THIS week’s expected nomination of a Belgian or Baltic politician as the first president of the European Union is fuelling excitement in Brussels at the emergence of a force to rival the United States and other world powers.
The long-awaited event — an EU foreign minister should also be named at a summit on Thursday — is not the only evidence being trumpeted of a continent coming into its own.
America may still be the land of plenty, but as a result of the global financial crisis Europe usurped its place as the world’s wealthiest region earlier this year, according to a survey of assets. Not only that, but in defiance of predictions of its downfall Europe’s population is expected to reach half a billion next year and its GDP is just behind that of the United States and China combined.
“Whether or not we end up being the famous counter-weight to America that some of our leaders have dreamt of, Europe is rumbling along quite nicely,” said a French official in Paris. It goes against the view of former cold war adversaries who tend to write off Europe as a colossus incapable of exerting an influence on the world stage. A US intelligence assessment recently classed the EU as “a hobbled giant”, while a Moscow think tank saw Europe as “weak” compared with the might of Russia.
Such pessimism is understandable. Vicious rivalries and widely differing foreign policy agendas among an enlarged membership mean the prospect of the EU converting its size and riches into global domination in the near future still seems remote, whatever the ambitions of its new leaders.
Europe, however, also seems more secure and united than at any point in its blood-soaked history and the financial crisis may have served to strengthen that cohesion. The more regulated brand of capitalism favoured from France to Finland is now the preferred model for the rest of the world — including America — and countries are queuing up to gain admission to the protective fold of the EU.
With 71,000 troops stationed beyond its borders, the EU can claim a military presence overseas second only to America’s. It has led to Europe being hailed as “the modest superpower” by Newsweek magazine. Its rise can be seen in the increase in membership from 12 to 27 countries since 1989 and in the fading of tensions between old and young members. It is also evident in the way Europe has beaten America out of recession, led by the usual Franco-German motor.
Europe, where jobs have been less severely affected by the financial crisis than in America, is now richer, according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group, with $32.7 trillion worth of assets under management, compared with $29.3 trillion for the United States and Canada.
It seems that Europe may also be more content: a survey by Forbes magazine ranked the cities of Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Amsterdam and Paris among the happiest 10 in the world, while for the United States only San Francisco made the list.
The political evolution of Europe has entered a new phase with the ratification of the Lisbon treaty after interminable wrangling. This provides, among other things, for the appointment of a president and a foreign minister to help to co-ordinate EU affairs.
A campaign to appoint Tony Blair as president appears to have foundered on opposition from Germany and objections that he would be seen as a divisive figure.
Other candidates include Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, who holds the rotating EU presidency and is co-ordinating negotiations, is also interested, as is Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister who is reported to be the frontrunner. The Balts are pinning their hopes mainly on Toomas Hendrik, the Estonian president who is a last-minute entry.
None of the candidates is much known outside his own country and none could be described as a ball of fire — with the possible exception of Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former Latvian president who accused the EU of operating in “darkness and behind closed doors” and compared it with the former Soviet Union as she threw her hat into the ring.
Officials in Brussels are convinced that whoever is appointed on Thursday will help to enforce the image of a more dynamic EU. “The new leading figures will enable the EU to speak in one voice,” said Elmar Brok, a senior German MEP, adding: “And we can only gain weight globally if we speak in one voice.”
Brok, a member of the EU’s parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, said: “The EU does not aim to confront the US or anyone else” but “to assume its place of leadership”, help to fight terrorism and organised crime and protect the environment. Individually, EU countries can do little, but together, he argued, “the EU will grow in power to become a key factor on the international scene”.
The EU’s new foreign minister might be considered even more of a player than the president at the head of what might become the largest diplomatic service in the world. Not only will he have his own staff of 7,000, but he will also have access to the foreign ministries of all member nations — at least in theory.
Britain may not like it, but under the Lisbon treaty the likely emergence of an EU military force will help to expand Europe’s global “footprint”.
It gives a prophetic ring to a book written four years ago by Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century.
