Charlemagne. Chirac-lite

The competition for the right foreign-policy vision for the European Union

IS ATLANTICISM dying? This week Britain's Tony Blair, freshly returned from Washington, DC, made a passionate speech, pleading for the importance of greater co-operation between the United States and Europe. Even France's Jacques Chirac, the arch-exponent of the need for a European superpower and a multi-polar world, made soothing noises about the importance of transatlantic ties, telling British journalists ahead of a visit to London that “constructing Europe in opposition to the United States makes no sense”. Mr Chirac is careful with his words, because he knows there are few takers in Europe for a competitive, antagonistic relationship with America. What is emerging instead is a Chirac-lite approach.

Chirac-lite is based on the assumption that Europeans and Americans often see the world differently. While they may share the same broad goals - peace in the Middle East, stopping nuclear proliferation - they differ more and more frequently over the means. Chirac-lite has been quietly gaining converts, because the growing perception of an American failure in Iraq has bolstered the position of those in Europe who argue for keeping their distance from the Bush administration. The emergence of distinct European policies is now visible across a range of issues, from Iran to the Middle East peace process, and from global warming to the lifting of the western arms embargo on China. And, with the possible exception of the Chinese arms embargo, these are all matters where even Tony Blair is closer to the European than to the American position.

Iraq continues to overshadow all else. The Americans once hoped that success in Iraq might persuade more European countries to sign up to the mission. Now they are struggling to prevent the current members of the coalition from following the Spanish example and pulling out. The Dutch, the Hungarians and the Poles have all signalled that they hope to bring their troops home soon. And problems in Iraq act as a drain on the credibility of Atlanticism across the board. Those countries that sided with the Americans are often deemed to have participated in a failing venture, for which they have gained little in return, a point that Mr Chirac was careful to rub home to the British this week.

The failure of the Americans to launch a bold new peace initiative in the Middle East is exhibit one for Europeans who argue that Mr Blair's Atlanticism has paid no dividends. Formally, the Europeans and the Americans are signed up to the same “road map” for Middle Eastern peace. In practice, there are crucial differences that go well beyond America's supposed bias towards Israel and Europe's alleged fondness for the Palestinians. The argument is also about the feasibility of launching a big peace push under current circumstances. The Americans, with bitter experience of how the Oslo peace process unravelled, are sceptical. They argue that, with Israel's Gaza pull-out in the offing, and the Palestinian leadership in flux, it makes more sense to go step-by-step. The Europeans, however, continue to press for a dramatic new initiative in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, as a vital component of the “war on terror”.

The Europeans are mainly grumbling over Palestine. But they are actively trying to seize the initiative over Iran. The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, together with Javier Solana, the EU's foreign-policy chief, are still working on a deal to persuade the Iranians voluntarily to abandon their ambitions to develop nuclear-fuel technologies that could also enable them to build nuclear weapons. This week they said that Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities, in return for European concessions over trade. But the Europeans say they are getting scant support from America. “The best we hear from Washington”, says one EU diplomat, “is that they hope we succeed, but that they think we will fail. But there is another school that thinks our initiative is actually harmful because it allows the Iranians to stall.”

The stakes are high. America is pressing for sanctions if Iran continues to pursue its nuclear programme, and some senior American officials believe that the quarrel will ultimately end in armed conflict - maybe with a raid on Iran's nuclear facilities. Such a prospect is greeted with horror in Europe. Perhaps unwisely, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, said recently that armed conflict with Iran is “inconceivable”. The Europeans fear that an attack might persuade the Iranians to retaliate across the border in Iraq, as well as leading to a further spike in the oil price.

The China card

Whereas the Europeans believe they are taking the moral high ground over the Middle East and Iran, their position over China looks more like realpolitik. France is pressing for an end to the EU arms embargo on China and appears to be gaining support around Europe. The Americans are strongly opposed, and are lobbying their closest European allies - especially the British, Dutch and Scandinavians - to block any change. But EU diplomats seem to think that an intra-European deal is in the works, in which the embargo might be lifted at the same time as the EU tightens its code of conduct on arms sales, a measure that would supposedly rule out the sale of weapons that could be used to attack Taiwan or to repress human rights.

Such a move would confirm a willingness by the EU consciously to take decisions that the Americans consider to be contrary to their strategic interests. If a pattern of such decisions were to emerge, it would mark a real rupture in the western alliance. Powerful forces still pull in the other direction. NATO (and thus the Americans) has infinitely more credibility as a guarantor of security than the EU; this matters to countries such as Poland or the Baltic states that still worry about the Russians. Success in Iraq would also do a huge amount to restore American prestige in Europe and to rekindle the allure of Atlanticism. But failure could strengthen the siren appeal of Chirac-lite.

Commentary feature which discusses the various visions for a European Union foreign policy, working together with America or more independently.

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