Charlemagne: Europe’s Cassandra complex

Like those ancient songsters, the European Union can warn and lament - but not act

EARLY on, there were 12 members. Later, 15. In subsequent versions, you can see 25, perhaps more. No, not growth in membership of the European Union. This is also the history of the number of people in the chorus of classical Greek drama.

How apt. In foreign policy, says Bob Kagan, of the Carnegie Endowment think-tank, the EU is just like a Greek chorus. It comments on the action. It reacts with horror or praise. It interacts in various ways with the protagonists. But the singers themselves play no part in the plot.

"O horror!" Europeans might reply, "Horror recoiling a thousand times! We may be old but our country's strength is young and lusty still" ("Oedipus at Colonus"). In simpler terms, the Europeans still yearn to go beyond what they have achieved at home (peace on the continent) and in their neighbourhood (modernising Turkey and pacifying the Balkans with the lure of membership). As it looks farther afield, the Union can already take pride in some peacekeeping missions in distant places, like Indonesia. European countries play a leading role in anti-nuclear diplomacy in Iran. European troops are in Afghanistan. The EU spends considerable sums in Palestine.

But whether this adds up to a coherent global policy is doubtful. Even if it does, the EU does not really formulate or carry out that policy (the troops in Afghanistan are NATO's; the Iranian diplomacy is pursued by Britain, France and Germany). But the EU is the main forum for its members to comment on and react to world events. So it is, at least, a chorus, not a cacophony.

The Greek chorus represented the community. It voiced the reaction of ordinary folk to the (often horrible) events in their midst. The EU also sees itself as a benign observer: no less keen on universal ideals (democracy, liberty) than America, and more sensitive than America to things like development and poverty.

As in the EU, the chorus often expresses support for the "law". In Sophocles's "Antigone", the chorus chides the heroine for "stumbling against Law enthroned" - a bit like EU members complaining of America's cavalier attitude to international norms.

The Greek chorus has a privileged relationship with the protagonists: its leader often stops in mid-commentary to talk to the hero and praise or upbraid him for his intended actions. As the part of the world that shares a vision of democracy and human rights with America, Europe should, in theory, be well-placed to advise and warn America about its policies. The EU already plays a moderately useful role in going through the diplomatic motions - in Iran and the Middle East, for example - when America does not know how, or whether, to get involved.

On the other hand, the Greek chorus is frequently made up of doddery old men - Theban elders in Sophocles's "King Oedipus" and "Antigone"; old justices in Aristophanes's "The Wasps". Or it is made up of women (Euripides's "Medea"). Either group, in the Greek world, was out of the decision-making loop - as the Europeans frequently are in Washington.

Sometimes, the chorus has no clue what is going on. "I am at a loss for thought," says the leader of the chorus of mothers in Euripides's "Suppliants". "I have no idea where to turn." Frequently, it is terrified, as at the start of "King Oedipus" ("my spirit is riven with fear of what will happen"). And sometimes, the members of the chorus are figures of derision, as in the "violent, old, splenetic men" of "The Wasps". The chorus almost always splits into different bits - not an unknown feature of the EU, where there are three centres of foreign policy-making: the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and national capitals themselves. Doddery, clueless, fearful and divided - it could be Donald Rumsfeld talking about old Europe.

It is fair to say that, ten years ago, the EU had no real foreign-policy involvement, except in trade. Now it has missions all over the world; troops in a few hotspots; and its individual members are somewhat more wary of going out on a limb than they used to be (though of course they still act unilaterally when they really want). It has a preference for soft power, and mild assertions of influence. What it does not have is an active and coherent global policy - because its members do not want it to.

Singing from the sidelines

The result, in EU policymaking and Greek drama, is inconsistency and ineffectiveness. In "Agamemnon" and "Antigone", those in power take big, atrocious decisions: Clytemnestra to murder the king; Creon to punish an enemy to excess. The chorus knows the protagonists are giving way to hubris, which will lead to disaster. It even tries to warn them, but no one pays any notice. In Agamemnon, the chorus flees in a panic when Cassandra prophesies the king will be killed. And while the murder is taking place, the chorus is reduced to nattering and yammering. "This is what I say, send a herald round." "Too slow. I say we should burst in at once." "I can suggest no plan that might prove practical." "I agree with you." It all sounds a bit like the EU before the Iraq war.

Elaine Fantham, a professor emerita at Princeton University, points out that the Greek chorus is governed by three basic rules. It may talk to the protagonists but cannot do much with the information it receives (such as pass it on to others); it does not necessarily understand what is really going on; and it cannot affect the main action, no matter what it says or knows. Something similar might be said about the EU. It plays a part in international diplomacy. But it does not have a true global policy. And as a result, it has little influence over those that do.

Of course, there is another aspect to this analogy. If the EU is the chorus, America must be the protagonist or tragic hero, hurrying to his doom and reckless of the consequences of his actions. In Aeschylus's "Persians", the over-reaching Xerxes mounts a hubristic expedition to punish Athens and is defeated and humiliated. But that's another story.

Commentary feature compares the EU's efforts at a global policy as that of the chorus in a classical Greek drama.

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