Europe heads for Japanese irrelevance
By Philip Stephens
Published: September 9 2010 23:12
I was in Brussels this week. José Manuel Barroso had just delivered his state of the union address. The European Commission president talked about Europe as a global leader. He called it a key ambition for this generation of politicians. My sense is of a continent slipping into a small-power future.
I was influenced perhaps by the event at which I was a guest. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think-tank that has been spreading its wings to build a global presence, had assembled a group of its smartest scholars to talk about China.
This was not one of those drearily familiar sessions at which everyone trips over themselves trying to predict just how quickly China will elbow aside the US as the pre-eminent nation. Instead, the exchanges were a reminder that power often lies in the eye of the beholder. China’s ascent looks a lot faster and smoother to those on the outside than to the policymakers in Beijing grappling with the social stresses and strains of economic transformation.
That said, few doubt the direction of travel. The problem for Europe is that it gives every impression of being a bystander. The parallel that springs to mind is with Japan’s absence from the world stage. For all that it has recently been overtaken by China in global rankings, Japan remains an economic powerhouse. Yet it has long been more or less invisible in debates on world affairs, meekly accepting the role of a taker, rather than a shaper of change.
This leaves the US and China as the pivotal players in moulding the new global order – or, as it might turn out to be, disorder. A little while ago the most fashionable thesis evoked the prospect of a world in thrall to this G2. Decisions made and bargains struck in Beijing and Washington would be handed down to the rest of us as tablets of stone.
The idea was always fanciful. Status quo and revisionist powers have too many colliding interests. Much more plausible is that the eventual point of balance in the system – between multipolarity and multilateralism, competition and co-operation – will be determined by how effectively the US and China manage the inescapable frictions.
Mr Barroso has more reason to be sanguine than a few months ago. During the spring it seemed the euro would fracture under the pressure of heavily indebted governments and nervous bond markets. Things have calmed down. Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, has been telling the FT this week that the euro’s resilience was much underestimated.
Maybe. Given the combination of fiscal deficits and economic imbalances in the single currency area, it would be foolish to suggest the danger has passed. On the other hand, having staggered to the edge of the precipice, governments (especially Germany) have grasped just what is at stake. A broken euro would break the European Union.
Where Mr Barroso and his colleagues stretch credulity is in the assumption that the Union can pick up where it left off a few years ago, measuring its global influence against the two big players. The caravan, as they say, has moved on.
The blame – if that is what we should call it – does not rest with Mr Barroso, or indeed with the recently appointed and much-criticised Catherine Ashton, the Union’s high representative for foreign affairs. The Brussels institutions can project only as much influence as their sponsors in national capitals allow them. For now, that is not very much.
If Europe feels small it is because the EU’s leading members are much diminished. When national leaders are confident, they are ready to promote the Union. When, as now, they are in trouble they look for scapegoats – Brussels is one of them.
France, of course, will never surrender its global pretensions. Only the other day, Nicolas Sarkozy was explaining how his country’s presidency of the G20 nations would be the stage on which to unfurl next year a radical re-ordering of the global economic order. In reality, the audience for France’s grandiose initiatives has been shrinking fast.
Britain’s coalition government seems intent on bowing out without so much as a whimper. David Cameron is not much interested in abroad. Diplomats have been turned into sales representatives. The prime minister is planning swingeing cuts in the country’s military capabilities. When British leaders fall back on the Commonwealth as a measure of influence, you know they are in retreat.
Germany has tried on the clothes of a great power once before. That searing experience still leaves its mark. Economic strength is one thing, but Angela Merkel’s government wants the quiet life. Power projection and geopolitical strutting are best left to others.
In a striking analysis of foreign and security policy during the opening decade of the century, Asle Toje, a scholar at Norway’s Nobel Institute, concludes that Europe has been showing all the characteristics of a small power – or rather of a series of small powers as the limited influence of the Union co-exists with the constrained power of France, Britain and Germany.
Some will be content with this. For all its troubles, Europe has a social and political model to be envied in much of the rest of the world. Sclerosis is relative: per capita incomes are still 10 times the level seen in China. And the Union can be diligently effective in doing small foreign policy things, notably in its own neighbourhood.
There is nothing wrong in setting an example – political scientists call it “normative power”. As Mr Barroso gave his address, Hillary Clinton was setting out an alliance-building approach to the shifting power balance. The US secretary of state recalled the words of Dean Acheson: “The ability to evoke support from other” is “quite as important as the capacity to compel”.
The US administration’s foreign policy has drawn criticism – at home from Republicans arguing it is too soft on America’s enemies and abroad from Europeans complaining that President Barack Obama is inattentive towards his friends. But Mrs Clinton reminded us that Washington has been thinking hard about the world as it is becoming. The US has developed a theory about how to marry hard and soft power. Europe seems content with daydreams.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
Published: September 9 2010 23:12
I was in Brussels this week. José Manuel Barroso had just delivered his state of the union address. The European Commission president talked about Europe as a global leader. He called it a key ambition for this generation of politicians. My sense is of a continent slipping into a small-power future.I was influenced perhaps by the event at which I was a guest. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think-tank that has been spreading its wings to build a global presence, had assembled a group of its smartest scholars to talk about China.
This was not one of those drearily familiar sessions at which everyone trips over themselves trying to predict just how quickly China will elbow aside the US as the pre-eminent nation. Instead, the exchanges were a reminder that power often lies in the eye of the beholder. China’s ascent looks a lot faster and smoother to those on the outside than to the policymakers in Beijing grappling with the social stresses and strains of economic transformation.
That said, few doubt the direction of travel. The problem for Europe is that it gives every impression of being a bystander. The parallel that springs to mind is with Japan’s absence from the world stage. For all that it has recently been overtaken by China in global rankings, Japan remains an economic powerhouse. Yet it has long been more or less invisible in debates on world affairs, meekly accepting the role of a taker, rather than a shaper of change.
This leaves the US and China as the pivotal players in moulding the new global order – or, as it might turn out to be, disorder. A little while ago the most fashionable thesis evoked the prospect of a world in thrall to this G2. Decisions made and bargains struck in Beijing and Washington would be handed down to the rest of us as tablets of stone.
The idea was always fanciful. Status quo and revisionist powers have too many colliding interests. Much more plausible is that the eventual point of balance in the system – between multipolarity and multilateralism, competition and co-operation – will be determined by how effectively the US and China manage the inescapable frictions.
Mr Barroso has more reason to be sanguine than a few months ago. During the spring it seemed the euro would fracture under the pressure of heavily indebted governments and nervous bond markets. Things have calmed down. Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, has been telling the FT this week that the euro’s resilience was much underestimated.
Maybe. Given the combination of fiscal deficits and economic imbalances in the single currency area, it would be foolish to suggest the danger has passed. On the other hand, having staggered to the edge of the precipice, governments (especially Germany) have grasped just what is at stake. A broken euro would break the European Union.
Where Mr Barroso and his colleagues stretch credulity is in the assumption that the Union can pick up where it left off a few years ago, measuring its global influence against the two big players. The caravan, as they say, has moved on.
The blame – if that is what we should call it – does not rest with Mr Barroso, or indeed with the recently appointed and much-criticised Catherine Ashton, the Union’s high representative for foreign affairs. The Brussels institutions can project only as much influence as their sponsors in national capitals allow them. For now, that is not very much.
If Europe feels small it is because the EU’s leading members are much diminished. When national leaders are confident, they are ready to promote the Union. When, as now, they are in trouble they look for scapegoats – Brussels is one of them.
France, of course, will never surrender its global pretensions. Only the other day, Nicolas Sarkozy was explaining how his country’s presidency of the G20 nations would be the stage on which to unfurl next year a radical re-ordering of the global economic order. In reality, the audience for France’s grandiose initiatives has been shrinking fast.
Britain’s coalition government seems intent on bowing out without so much as a whimper. David Cameron is not much interested in abroad. Diplomats have been turned into sales representatives. The prime minister is planning swingeing cuts in the country’s military capabilities. When British leaders fall back on the Commonwealth as a measure of influence, you know they are in retreat.
Germany has tried on the clothes of a great power once before. That searing experience still leaves its mark. Economic strength is one thing, but Angela Merkel’s government wants the quiet life. Power projection and geopolitical strutting are best left to others.
In a striking analysis of foreign and security policy during the opening decade of the century, Asle Toje, a scholar at Norway’s Nobel Institute, concludes that Europe has been showing all the characteristics of a small power – or rather of a series of small powers as the limited influence of the Union co-exists with the constrained power of France, Britain and Germany.
Some will be content with this. For all its troubles, Europe has a social and political model to be envied in much of the rest of the world. Sclerosis is relative: per capita incomes are still 10 times the level seen in China. And the Union can be diligently effective in doing small foreign policy things, notably in its own neighbourhood.
There is nothing wrong in setting an example – political scientists call it “normative power”. As Mr Barroso gave his address, Hillary Clinton was setting out an alliance-building approach to the shifting power balance. The US secretary of state recalled the words of Dean Acheson: “The ability to evoke support from other” is “quite as important as the capacity to compel”.
The US administration’s foreign policy has drawn criticism – at home from Republicans arguing it is too soft on America’s enemies and abroad from Europeans complaining that President Barack Obama is inattentive towards his friends. But Mrs Clinton reminded us that Washington has been thinking hard about the world as it is becoming. The US has developed a theory about how to marry hard and soft power. Europe seems content with daydreams.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
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