The EU at a glance - Europe in 12 lessons - The European Union on the world stage

In economic, trade and monetary terms, the European Union has become a major world power. However, some have described the EU as an economic giant but a political dwarf. This is an exaggeration. It has considerable influence within international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the specialised bodies of the United Nations (UN), and at world summits on the environment and development.

Nevertheless, it is true that the EU and its members have a long way to go, in diplomatic and political terms, before they can speak with one voice on major world issues like peace and stability, relations with the United States, terrorism, the Middle East and the role of the UN Security Council. What is more, the cornerstone of national sovereignty, namely military defence systems, remain in the hands of national governments, whose ties are those forged within alliances such as NATO.

The common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the European security and defence policy (ESDP), introduced by the Treaties of Maastricht (1992), Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2001), define the EU’s main tasks in the area of defence. The EU has thereby developed its ‘second pillar’, the policy domain in which action is decided by intergovernmental agreement and in which the Commission and the Parliament play only a minor role. Decisions in this domain are taken by consensus, although individual states can abstain.

More than half a century of Cold War has ended — Russia has a new orientation and the former communist countries have joined NATO and the EU almost simultaneously. The continent of Europe is coming together peacefully, and European countries are working together to fight international crime, people trafficking, illegal immigration and money laundering.

The enlarged EU has established a partnership structure with its neighbours, some of whom have medium-term prospects of joining the European Union.

The United States have accepted that, for military action in which the Americans are not involved, Europe can use some of NATO’s logistical capacity such as its intelligence, communications, command facilities and transport capabilities.

The terrorist violence that has scarred the world since the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and the bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 has profoundly altered the strategic landscape. European countries have to work more closely together to uncover information that will help prevent terrorists and their backers from carrying out attacks. Cooperation with the United States and all countries that support democracy and human rights now goes beyond the framework of traditional defensive alliances.

Under the Amsterdam Treaty, Javier Solana was appointed the EU’s first High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in 1999.

EU member states have set a specific goal as part of the task of establishing a European security and defence policy. This is to be able to deploy a rapid reaction force with naval and air support and sustain it for one year. This rapid reaction force will not yet be a real European army. Instead it will be made up of contingents from the existing national armed forces.

However, following the establishment of a Political and Security Committee (PSC), a European Union Military Committee (EUMC) and a European Union Military Staff (EUMS), under the authority of the Council and located in Brussels, the Union already has a political and military tool for carrying out the missions that it has set for itself: humanitarian missions outside Europe, peacekeeping operations and other crisis-management tasks.

As military technology becomes ever more sophisticated and expensive, EU governments are finding it increasingly necessary to work together on arms manufacture. Moreover, if their armed forces are to carry out joint missions, their systems must be interoperable and their equipment sufficiently standardised. The European Council in Thessaloniki decided, in 2003, to establish a European Defence Agency.

Since 2003, the EU has undertaken a series of peacekeeping and crisis management missions. The most important of these has been in Bosnia and Herzegovina where a European Union military force (EUFOR) of 7 000 troops replaced NATO peacekeeping forces in December 2004.

II. A trade policy that is open to the world

The European Union supports the rules-based system of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which provides a degree of legal certainty and transparency in the conduct of international trade. The WTO sets conditions under which its members can defend themselves against unfair practices like dumping (selling below cost) through which exporters compete against their rivals. It also provides a procedure for settling disputes that arise between two or more trading partners.

Hand holding a glass of white wine © Reuters
Wine is one the EU’s main exports to its biggest trade partner, the US.

The EU’s trade policy is closely linked to its development policy. Under its general system of preferences (GSP), the EU has granted duty-free or cut-rate preferential access to its market for most of the imports from developing countries and economies in transition. It goes even further for the world’s 49 poorest countries. All of their exports, with the sole exception of arms, enjoy duty-free entry to the EU market under a programme launched in 2001.

The EU does not, however, have specific trade agreements with its major trading partners among the developed countries like the United States and Japan. Here, trade relations are handled through the WTO mechanisms. The United States and the European Union are seeking to develop relations founded on equality and partnership. However, EU countries are not always in agreement on the type of diplomatic, political and military ties to establish with the United States.

The European Union is increasing its trade with the emerging powers in other parts of the world, from China and India to Central and South America. Trade agreements with these countries also involve technical and cultural cooperation.

III. Relations between the EU and the Mediterranean countries

Given their geographical proximity, historical and cultural ties, and current and future migration flows, the countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean are partners of prime importance. This is why the EU has traditionally chosen to pursue a policy of regional integration.

In November 1995, the EU laid the foundations for a new Euro-Mediterranean partnership at the Barcelona Conference, which was attended by all the EU member states and the Mediterranean countries (except for Albania, Libya and the countries of former Yugoslavia). This conference made it possible to trace the outline of a new partnership involving:

political dialogue between the participating countries and a security partnership based, in particular, on mechanisms for arms control and the peaceful resolution of conflicts;
stepping up economic and trading relations between the two regions: the key to this is the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area by 2010;
partnership in social and cultural fields.

The EU granted financial assistance to the tune of €5.3 billion to the Mediterranean countries in 2000–06. This aid continues in the budget period 2007–13, under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) which merges into one the previously separate support programmes for the Mediterranean countries and for its other neighbours among the successor states of the former Soviet Union.

Relations between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa go back a long way. Under the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the then colonies and overseas territories of member states became associates of the Community. Decolonisation, which began in the early 1960s, turned this link into a different kind of association, one between sovereign countries.

The Cotonou Agreement, signed in 2000 in Cotonou, the capital of Benin, marked a new stage in the EU’s development policy. This agreement between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries is the most ambitious and far-reaching trade and aid agreement ever concluded between developed and developing countries. It followed on from the Lomé Convention, which was signed in 1975 in Lomé, the capital of Togo, and subsequently updated at regular intervals.

The basic aim of this wide-ranging trade and aid agreement remains the same as that of the Lomé Convention: ‘to promote and expedite the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP states and to consolidate and diversify their relations [with the European Union and its member states] in a spirit of solidarity and mutual interest’.

The new agreement goes significantly further than earlier agreements, since it has moved from trade relations based on market access to trade relations in a wider sense. It also introduces new procedures for dealing with human rights abuses.

The European Union has granted special trading concessions to the least developed countries, 39 of which are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement. Since 2005, they have been able to export practically any type of product to the EU, duty free. The European Development Fund finances the ACP support programmes, paying out between two and three billion euro a year.