EU should aim to be a civilian not military power, say academics

Date: 27/03/03

THE reconstruction of Iraq will provide the EU with an opportunity to prove its worth as a civilian rather than military force, a top academic declared this week.

Giacomo Luciani, professor of political economy at the European University Institute in Florence, offered a starkly different analysis from that of NATO Secretary-General George Robertson.

While the latter has urged EU states to devote at least 2% of their gross national income to bolstering their armies, Luciani said: "We believe Europe can be a civilian power - it does not need to spend a lot more on defence.

"But to be a civilian power, you cannot just have words, you also have to have resources."

Luciani, along with Felix Neugart of Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University, has written a paper mapping out his recommended EU strategy for Iraq's reconstruction.

The pair call for an international conference to be arranged shortly after the war concludes. According to their study, the Union should:

• Help design new political institutions in Iraq;
• support reform of its legal system, through training of judges and lawyers in international law and human rights, and;
• offer assistance in renegotiating or cancelling part of Iraq's debt (currently estimated at around €105 billion) and reparations.

Visiting Brussels on Tuesday (25 March), they argued the US will be a dominant player in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. "But we believe the US will have an interest in bringing in other actors, not only for paying the bill but also for giving it [the reconstruction] legitimacy," said Neugart.

The reconstruction of Iraq will provide the European Union with an opportunity to prove its worth as a civilian rather than military force, a top academic has declared.