defining those principles and objectives would make it easier to define common interests and to agree upon a strategy to defend them. Echoing the consensus, the Lisbon Treaty determines that the EU has to develop relations and build partnerships with regional and international organizations and third countries sharing the EU’s principles. In that regard, it underlines the EU’s adherence to multilateral cooperation and stipulates that the EU shall promote multilateral solutions to common problems, as well as an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good governance. Laatikainen (2013: 472) has aptly summarized this duality in the EU’s strategic approach:

it embraces two somewhat contradictory visions of international order, one based on rule-based multilateral order supported by international organizations and rule of law, the other an explicitly political order wherein great powers jointly coordinate among themselves issues of bilateral and collective concern.

The question is then not only whether multilateralism and multipolarity are compatible organizing principles, but also if the EU’s external partners are as like-minded as the EU wants them to be. Recent research shows that they embrace different meanings of what multilateralism entails and how it should be operationalized (see, for instance, Grevi and de Vasconcelos 2008; Bouchard and Peterson 2011; Keukeleire and Bruyninckx 2011; Renard and Biscop 2012; Bouchard et al. 2013). Also, they have a different understanding of how multilateralism should be organized. Questioning the Western-centred set-up of multilateral settings, they often demand more inclusiveness. In other words, reform may have dominated the agenda of the EU in recent years with the adoption and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, but various international organizations have been in reform mode as well in an attempt to adjust their structure to the changing polarity and counter criticisms about a lack of legitimacy, accountability and effectiveness.

Exploring the compatibility between internal and external reform, this volume defines the notion of effectiveness in terms of goal achievement (Jørgensen et al. 2011). As explained below, the achievement standards are the objectives on the reform of multilateral settings as specified by the ESS. Doing so, this volume aims to generate new insights for scholars and practitioners with an interest in the EU, but also for those interested in the reform dynamics of global governance more generally.

Scope

Both types of institutional reform are moving targets, yet the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the concept of effective multilateralism offers a unique opportunity for stocktaking. Indeed, it has been ten years since the EU defined its long-standing choice for multilateral cooperation in terms of effective multilateralism with the ESS calling for ‘an international order based on effective multilateralism’ (European Council 2003: 9). Since the genesis of the notion has been well documented, we limit ourselves here to highlighting the main findings (Bailes 2005; Biscop 2005; Biscop and Drieskens 2006; Koops 2011).

Various scholars have traced its origins to the discussions at the UN on the intervention in Iraq in early 2003, which painfully displayed a fundamental lack of agreement between the EU member states serving at the UN Security Council. In an attempt to close ranks, Javier Solana, the EU’s then High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, was tasked to elaborate a strategic concept at the meeting of the foreign ministers in Kastellorizo on 3 May. A few weeks later, he presented a first draft at the meetings of the External Relations Council (16 June) and the European Council (19–20 June), where he was asked to draft a security strategy for adoption at the next European Council meeting. In the following months, the text, which was drafted by a small team headed by Solana, was discussed at expert seminars in Rome (19 September), Paris (6–7 October) and Stockholm (20 October). Deliberations with the EU member states and the Commission were organized as well. On 12 December, the European Council adopted the final text – a 14-page document titled A Secure Europe in a Better World and subtitled European Security Strategy. Solana was congratulated for the work accomplished and, together with the incoming Dutch Presidency, mandated to elaborate concrete proposals for implementation. Four issues were selected in that regard, including effective multilateralism with the UN at its core.

In the years following its adoption, the notion effective multilateralism became an important symbol for, even synonym with, the ESS and the EU’s intention to reaffirm itself as a coherent and capable international actor (Koops 2011). Providing a unifying concept for the EU’s foreign policy objectives, the term has been the guiding principle of many foreign policy documents issued by the EU, notably in relation to the UN. Yet the notion does not have European roots: Robert Kagan introduced it in 2001 to define and delineate the American view of multilateralism. In an opinion article in the Washington Post (headlined ‘Coalition of the unwilling’), he noted that the real debate was not between unilateralism and multilateralism, but rather between ‘effective multilateralism’ and ‘paralytic multilateralism’ (Kagan 2001). In his view, a precondition for an effective form of multilateralism is a unilateral determination to act, as exemplified by the Gulf War coalition of the early 2000s. By contrast, Clinton’s attempts at providing a collective response to the Bosnian crisis in the early 1990s were regarded as the example of paralytic multilateralism. In other words, the original meaning of effective multilateralism does not reflect the EU’s long-standing preference for and practice of common solutions – a reality that has been explained even in genetic terms suggesting that multilateralism is part of the EU’s DNA (see, for instance, Jørgensen 2009).

The ESS suggests that effective multilateralism should be read as enforceable multilateralism, but lacks a clear operational definition of the term (Biscop and Drieskens 2006):

In a world of global threats, global markets and global media, our security and prosperity increasingly depend on an effective multilateral system. The development of a stronger international society, well functioning international institutions and a rule-based international order is our objective…. We want international organisations, regimes and treaties to be effective in confronting threats to international peace and security, and must therefore be ready to act when their rules are broken.

(European Council 2003: 9)

This bold but imprecise language may help explain why the term has drawn considerable scholarly attention, particularly from researchers exploring EU–UN relations (Kissack 2010; Bouchard and Drieskens 2013). As the growing group of scholars exploring the impact of the Lisbon Treaty illustrates, the increase of research on the EU’s international functioning often stems from changes to the rules governing the EU’s functioning – be it in the form of amendments to the treaties or policy documents. The ESS is then no different. Importantly, while new rules have been added in the meantime, the notion of effective multilateralism continues to inspire scholars ten years later (see, for instance, Krause and Ronzitti 2012; Bouchard et al. 2013; Lucarelli et al. 2013). As explained below, more recent work examines the EU’s practice and performance in various multilateral settings, but also analyses whether the EU’s interpretation of multilateralism fits with the changing global multilateralism.

Focus

Laatikainen and Smith (2006) may have underlined the importance of combining internal and external variables when explaining the EU’s functioning in international settings already in 2006, but scholarly knowledge has increased only more recently (see Foreword). A growing group of scholars acknowledges that the study of the EU in international affairs cannot be limited to EU variables only and that the variety in and success of the EU’s approach are not only determined by the EU’s internal decision-making procedures and dynamics, but also by contextual factors (see, for instance, Jørgensen 2009; Kissack 2010; Blavoukos and Bourantonis 2011; Costa and Jørgensen 2012; Laatikainen 2013). Or, as argued elsewhere, the EU may have the ambition of being a structural power, but it is also a structured one, defined by the international context in which it operates (Drieskens 2009; Delreux et al. 2012).

It is within this emerging strand of literature that the present volume is to be situated. Contributors were asked to incorporate an external dimension into their analysis by comparing the EU’s perspective on institutional reform with that of its external partners. Some of the volumes mentioned above discuss the issue of reform, but they tend to do so only in passing by. Unlike the present volume, they do not systematically analyse the compatibility between (the international demand for) external reform and (the EU’s supply of) internal reform. In fact, few of the scholars that have explored the notion of effective multilateralism, and the ESS more generally, have looked directly at the question of whether the EU has made multilateralism more effective through reform, despite the ESS explicitly formulating that ambition.

More specifically, the ESS stipulates that the EU aims for well-functioning institutions and that strengthening the UN by equipping it to fulfil its responsibilities and to act effectively is a European priority. Regarding the widening of the membership of international organizations, the text refers to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) specifically and to the international financial institutions more generally, stating that the membership of such bodies should be widened ‘while maintaining their high standards’ (European Council 2003: 9). In a similar vein, the Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy, which was adopted in 2008, recognized that the international system, as created at the end of the Second World War, ‘faces pressures from several fronts’ and that the EU’s representation has come under question (European Council 2008: 12; see also Conclusion). It was argued that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other financial organizations should be adapted ‘to reflect modern realities’. Also, the EU should continue the reform of the UN system, seizing the ‘unique moment to renew multilateralism’ and playing a leading role therein.

Key institutions in the international system, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Financial Institutions, have extended their membership. China has joined the WTO and Russia is negotiating its entry. It should be an objective for us to widen the membership of such bodies while maintaining their high standards.

(European Council 2003: 9)

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: a framework for analysing effective multilateralism
• 2 The EU’s search for effective participation at the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council
• 3 The EU’s role in creating a more effective WHO
• 4 The role of the EU in the reform of the FAO: bridge builder or structural engineer?
• 5 The EU and multilateralism in the environmental field: UNEP reform and external representation in environmental negotiations
• 6 Discreet effectiveness: the EU and the ICC
• 7 Effective multilateralism in the IAEA: changing best practice
• 8 From ‘effective’ to ‘selective multilateralism’: the European Union’s relations with NATO
• 9 Effective multilateralism between unequal partners: the EU in the OSCE
• 10 Between effective multilateralism and multilateralism light: the EU in the G8
• 11 Effective minilateralism: the EU’S pragmatic embracement of theG20
• 12 Conclusion: the compatibility of internal and external reform
• Index