18th December 2010
EU Urged to Have Coherent Foreign Policy
Mark Hanson
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Representative has urged the EU to form a coherent strategic foreign policy, in the face of differences between EU member states.
The Lisbon Treaty created the position, currently held by the Labour peer Baroness Ashton, in order to co-ordinate the foreign policy of the EU, and her latest comments, given at a summit meeting of EU leaders at Brussels, shows the EU’s ambitions to become a State in its own right, with a centrally formed foreign policy.
Catherine Ashton submitted reports stressing the need for a new "strategic partnership" with the US, and the further aims of new relationships with China, Russia and other emerging strategic nations.
She warned that the new politics of the US, which is increasingly polarised, required that the European Union had a “unified, capable and self-confident EU”. The underlying message is that the interests of individual EU member states must be subservient to the “global” reach of the EU. Ashton said:
“The EU-US relationship has to go global if it is to remain relevant and effective. We must work out a new kind of partnership, fit for a new era. Both sides need this as it is difficult for either to find another partner that is closer in terms of core values and interests and that has more resources to bring to bear.”
She also gave prominence to the idea of EU-Russian co-operation, calling the lack of any substantial collaboration between the powers as being a “problem”, and attacked the lack as ignoring a great opportunity.
On China, Ashton said that there needed to be co-operation on “global challenges” and security threats, saying that she “wants a strengthening of rules-based global governance”, according to the Irish Times.
