Over at E!Sharp, I’ve just published a piece arguing that Catherine Ashton’s tenure as the EU’s foreign policy chief could be defined by a crisis somewhere:
Catherine Ashton needs a good crisis. While all eyes have been on the fight to save the euro, the EU’s foreign policy chief has been focused on setting up the new External Action Service. Her supporters argue that she will be judged on how well this bureaucracy works – so she should not get distracted by bad news from, say, Thailand or the Koreas.
That is true up to a point. But Ashton is canny enough to know that real foreign policy influence comes from being able to take the lead in solving a crisis that others cannot stop. Call this “Sarkozy’s First Law of International Politics”. The French president may be a bit volatile, but he won kudos for his personal diplomacy during the 2008 Georgian war.
“Hold on!” some readers will be crying, “what about Haiti, doesn’t that count?” My answer, sadly, is no: the January earthquake was a disaster and a tragedy, but I’m thinking about a political crisis. People shooting at each other and all that. So far, Ashton has been spared having to deal with that sort of thing.
Where might her first big crisis come from? Africa and the Middle East are both likely options.
There are signs of new trouble in Sudan and Congo, two countries the EU has tried to help stabilise. If either blows up, Ashton may find that European leaders – increasingly disinterested in African affairs – are all too willing to let her orchestrate their response.
The Middle East is another matter. Any crisis in the region is likely to centre on Iran, and Britain, France and Germany will all want a say in how to manage it – but may have very different solutions in mind. Ashton might find herself struggling to forge a consensus.
Harder still would be any crisis involving Russia, especially a new war in the Caucasus. Baroness Ashton would have to navigate between a bloc of member states from the eastern EU demanding a hard line on Moscow and some older members urging caution. Leaders in both camps would want to take the reins – President Sarkozy, for example, might argue that he should repeat his 2008 diplomatic dealings with Dmitry Medvedev. Ashton would find it hard to claim she represented a truly common EU foreign policy.
Isn’t this all a bit alarmist? Possibly. I’ve previously called for the EU to brace for nasty crises that never materialized – check out two of my Cassandra moments here and here. Then again, I failed to predict the 2008 Georgian crisis. But one thing is certain: at some point, Ashton will face a crisis, and have to decide whether or not to seize it. How she performs will have a decisive impact on her reputation.
