EU challenged to match words with deeds

Date: 06/04/2000

The debate at last week's international donors' conference over how to meet the cost of bringing stability to the Balkan region has underlined Washington's belief that the EU must shoulder more of the financial and political burden of maintaining peace and security in the post-Cold war era. Simon Taylor reports

AT LAST week's conference on funding for the Balkans stability pact, the US administration pledged to provide 15% of the region's total financing needs over the next two years. But it was the EU, in the form of the European Commission, which emerged as by far the largest single donor to the region, providing €530 million - 45% of the €2.4 billion needed - for projects to start this year.

It comes as no surprise that the bulk of the cost of rebuilding the Balkans in the wake of last year's Kosovo campaign will be borne by the Union. The US, as NATO's best-armed and equipped member, bankrolled the air strikes and its message to the EU once hostilities had ended was quite clear: 'We paid for the war. Now it is up to you to pay for the peace.'

But the principle that the Union must shoulder more of the financial and political burden of maintaining peace and security in the post-Cold War era has emerged as a dominating factor in EU-US relations.

As the debate about the Union's efforts to develop its own military capability has shown, Washington's initial concern that the EU was creating new organisations to rival existing transatlantic structures such as NATO has evolved into scepticism about whether the Europeans can deliver on their ambitions.

"It is time for the Europeans to put their money where their mouth is," says Steven Everts, research fellow in EU-US issues at the Centre for European Reform (CER) in London.

Restoring lasting peace and stability in the Balkans is seen as the first test of whether EU governments can live up to expectations. External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten summed up the US view in a recent speech. "How can we trust you to do more for yourselves, we are asked, when you have not even managed to sort out the Balkans?"

Awareness of this problem in the Union has already prompted major soul-searching among member states and in the Commission. The result of this exercise was last month's report from the Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Patten which listed the EU's embarrassing weaknesses in the Balkans.

The paper pointed out that despite the fact that the Union was by far the largest player in the region in terms of financial aid and military personnel, "the effectiveness of the Union's policies is affected by the plethora of actors involved in crisis management".

It added that the EU's ability to react rapidly to the evolving situation on the ground was hampered by "complex and lengthy procedures of policy formulation and decision-making", and warned that the Union had a "chronic tendency to understate and under-represent what it does" in the region.

In a not-so-veiled barb directed at the US, the report stated: "The very active communications policy of other international actors in the region often leads public opinion to the conclusion that the EU is not doing much and has no clear policy ideas for the region."

To tackle these problems, Union leaders agreed at last month's Lisbon summit to put Solana in charge of improving coordination of the Union's policy and raising the public awareness of what member states are doing in the region.

Balkans experts believe Union governments will face a early test of whether they can work more effectively to stabilise the region as they strive to help the pro-western and pro-reform government of Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro, which Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been trying to undermine through an economic blockade and military-muscle flexing.

As Patten pointed out in a recent speech, the Union risks getting less support from the US in future crises if it fails to live up to its ambitions in the region. "The ability to manage the Balkans will be a test for EU-US relations. If we allow a gap to develop between rhetoric and reality, we will play into the hands of isolationists," he warned.

The Union's bid to create its own defence and security capability is, without doubt, the area where Washington is most sceptical about the EU's ability to match its words with deeds.

US attitudes towards the initiative have evolved over the last 18 months. Initial fears that it would pose a threat to NATO have subsided, but have been replaced by concern over whether the Union will actually be able to put in place a system capable of responding to future crises.

US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot recently stressed American support for what EU governments are trying to do. "We are not against it. We are not ambivalent. We are not anxious. We are for it. We want to see a Europe that can act effectively through the alliance or, if NATO is not involved, on its own. Period. End debate," he said.

The problem comes when the US hears announcements such as that made recently by Germany that it plans to make major savings in its defence budget and wonders how the EU can hope to challenge the US' dominance in the satellite technology, air transport and a range of other sectors if governments are not prepared to put their hands in their pockets.

Many in the Union claim that the key to its chances of achieving its defence ambitions is not new money but wiser targeting of existing budgets so that national armed forces can work together more effectively in future crisis situations.

As Patten has pointed out, European members of NATO spend 60% of the sum allocated by the US to defence but their ability to put troops into trouble spots is only 10-15% of Washington's. The EU has set itself the target of deciding how to make 60,000 troops available for crisis management duties by the end of this year.

So far the political will demonstrated by Union countries to address the shortcomings exposed by Bosnia and Kosovo has been impressive. They have resisted the temptation to snipe at the US every time it insists that the EU must pick up the bill for peace in its own backyard, or take on the military role which it is not capable of performing now.

Some argue that the cost of member states failing to live up to their ambitions would only be some dented political egos in Downing Street, the Elysée Palace and along the Spree. But others believe there is a lot more at stake. The CER's Everts argues that it is essential for the Union to shoulder more of the burden to avoid giving fresh ammunition to those on Capitol Hill who would prefer the US to pursue its own agenda.

"If you want to keep the US involved in multilateral organisations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, you have to pay a price by being serious about the Balkans and living up to your WTO obligations," he argues. "If not, the US will slide into a more unilateralist position."

Major feature. The debate at the recent international donors' conference over how to meet the cost of bringing stability to the Balkan region has underlined Washington's belief that the EU must shoulder more of the financial and political burden of maintaining peace and security in the post-Cold War era.