A Europe uncertain and divided” “

In spite of its common foreign and security policy and common defence policy, the European Union seems deeply divided on the option of a military attack on Iraq. Germany and France have expressed reservations about the US doctrine of “preventive war”. The United Kingdom and Italy do not exclude the possibility of an armed intervention. The Danish presidency has expressed EU support for the actions of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General to find a solution to the crisis. We asked Konrad Rooms , researcher in Military Strategy at the Free University of Brussels, what initiative the European Union might take in the Iraqi crisis. The threat of war is hanging over Iraq: might the EU have a role? “The European Union would like to play an independent, and if possible decisive role, but I doubt whether it is able to do so. Today, as was already the case in Iraq in 1991, in Somalia, in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, the political and ideological divisions in Europe are too many, and the juridical foundations of the EU Treaties too flimsy, to permit the governments of the member states to assume a collective position. The presence of British prime minister Tony Blair at the side of the president of the USA demonstrates that. Indeed it is the British government that is acting on Washington’s behalf in calling for an armed intervention of preventive type to prevent Iraq from using chemical weapons or developing an even more destructive arsenal. At a time when Europe would have an opportunity to achieve greater unity, the EU risks exposing its flank by highlighting the limitations of its joint foreign, security and defence policies. That’s a gift on a plate to those wanting to stop the unification of Europe and to international terrorism”. Is an armed intervention in Iraq, with EU participation, necessary? “Doubts on Iraqi good faith do exist and some certainty about the nature of their arsenals also exists. I think that Europe has at the present time a chance to lead, under the aegis of the United Nations, an international coalition that may force Saddam Hussein to accept the presence of weapons inspectors who may freely go not only to the known arsenals, or the facilities that exist on the maps, but also to the other plants, situated below the schools and hospitals, in the centre of the cities and in the desert. Such an action would be the consecration of the European policy of security and defence, as well as a growth in the EU’s prestige and credibility in international policy”. What will be the future of European common security and defence policies? “The words and declarations of Javier Solana and of the Fifteen on European defence have been, and still are, hot air. So long as the Treaty does not lay the necessary juridical foundations for joint action, no one will be able to go beyond good intentions, or show any extraordinary political farsightedness. Even the United Nations, although it has a clear and well-tried Statute at its disposal, encounters difficulties of every kind when it comes to action. I am expecting a great deal from the work of the European Convention on the future of Europe. The proposals on the table are interesting, especially that of concentrating the functions of the EU’s Senior Representative for common foreign and security policy and its head of external relations in the person of a Commissioner. This is an intelligent proposal, because it would correspond to the creation of a kind of EU foreign minister with responsibilities for defence within a strong and legitimate executive. A Europe provided with a federal constitution and a Commissioner for foreign policy could assume the rank of ‘world power’ also in the field of defence”.