European Union - Delegation of the European Commission to Japan

Ladies and gentlemen, symposium participants,

It is a great pleasure to join you today and to address an audience here at Waseda University, and to see the keen interest there is in learning about the European Union – more precisely about the EU on the global stage. When I was first posted to Japan in the 1980s, trade issues dominated Japanese discussions of the EU. Twenty years on, and it is clear that there is an awareness of the important role that the EU now plays on the world stage. The overarching theme of today’s symposium says it all, ‘The European Union and Global Governance’.

What is ‘soft power’?

Today, I would like to talk about an aspect of the EU’s strength that has generated much discussion in academic and policy circles, namely “soft power”. The American theorist Joseph S Nye, who coined the term, defines it in the following manner: ‘soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others…with intangible assets such as an attractive personality, culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority’.

The EU’s soft power comes from its common values, or norms, namely the principles of democracy, the rule of law, social justice, human rights and the commitment to a market economy, as well as social solidarity, sustainable development and the fight against discrimination. The roots of these date back to the 1973 European Summit in Copenhagen, one of the first such gatherings to consider the international identity of what was not yet then the European Union.

At the most basic level, the idea of soft power has been used by some to contrast the modern European approach – essentially peaceful, cultural, multilateral – with the more traditional, realist approach of ‘hard power’ – bending others’ will through sheer unilateral might, backed by the use of inducements (“carrots”) and threats (“sticks”).

Of course, reality is much more nuanced than this simple explanation, as I shall explain during this speech.

But there is an undeniable truth that if you can get others to emulate you, to admire your ideals and your values, then this is much cheaper, and inherently less antagonistic, than the process of balancing carrots and sticks in an effort to get others on your side. Attraction is cheaper than coercion.

We have seen the limitations of hard power all too clearly in the Middle East, for example. Military force is too blunt an instrument to deal with complex non-traditional security issues and the challenges of institution building. Neither is hard power capable of holding back rising sea-levels brought about by climate change or the waves of migrants hitting European shores.

The EU has reaped tremendous rewards from its soft power, the result of which is an enlarged union of 27 Member States and unprecedented peace and prosperity on the European continent. And soft power is the key to strengthening alliances with China, India and new emerging markets, so vital for shaping the international system of the decades ahead.

But the EU is not just about soft power, for although it does not wield a big stick, it does possess a large carrot: a prosperous single market that is a huge economic factor for countries wishing to do business with the EU, now the largest trade partner in the world.

I shall come back to this mixture of soft power and economic influence later, but first I would like to review some of the EU’s leading roles and achievements that underpin the soft power concept.

The EU’s major achievements

The EU has developed into a significant, key global actor over the past half-century. The series of enlargements to the EU that have taken place in that period show a commitment to peace, freedom and prosperity that has not only served the original six founding nations well, but which has continued to stand as an alluring beacon to successive waves of new Member States and aspiring Candidate Countries.

The EU stands as an example of the possibilities that can be achieved through successful, peaceful regional integration in other parts of the world, such as the African Union, ASEAN and Mercosur, however different the practicalities. Our success, and, we must be honest, our failures too, all stand as reference points for new regional co-operation ventures around the world.

Aside from this European enlargement process, the EU contributes to global governance norms through its leading worldwide roles in trade, tackling climate change and assisting poorer, less developed countries.

The EU is:

·The largest trade partner in the world

·The biggest donor in terms of development aid, providing 56% of total global flows

·The leader in the fields of sustainable development, environmental awareness and tackling climate change

·Committed to encouraging multilateralism, and also party to an extensive series of over 700 global, regional, association and co-operation agreements with the rest of the world.

Leading by example

How then do these achievements reflect the EU’s soft power strength? Let me focus on three areas: enlargement, development aid and climate change.

We in the EU have grown used to citing the enlargement process as the clearest illustration of our new-found soft power. If one looks back to the early 1990s and the aftermath of the collapse of communist-led regimes in Eastern Europe, many disaster scenarios were avoided because, with the tragic exception of much of former Yugoslavia, national leaders’ eyes were fixed on the prize of EU accession.

The process that led in May 2004 to the addition of ten new members, mostly former communist-run countries from central and eastern Europe, showed us the value of what we in the EU now enjoy. It held up a mirror to the European models and to the community method that we have adopted for safeguarding them.

The changes underway in Turkey also show this clearly.

We are going to see the concrete results of the EU’s commitment to the principles in the 1975 Helsinki Accords that were also signed by Turkey, and which included respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples.These were subsequently further developed for the peaceful promotion of freedom and justice at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993, thus becoming known as ‘the Copenhagen criteria’.. Any country that wishes to join the Union must meet the accession criteria. Turkey’s own reform programme towards complying with these criteria, and our continuing commitment to its accession, following its gaining formal Candidate Country status in 1999 are thus key drivers of the EU’s soft power in the eastern Mediterranean.

Slightly further afield, in countries such as Ukraine and Georgia for example, the lure of access to the EU internal market has focused reforms in those areas that will help our partners’ own economies, contributing to regional improvements in global governance standards. I will come back to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the tests it poses for the EU’s evolving soft power later.

When it comes to assisting developing nations, “security sector reform” is a key element of the 2005 European Consensus on Development. This consensus is a common vision for development that identifies shared values, goals, principles and commitments which the European Commission and EU Member States will implement in their development policies, and reflects years of experience, some of it a source of pride, some of it a source of valuable lessons, that the European Commission has had in administering its aid budget.

While the jargon may be new, the EU’s lengthy experience is not. We had embarked on the long and difficult process of state-building before it became fashionable; reform of the judiciary, the establishment of new democratic institutions, training for parliamentarians, assistance to police forces, human rights education, and the promotion of public involvement in decision-making and management of borders – these are all areas where the EU has a good deal of experience, not least on its own continent.

And then there is the attraction of progressive policies towards an issue that will affect us all: climate change and the Kyoto Protocol. As just one example of the EU’s soft power on a global level, rather than the regional initiatives I have just mentioned, let me examine the case of the United States. Even though the present U.S. Administration has refused to look beyond the coercive aspects of the protocol to the market mechanisms that will underpin it, the support manifested by many of America’s state governors and city mayors, as well as the wide-ranging plan aiming to cut carbon emissions in California by the use of carbon-credit trading, shows that the EU was right to support Kyoto.

Looking ahead: from ‘soft’ power to ‘smart’ power

So far, I have been talking about some of the EU’s achievements and contributions to establishing global governance norms and touched briefly on the evolution of the EU’s soft power. But what of the future?

How will the rapid changes brought about by globalisation, and the increasing influence of non-state actors such as multinational companies, NGOs, international media networks, and even radical terrorist organisations, affect governments’ room to manoeuvre?

Unfortunately, soft power alone is no longer enough. As Spain and the United Kingdom can sadly testify, international terrorism does not respect the EU’s self-declared space of freedom, liberty and security. Merely being attractive is no longer enough. But going down the hard power path is not the answer either.

What is needed, and indeed what the EU is already evolving, is an influence or form of power that retains the EU’s normative values, its soft power strengths, but which hardens, or tempers them. This is an idea that some have already termed ‘smart power’. As the EU continues to develop its role in the world, the challenge is two-fold: to ensure coherence between the civilian and military sides; and to use our soft, attractive power more strategically.

I would also like to mention the normative role the EU plays in shaping global regulation. The global marketplace can work most effectively when there are common ground rules. The EU has a well developed regulatory regime based on years of experience in helping its Member States to reconcile their different approaches and find the right mix to allow trade to flourish while respecting a minimum set of standards for its goods in areas like health and safety. A new international approach focusing on regulatory cooperation, convergence of standards and equivalence of rules is emerging as a result of sectoral bilateral discussions with third countries. This approach should be further developed in the mutual interests of the EU and its partners.

One example is the set of Reach directives, which relate to the regulation, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals. This requires the registering of 30,000 chemical substances which industrialists are obliged to prove do not present any environmental or health risk, and these are applied not just to European companies, but to all those intending to enter the European market.

Main priorities: contributions towards regional and global governance

Earlier, I referred to the EU’s big economic carrot: the attraction of being the world’s largest trade partner, a prosperous single market of nearly half a billion consumers. As Nye has said, you can ‘coerce with sanctions, or woo with wealth’. Crucially, this economic wooing is intrinsically tied into something else I mentioned earlier about how the EU deals with neighbouring nations. The European Neighbourhood Policy, or ENP, is a good example of smart power aimed at countries whose increased prosperity is of mutual interest, even though it is unlikely they will become full members of the EU. This means Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus to our East, and to our South the entire Mediterranean rim, from Morocco to Lebanon.

The attraction of deeper relations with the EU is at the heart of this policy, particularly the carrot of economic integration, as we seek to deepen our relations and encourage our neighbours along the road towards economic and political reform. Those who progress the furthest towards adopting EU norms will gain the most. But it’s not a zero-sum game: there can be winners all round – the ENP offers every neighbour country the chance to choose its own path.

Four key working areas of the ENP are:

·Economic integration– helping our neighbours access the EU’s 500 million-strong single market, an area where goods, services and capital flow freely; opening up new possibilities and greater opportunities for us all.

·Mobility– less complex visa rules and Mobility Partnerships; agreements between the EU and neighbours encouraging legal migration and combating illegal migration – a big step for us.

·Energy– Integrated energy markets are in everyone’s favour – whether as a producer, transit or consumer country. We are exploring a regional level energy agreement and working with our neighbours to develop renewable energies like solar and wind power, and biomass.

·Increased aid– We are offering increased aid for good governance in the best performing countries. We know reform is expensive and we need to make significant incentives available. Ukraine and Morocco have already benefited from this: Ukraine has consolidated its democratisation process, while Morocco has launched and implemented reforms in the fields of democracy, public administration and rule of law.

Already there have been successes.

·To strengthen regional cooperation in the field of justice, the fight against organised crime and terrorism in the Mediterranean, training schemes for judges, prosecutors, lawyers and senior police officers from Mediterranean partner countries are underway. Almost 1,000 professionals have already been trained;

·Ukraine has started to reform its legal and judicial system;

·Armenia, with EU support, is working on its tax administration and improving its administrative and operational capacities;

·And a recent Aviation Agreement with Morocco, the first of the kind in the region, will increase flight connections with Europe and further support the tourist sector.

None of these is a big news item in or of itself; none of these make the prime-time headlines, but each is a clear example of the mutual benefits of the strategic use of EU soft power, what we call smart power, and the cumulative effect of these incremental developments can be far reaching in terms of stability and security.

These examples are clearly very important for the EU, and its immediate neighbours, but how about broader issues in the wider world?

A few minutes ago I mentioned the need to harden the EU’s soft power while retaining its core, normative values. I would like to now mention briefly two issues, one more high-profile than the other, that reflect the evolution of the EU’s ‘power’ from soft to smart: firstly the EU’s enhanced crisis management role, and secondly, an issue that affects us all, wherever we might be, climate change and energy security.

Firstly, crisis management. The ability to respond to crises through a functioning civilian-military partnership is crucial. One example is Kosovo, in the Western Balkans, where a violent conflict erupted in 1998-99 in the fallout from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Already, EU Member States have some 60,000 peacekeepers serving around the world, including in Kosovo, where they work closely with EU civilian deployment teams. Among other things, these teams support the Kosovo authorities by monitoring, mentoring and advising on all areas related to the rule of law, in particular in the police, judiciary, customs and correctional services. The EU has also dispatched election observer missions to nearly 60 elections around the world since 2001, from Congo to Haiti.

In addition to the EU’s military capacity we have a civil protection mechanism for dealing with natural and environmental disasters. This proved its worth, for instance, in our response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 when we were quickly able to mobilize humanitarian relief and specialised rescue personnel to the affected areas.

We are the world’s biggest donor of humanitarian assistance, mobilising the resources and working with the expertise of the UN system, the Red Cross and international NGOs. And in the context of the European Security and Defence Policy we send civilian experts in policing, rule of law and civil administration to crisis situations around the world, seeking to bolster the roots of global governance norms in places where the ground is not always fertile.

We were involved in resolving the long-running conflict in Aceh, Indonesia, and seeking to tackle the so-called frozen conflicts in our own backyard, like border issues between Ukraine and Moldova. We are aware that these are not easy tasks, and we will need to work hard to forestall worsening crises in Afghanistan and some parts of Africa.

Naturally, there have been instances where success has been more elusive.

A case in hand is Iran. In early 2003, serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme were for the first time raised publicly in the West. Different countries and organisations discussed various ways of tackling the issue, amid concerns about the risk of proliferation of nuclear-related technologies.

The ‘EU-3’ (France, Germany, U.K. & the EU itself) decided on an approach in 2003-5 that offered economic incentives if Iran agreed to more thorough inspections by the IAEA. The process is difficult, however. But even though it has not yet yielded significant results, the process is still in place and is broadly supported by the international community. This is testimony to the recognition by other global actors of the legitimacy and credibility of the EU’s soft power and the contribution it makes to global governance.

Perhaps no other issue is higher on our political agenda than the one of energy security and climate change.

Safeguarding global security and prosperity these days means working for reliable energy relations as well as dealing with the threat posed by climate change. Technological developments, increased energy efficiency and the promotion of transparent, stable energy markets are three sides of the same triangle.

We are working with our main producer and transit partners in the Middle East and Central Asia and our whole network of bilateral, multilateral and regional agreements to reinforce an open, competitive but also cooperative global energy framework that responds to the demands of producer, transit and consumer countries.

And energy security is a core part of coping with the global threat caused by climate change. That this threat is real and right here with us today is now beyond doubt. The UK government’s 2007 report by Sir Nicholas Stern estimates its costs at 20% of global GDP when extrapolating wider risks. Yet, by comparison, the cost of action to avoid the worst impacts will be only 1% of global GDP per year.

The EU is leading by example – we have agreed to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by

20% and to raise the share of renewable energy sources to 20%, both by the year 2020. Our system of emissions trading has blazed a trail in using market forces to protect the environment.

And at the 17th EU-Japan Summit last month here in Tokyo both sides publicly reaffirmed a shared commitment to the process launched at December 2007’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, which aims to establish an effective and comprehensive post-Kyoto framework under the UN by the end of next year.

The impact of the Lisbon Treaty

December 2007 also marked the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, which has long-term ramifications for the EU and for its partners, including Japan. Once the ratification process has been completed, hopefully by the end of this year, the treaty will give the EU a clear single voice in the world, connecting the various different strands of EU external policy and permitting greater co-ordination in the way we conduct the EU’s external relations.

The newly-created post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will double as the Vice-President of the European Commission, enabling the EU’s external actions to be more visible and more coherent.

The Treaty will give a yet stronger foundation to the EU’s core normative values, such as democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms which underpin global governance norms. The EU will also become a legal entity, allowing for formal membership of international organisations.

For Japan this will mean the further deepening, in political terms, of an already well-entrenched political relationship.

The next speaker, Baron Willem Van de Voorde, who is the Minister-Counsellor at the Belgian Embassy in Tokyo, will discuss the Lisbon Treaty in more detail, but in conclusion I would just like to say this:

There can be no doubt that big changes await the EU in its foreign policy dimension. The Lisbon Treaty, once ratified, will make things easier for those who remain confused by the way in which the EU conducts itself. Perhaps this is not so surprising, for the Union itself is constantly evolving, and its foreign policy role, though far from nascent, still has plenty of room to mature, allowing the EU’s power to smoothly evolve, from soft to smart.

Thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward to taking any questions you may have.