European Union

For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used the stage of the Summer University in the Romanian, but predominantly Hungarian-speaking Băile Tușnad to give highly provocative speeches. This year his vitriol was again directed at Brussels, Washington and Warsaw. But this time Poland's Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, did not beat about the bush in his response: Orbán should ask himself why he is still in the EU.

Austria's conservative-led coalition government is nominating conservative Finance Minister Magnus Brunner as its next European Commissioner, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in a statement on Wednesday (31 July).

Russian President Vladimir Putin doubled upfront payments for volunteers to fight in Ukraine on Wednesday (31 July), a move aimed at facilitating military recruitment but likely to create imbalances in the overheated economy.

Olympians dived into the River Seine on Wednesday (31 July) after a pre-dawn notice informed teams that its waters were safe enough to proceed with the triathlon, sparing France the embarrassment of a central Paris 2024 promise being swept away.

Potentially massive quantities of naturally produced hydrogen were discovered in France last year. Since then, prospectors across Europe have been on the lookout for more deposits and are calling for greater public support for their efforts.

Disinformation and propaganda, long mainstays of war, have been digitally supercharged in the battle for Ukraine, the biggest conflict the world has seen since the advent of smartphones and social media.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, facing mounting pressure to offer evidence his election victory was valid, said that opposition leaders should be imprisoned following deadly protests across the country.

A large fire broke out in Rome on Wednesday (31 July) on a hill near the Italian capital's court of justice and a public TV broadcasting centre, forcing the evacuation of several buildings and offices, firefighters said.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday (31 July) met with Warsaw Uprising veterans and asked for their "forgiveness" during a visit to Poland on the eve of the revolt's 80th anniversary.

The Slovak Supreme Audit Office compiled an analysis of the pandemic. The summary report highlighted the insufficiencies in the Slovak health system’s pre-pandemic preparedness and pandemic management.

Bulgarian state and municipal hospitals can now take part in a special programme of state loans to save them from bankruptcy and improve their patient services. Specialist staff at one hospital went unpaid for seven months.

Ireland has launched a public consultation to inform the development of a new National Rare Disease Strategy. The results of the consultation will be considered by a steering group tasked with developing the strategy for 300,000 patients.

Ireland’s Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has announced the formation of a National Clinical Trials Oversight Group. The group is tasked with developing strategies to increase the number of clinical trials conducted in Ireland.

The looming implementation of an EU law aimed at making European supply chains deforestation-free has united industry, traders, farmers, and NGOs in concern.

The European Commission has called on all parties in the Middle East to “exert maximum restraint” amid growing fears of a full-scale regional war following the assassination of a top Hamas official in Iran on Wednesday morning (31 July).

The creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Defence and Security Policy (CSDP) of the European Union (EU) in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty has fuelled a debate over how can a unified foreign policy be created while preserving the diversity of its Member States’ national foreign policies. Indeed, as a sui generis global actor, which does not classify as a state or a supranational organisation, acting on the global stage is essential for the EU to be recognised and legitimised. Recent international events – such as the return of war on European soil, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of great power competition – have all called for more assertive and credible action. How can the EU answer this call?

 

To be able to ‘speak with a single voice’ has been the most widely shared answer between academics, practitioners, and leaders. It is assumed that the EU’s global presence is directly and positively correlated to its ability to act in unison. This is because the EU’s foreign policy-making process relies on unanimity and consensus in order to create a single foreign and security policy out of a multitude of diverging interests, histories, strategic cultures, and conceptions of global issues among Member States. It follows that agreement is a necessary condition for the EU to implement a foreign policy worthy of its name. When Member States disagree and are incapable of coming up with a decision and a single message to be communicated to the rest of the world with a single voice, the EU is usually posited not to be able to act on the global stage.

 

Consequently, as the role of the EU as a global actor has expanded, so has a ‘single voice mantra’ been entrenched in the study of its external action. Many will claim that the academic debate has now moved on from attempting to establish a correlation between the EU’s ability to speak with a single voice and its capacity to act externally. However, I argue that, still, most academic conceptualisations and analyses of the EU and the kind of power it is and projects have been inspired by debates in Comparative Politics and International Relations, which use the unitary state as a yardstick. The model of the state is mirrored at the political and policy level with a strong normative bias in favour of integration, with the objective that one day the Union will become a federation. Why should we move on from it?

 

1 – Let’s take a good look at empirical evidence

 

Although forging substantial and procedural unity is a struggle for the Union’s foreign policy, its track record shows that it is not always optimal. Empirical evidence shows that the impact and performance of the EU are inconsistent regardless of the EU’s ability to speak with one voice across multiple policy areas. Indeed, if unity does not come naturally but after draining internal negotiation activities, it can reduce the EU’s flexibility, resources, and credibility in diplomatic engagement with third parties. When the EU is united and assertive in multilateral settings, it can be accused of bullying by third countries, as seen in recent clashes in the UN General Assembly over the conflict in Ukraine.

 

2 – Let’s be realistic about the future

 

If the correlation between internal unity and agreement and the EU’s capacity to act on the international stage does not satisfactorily hold up with the current political and decision-making structure of the EU, it is unlikely it will do so in the future. The complex and often duplicated nature of the EU has only been emphasised by the Lisbon Treaty. The Treaty has fragmented its external competencies between the Commission and the Member States. With the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, further integration in foreign and security policy is ever more improbable. Indeed, in an EU30+, the possibility that Member States may renounce their sovereignty through the extension of Qualified Majority Voting in foreign affairs is low. As of now, disagreement and fragmentation are here to stay.

 

3 – Let’s do with what we have – and be creative about it

 

Yes, Member States are not always uniformly committed to collective action on all sets of issues. The Union thus often fails to produce an overarching foreign policy that is cohesive and continuous – all characteristics that are usually associated with national foreign policies. However, a more normative argument can also be made: by dismissing all actions that do not fit in the container of the unitary state, we only have a half-painted picture of the foreign policy practice and potential of a post-modern actor. The EU should not renounce the post-Westphalian governance project that is embedded in its DNA by reducing the scope of international manoeuvre to unitary action only. The fact that its presence on the global stage challenges conventional expectations of diplomacy and international relations away from state-centricity can be a source of strength in an increasingly interconnected and complex world.

 

So what? Moving from unity to multiplicity

 

The normative, theoretical, and political prescription for a unitary foreign policy, with the issue of internal consensus and unanimity at its core, might not be the most fruitful. The Union has neither the characteristics of an international organisation nor those of a federal state but has both. It can speak with one voice as well as sing with many different ones. I attempt to build a pragmatic approach to capture this hybrid, shape-shifting characteristic by recognising the ‘multiplicity’ of the EU’s foreign policy machinery. A collective global actor, the Union has a diverse and dense system of foreign policy-making, which contains variable geographies and changeable relationships and balances between its actors, instruments, and practices. Multiplicity hence results in an ambiguous and ever-changing structure which depends on the interaction with other elements inside and outside the system, creating different forms that the EU assumes when acting internationally. It follows that there is never a single European Union acting on the global stage, but multiple. This ability to be both united and diverse might be a starting point to analyse how the coexistence of different voices can provide the EU with a sui generis ability to pragmatically adapt to different global contexts and events.

The post Why we should move away from the ‘single voice mantra’ – once and for all appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

About 91.5% of ICT specialist jobs, including around 10 million jobs in the EU, may be in jeopardy because of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study conducted by big tech multinationals published on Wednesday (31 July).