This article was first published on 2 November 2024 on Kirsty Hughes’s substack: https://kirstyhughes.substack.com/p/the-eu-in-the-world-rising-to-todays
By Kirsty Hughes
As Europeans look nervously towards the outcome of the US presidential election, there is no shortage of articles exploring how a Trump or a Harris presidency will impact on the European Union (for a good overview see this FT piece by Tony Barber). And, unsurprisingly, with the exception of some of the EU’s far right politicians such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, there is widespread concern at the deep impact a Trump presidency would have.
The outgoing president of the European Council, Charles Michel, has said a Trump victory would be a wake-up call for Europe “to act more to take our destiny in our own hands.”
Does the EU have a Foreign Policy?
But the EU’s leaders have form, down the decades, on periodically calling for a more strategic Europe, for an EU with a stronger foreign policy and a more influential role in the world. As recent events only serve to underline, the problem is, when big geopolitical crises and challenges erupt, the EU is not always very good at dealing with them in a united fashion.
Certainly, the EU is a powerful player as one of the biggest global trade blocs. But on wider foreign policy, the EU has a very uneven record. Even where the EU manages to act broadly together, as it has done on Ukraine, political differences tend to seep in over time weakening or slowing key actions. So, on Ukraine, EU sanctions against Russia have been fairly strong. And the EU pushed ahead with making Ukraine (and Moldova and Georgia) candidates for EU accession, despite some resistance from Hungary.
But Ukraine is not, as the war drags on, looking like getting near a comprehensive victory over Russia – and varied responses from different EU countries, as well as from the US, in arms supply and constraints on their use, as well as on NATO, is a key reason for that.
EU Enlargement
EU enlargement has long been viewed as the most powerful of EU foreign policy tools (albeit only one that can apply to its near abroad), but EU leaders have not proved ready to take any rapid, geopolitical moves forward on Ukraine’s actual accession process that the politics would seem to demand since its initial, vital and rapid move to give it candidate status. Caution and moving slowly through technical processes – as always on enlargement (and as seen after the Berlin wall came down) – is the order of the day.
Meanwhile, Moldova voted incredibly narrowly in favour of joining the EU two weeks ago by a (50.46% yes to 49.54% no). This was followed by Georgia’s pro-Russia ruling party ‘winning’ the election, a week ago, despite claims of gerrymandering from the opposition. The EU’s foreign policy supremo Josep Borrell put out a joint statement with the European Commission, a day after the election, which stated: “the EU calls on Georgia to adopt democratic, comprehensive and sustainable reforms, in line with the core principles of European integration.” The Georgian government is not listening. And the EU had, even before the election, frozen accession talks with Georgia.
Overall, the EU’s soft power of enlargement is looking ropey (and in the western Balkans too), alongside its limited, weak hard power, where member states retain most control.
The Middle East
Israel’s destruction of Gaza has also led to EU splits that have effectively undermined any clear or strong foreign policy line. Germany continues to supply arms to Israel while a small group of EU member states including Ireland, Spain and Belgium have been notably strong on demanding a ceasefire and calling out likely war crimes in Gaza from the start. As the Middle East crisis has intensified, with Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and the Israel-Iran stand-off, the EU looks as powerless as it is.
In terms of humanitarian aid, the EU has always been a substantial player. And this is true in the Middle East too. Yesterday, Josep Borrell put out a strong statement defending UNWRA, saying its role should only end once a sovereign Palestinian state has been established.
But the EU has not been as vocal or united as it should have been over the last year in defending the UN and its institutions amidst a mixture of attacks from Israel. As the US has continued supplying arms to Israel (the UK too), it has been South Africa who has taken the genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice.
The EU – despite its deep splits between member states on Israel’s endless and, even today, worsening bombardment of Gaza – is seen as part of a western response that has either done nothing to end the violence or has been complicit in it, in the case of the US, UK and Germany. Even when this terrible conflict ends, the EU’s global reputation will remain damaged. The ‘West’ has lost its moral legitimacy.
The EU’s Far Right won’t help European Soft Power
The EU has its own far right problem too, as June’s elections to the European Parliament showed. Exactly how a quarter of the Parliament’s MEPs being part of a motley collection of far right parties will impact on the EU’s next five years is, for now, unclear. The coming week sees the European Parliament hold its hearings into all 26 of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposed new commissioners.
But von der Leyen herself has already weakened her stance on climate change, especially in terms of climate and agricultural policy, to satisfy the centre-right, including the EPP in the European Parliament. Today, COP16 on tackling the global biodiversity crisis broke up with only some actions agreed.
Leadership is desperately needed on the twin biodiversity and climate crises – it’s not a moment for the EU to weaken, rather to do more. At least, the EU’s green deal is, with the exception of agriculture, still intact. But as the EU leans to the right and far right, its crucial role in contributing, even leading, is looking frayed at the edges.
On migration, which is exacerbated by conflict and climate change, EU leaders pushed at their October summit for stronger measures to tackle and limit migration into the EU, possibly, disgracefully, finding ways to offshore processing of migrant and asylum-seekers’ claims. In September, Germany introduced temporary border controls, followed now by France from the start of November, undermining the EU’s own border-free Schengen area in the process.
This is not telling the rest of the world that the EU is open for business. It’s more a fortress Europe approach being intensified in the false hope this may reduce support for the far right. All this despite the EU’s own demographic challenges and its need for more legal routes for migration.
The EU is, as ever, muddling through. Yet, at a time when the world is facing instability, conflict, deep challenges to democracy, and the ever-growing impact of the climate and biodiversity crises, then muddling through is not enough. The EU’s soft power is on the wane, its foreign policy looking close to non-existent. Its two biggest member states, Germany and France, face their own political – and economic – problems. Leadership is absent.
A Harris victory might give the EU a space to begin to rise to today’s challenges. A Trump victory will not. But whoever is US president, the EU has to solve its own political challenges. Weakly giving in to right-wing and far-right demands is not the way to maintain or build the EU’s soft power. Providing humanitarian aid without geopolitical leadership is not an answer to the challenges of our time. The EU has to rise to the moment. But will it? Not enough, is today’s answer.
The European Movement in Scotland is committed to promoting the essential European value of free speech. Consequently, we regularly publish articles by leading academics, journalists and others discussing issues germane to Scotland’s place in Europe. Such articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Movement in Scotland.
