EU: A common foreign policy?

The Iraq war made it clear that the Eu did not have a common foreign policy. EU foreign ministers met on the Greek island of Rhodes for a post-Iraq war meeting at which they will try to show Europe can speak with a single voice on foreign policy. After months of bitter disagreement about the US-led invasion of Iraq, the EU's 15 full members plus 10 nations that will join next year hope to look forwards rather than backwards during their two days of talks. One key item on the agenda is a controversial plan by four EU nations to set up a military headquarters separate from NATO. Britain, Italy and Spain are expected to lead criticism of Tuesday's initiative by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, all opponents of the war on Iraq, to give Europe its own planning and command staff for operations in which NATO is not involved. On a visit to Madrid, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the initiative seemed focused more on creating additional headquarters than on buying more guns and equipment. Papandreou said he would try to steer the 25 ministers towards launching a longer-term effort to draw up a common EU threat assessment and a joint security strategy that could help avert future rifts over issues such as Iraq. If they agree, EU leaders will tell foreign policy chief Javier Solana in June to start preparing a shared analysis of risks such as weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, failed states, regional conflicts and refugee flows, and the bloc's resources and doctrine for dealing with such issues (Reuters. 7/5/03).

Ronald Hilton - 5/7/03