mmm
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
Introduction 405
The changing shape of
EU-US relations 406
EU-US relations and the EU's system
of international relations 410
EU-US relations and the processes
of international relations 414
EU-US relations and the EU as a power in international relations 42}| Conclusion 429
FURTHER READING WEB LINKS
4SI 43)
The United States has always been the most 'significant other' of the European integration project in the world arena. This chapter explores the implications of this factory for the international relations (IR) of the EU, first by introducing the key features of the . EU-US relationship and by considering the ways in which these raise issues of analy- 1 sis and policy. Second, the chapter explores the ways in which the EU-US relationship reflects and affects the workings of the EU as a system of international relations.Third, ': the chapter focuses on the ways in which the EU-US relationship affects the broader, process of international relations. Finally, the chapter evaluates the ways in which theS roles of the EU as a 'power' in international relations are shaped, and perhaps limited,. by its relationship with the USA, and the ways in which this moulds the EU's role in-pursuing international order.
The EU and the United States
I The European Union (and previously the European Community) has been intim-ately entangled with the United States since the very beginnings of European integration in the 1950s. In the areas of trade, monetary relations, and economic ^management this gives the USA a key role not only in the international policies of ■■theEU, but also in the management of both the European economy and the broader global political economy. In the area of security, the European project has always . been linked to and embedded in the European and world security order, whilst politically the EU and its predecessors have been a key part of the US-led group of liberal democracies. US influence stimulated the European project in two senses. On the one hand, the US federal system was an inspiration to European leaders such as Jean Monnet and to Americans who saw the European project as a means • of creating a United States of Europe. On the other hand. European integration was inspired to a substantial extent by the desire to match US and Soviet superpower, .or at least to create a 'third force' in international relations (DePorte 1987; Ellwood ■1992: Winand 1993; Heller and Gillingham 1996). This ambivalence—the USA as a key partner and leader but also as a potential rival in world politics—has been -central to EU-US relations and to the international relations of the EU ever since ■(Smith 1984; Smith and Woolcock 1993; Smith 1998a; McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapters 1 and 2).
These two dynamics, producing what can be called 'competitive cooperation' _(Smith 1998a), are visible in all three of the core components of transatlantic life. 'Separate but interconnected economic, political, and security relationships define ^transatlantic relations and go a long way towards shaping both EU politics and |- the changing global order. In this context, dealing with the USA has been one of jthe key tests of the extent to which the EU has developed into an effective inter-P national actor with a distinct set of policy positions and instruments. Partly as a f consequence, the EU-US relationship has, some would say increasingly, been a subject of political and policy debate, attracting the attention and disagreement of ; those involved in shaping the key questions of world order (M. Smith 2004a; Todd : 2303; Kagan 2003).
1 This chapter aims to explore the ways in which EU-US relations enter into the Jintemanonal relations of the EU, and to assess the implications for key areas of the
EU's growing international activity. In the first section, the focus is on the changing ?shape and focus of the transatlantic relationship as it enters into economic, politi-5cal, and security questions. The following three sections address the key themes
•raised by this volume as a whole, by successively dealing with the impact of EU-|tJSrelations on the EU's system of international relations, on the EU's role in the 'processes of international relations, and on the EU's position as a 'power' in inter-siational relations.
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
The EU and the United States
iß.
Economic interdependence has always been at the core of the EU-US relationship; European integration itself was closely connected with the economic reconstruction of Europe through the Marshall Plan in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Euro-' pcan project has been closely linked to both the evolution of the 'Western wo# economy' during the Cold War and to 'globalization' in the 21st century. The desk-blitzing impact of the 2008-9 financial crisis, which arguably started with bank collapses in the USA, to be followed by bank runs across the UK and a successions further crises within the eurozone, reaffirmed the extent to which globaliza;;onhas prompted interdependence of economies not only across the Atlantic but around; the globe. Within this general context, Box 17.1 summarizes a number of features'" 5 of this relationship as it existed in the early 2000s.
The EU-US economic relationship in the 2000s
By the early 2000s. according to European Commission figures (European Commissi« 2003b), this deeply embedded economic relationship accounted for 37 per cent of wol merchandise trade and for 45 per cent of world trade in services (2002 figures). Whift these figures had decreased siightly by 2007 to 33 per cent of world merchandise traß and 42 per cent of world trade in services, the EU and the USA clearly remain eacS other's single largest trading partner. In 2007, two-way cross-border trade in goods and; services (imports and exports) between the EU and the USA amounted to rno-e tbare €707 billion (€440 billion in goods and €267 billion in services). In 2002 these tradeg§ ures represented about 21 per cent of each partner's trade in goods alone and appro)! mately 39 per cent of EU and 35 per cent of US total cross-border trade in services? and this amounted to 36 per cent of total bilateral trade in goods and services. By 20(1 however, the EU was recording trade surpluses in both goods (€80 billion) and service! (€11 billion), and China had replaced the USA as the number one importer into the Etlj The 'arger value of the EU-US relationship arguably rests on Foreign Direct Investment; (FDD. The EU and the USA in 2000 accounted for 54 per cent of total world infiows'rj FDI and for 67 per cent of total world outflows. By 2001, the USA absorbed 49 oe-cenf of the EU's outward investment flows, and the EU 46 per cent of US outward flows;;BJ investment was 54 per cent of total investment in the USA, and US investment in the: EU was 69 per cent of the total. Over a more extended period, nearly three-quartersiol all foreign investment in the USA in the 1990s came from the EU. As a result, t'netptj accumulated investment by the EU in the USA and the USA in the EU amounted by20sij to €1500 billion—by far the largest investment relationship in the world. This trend coTP tmued throughout the 2000s. In 2007 EU investment flow to the USA was €112.6 billig while US investment to the EU was €144.5 billion, EU investment outflows rep-esented 42 per cent of inflows to the USA, and the EU was the recipient of half of a. or'vate direct investment from the USA
The very intimacy of this relationship, and the depth of its historical and institutional roots, gives rise to a number of important trends in EU-US economic relations. First, there has been a consistent growth of the economic links between the . EC/EU and the USA and a continuous deepening of economic links over a more ■ than 50-year period. These links have notably continued to deepen and widen even when transatlantic political or security relations have been troubled (for example, during the later years of the Cold War, or during the period leading up to the war in Iraq during 2002-3). A second trend concerns the ways in which the EC/EU, through processes of economic growth and enlargement, has increasingly come to -be seen as an economic superpower. Both the EU and the USA are advanced industrial and service-based economies of continental size, and both are deeply entangled both with each other and with the development of the global economy. In ;other words, the EU-US relationship has become a partnership of equals, at least in economic terms (Peterson 1996; Guay 1999; Smith, M. 2009a).
But this evidence also raises a number of questions about the nature of EU-US economic relations. Given the continuous widening and deepening of the relationships, is it fair to see the EU and the USA as effectively 'integrated' within an /Atlantic political economy? How far is it possible to see the EU and the USA as global economic rivals, given the simultaneous rise of disputes and more extensive conflicts over trade, investment, competition, and other areas of regulatory policy, and what are the implications of this? Is the EU, despite its apparent equality with the USA in quantitative terms, actually able to mobilize its economic resources to achieve equal influence with the USA, within both economic and other contexts— ■andhow might this EU-US balance be affected by the rise of other major economies such as China and India? These and other economic issues will be addressed later in the chapter. The EU-US relationship also reflects a number of fundamental political forces (McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapter 1). In this sense, the foundations of the European project and the transatlantic relationship were as much political as they were economic. The defeat of almost all of the European states during the Second World War, the de-legitimization of governments and underlying regimes in all parts of Europe, coupled with the looming threat of Soviet political domination in Eastern Europe, played a key role in shaping the political complexion of the 'new Europe' after 1945. A fundamental US commitment to a Western market system was thus paralleled by the desire to promote the strengthening of liberal democracies in Europe. The development and consolidation of anti-communism in the 1950s, the development of European socialisms and 'Euro-communism' in the 1970s and 1980s, and the spread of free market and liberal ideas in the 1980s reflect key phases in the development of the political relationship (Ellwood 1992; Heller and Gillingham 1996). It is difficult to establish the extent to which these events affected American engagement in Europe, but it is clear that consistent and deep relationships between European and American political and diplomatic elites underpinned Cold War Europe.
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
The EU and the United States
The political changes initiated by the end of the Cold War promised (or threatened) to transform the character of EU-US relations. Whilst the removal of the V Soviet hold over Central and Eastern Europe created new scope for the extension of liberal democracy and market ideas, it also revealed some of the fault lines and key policy questions that had been at least partly masked by the Cold War. To what extent did the EU and the USA really share common values? Was it possible -for the EU to develop and export a different brand of democracy, underpinned by economic success and by the mechanisms in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)? How would this find its expression in the economic and security;; challenges likely to face the 'winners' in the contest between Western democracy' and communism? These were not simply analytical or academic questions: they reflected the uncertainties of political and policy-making elites on both sides of the Atlantic (Haftendorn and Tuschhoff 1993; Smith and Woolcock 1993; Peterson'7 1996). As Box 17.2 shows, the sheer range of areas covered by political initiatives':; in the immediate post-Cold War period raised important questions of transatlantic coordination, not only among foreign ministries and the EU's external relations apparatus but also in areas previously seen as 'internal' or 'domestic' in their political impact. Here, as elsewhere, the EU-US relationship demonstrated in concentrated form the questions that had to be addressed by all political leaders and foreign policy officials.
Inescapably, the economic and political factors outlined above have been linked', to the security question (indeed, many of the initiatives listed in Box 17.2art security issues in many respects, as well as indicators of political cooperation); The EU can plausibly be analysed as a 'security community', as it gathers societies together in a pluralistic yet common framework, within which war between the members is effectively unthinkable. More directly, there are two standard explanations for the origins of the European project: on the one hand. Franco-Ger-. man rapprochement and the creation of a new framework for the prevention of
Examples of transatlantic political initiatives (post-Cold War)
» Declaration on combating terrorism
° Energy research cooperation agreement
° Statement on communicable diseases in Africa.
° EU-US Biotechnology Consultative Forum,
o Declaration on the responsibilities of states on transparency regarding arms exports.,
» Declaration on common orientation of non-proliferation policy.
° Precursors chemical agreement.
• Joint initiative on trafficking in women.
» Caribbean drugs initiative.
armed conflict in Western Europe, on the other hand the creation of economic and political conditions that would buttress the West in the conduct of the Cold War. Here, of course, the EC/EU was not and is not the only game in town. American influence over its European allies was well and truly cemented with the creation • ofNATO in the 1950s, embodying what has been seen as a transatlantic 'security community' (Sloan 2002).
For this purpose, it is possible to see the European integration project as part of the institutional underpinning of the Cold War in general and the EC as part 1 of the jigsaw that constituted the Western alliance. But the EC was and remained I throughout the Cold War a 'civilian power, contained as well as supported by the Western alliance and subject to US security dominance, especially at the 'hard security' end of the spectrum. The security dominance of the USA extended also to the economics of military production and the development of defence industries.
The EU-US relationship in security was thus both intimate and uneven during the Cold War, and it can plausibly be argued that the trend lines of European and US strength within the relationship were far apart—in contrast to the relative .and growing equality of the two parties in the economic sphere and the diversity ;atmany levels of political organization and ideas. But here too the end of the Cold /War, combined with the development of new EU capacities, raised fundamental questions. How far might and should the EU aim to duplicate, complement, or even supplement the USA in European security issues and in the broader security debate within the global arena? How far was the notion of 'civilian power' in the European project simply a reflection and rationalization of subordination and containment by the USA, and how far might that rationalization be challenged as the Cold War structures themselves were challenged? Did the EU—or could it ever—represent an alternative model of security politics as well as a possible alternative economic or political model for the organization of the post-Cold War world?
It is not surprising that the development of EU-US relations has been accompanied by debate, controversy, and the proposal of different, often strongly conflicting, models of'he way the relationship could or should develop. As the European integration process gained momentum and spread into areas of foreign policy cooperation during the 1970s and 1980s, speculation about the future of the relationship became a focus of policy debate among political and economic elites on both sides of the Atlantic (Smith 1984). The end of the Cold War posed new challenges and opportunities for the economic, political, and security domains, and in many cases linked them together in new and potent ways. It affected both the composition and the conduct of the relationship, which for the purposes of this chapter raises important questions about how we interpret the transatlantic alliance and the EU's position within it:
• If we conceive of the EU as itself being a system of international relations, how exactly does this system relate to the presence of the USA, to its domi-nance of key areas of policy development and to the inevitable collision
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
between the EU and the US systems of polity making and policy coordina- : tion?
° If wc analyse the EU as part of the wider process of international relations, how do we factor in the ways in which the EU and the USA interact, the changes that have occurred in these interactions, and the balance sheet of advantage and disadvantage of the economic, political, and security domains!
« Finally, if we conceive of the EU as a power in international relations, how exactly does this power relate to the USA and to US power in the 21st century, and how can this relationship help us to understand key questions and disputes over the establishment of international order, both in the political economy and in the global security arena?
is EU's systei
iti
In earlier chapters, this book has presented the EU's international relations in pan-as expressing a system of international relations within the EU itself and in parti a subsystem of the broader international system. In other words, the EU's member states and institutions comprise a complex and multilayered system within which national policies are adjusted, 'European' policy positions are developedani revised, and actions are produced in a number of coexisting and overlapping contexts. This has important consequences for the ways in which the EU enters inn and conducts international relationships, and many of the chapters in this boat f. bear witness to the ways in which this can be demonstrated. For the purposesol l~ this chapter, the most important focus is upon the ways in which the EU-US tionship shows the operation of the intra-EU system of international relationsani 1 by implication, also the ways in which the United States can enter into that system both as a contextual factor but also as, in some instances, a participant in thesjs-tern itself.
The multilevel governance literature provides a logical analytical starting point for a discussion about the complex relationships between EU member states, Ento-: pean institutions, and the USA. According to this literature the EU is characters' | by shared authority and policy-making competencies across multiple levels cfgov- i crnment—subnational. national, and supranational (see also Marks et al 1996]; This has important effects on EU external policies, and it is not surprising thattis 'US factor' inevitably enters into the many different levels at which EU policies art made (Pollack and Shaffer 2001). In the first instance, there are formal diplomalit I relations between the EU and the USA, especially via the Commission in the field of external economic policies. The member states also retain important economic'
The EU and the United States
relations with the USA, and in a number of areas these national interests and poli-H ciesareat least as significant as those determined collectively. This is especially true fi; in monetary and investment policy, which differs greatly depending on membership or non-membership of the eurozone. The coexisting and overlapping policy arenas allow the US administration, US stale governments, and private companies to intervene in many different areas. Many large US companies are so long established in the EU that they are effectively 'European' in terms of their interests and their ability to exert pressure. This means that in terms of international economic relations, the USA can be seen almost as a direct participant in the EU's multilevel system (McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapter 2).
Interestingly, the USA too can be seen less and less as a unitary state, and more as a multilevel system of economic policy making, even if it has the federal structure that the EU still lacks. It is thus important to highlight the shared competencies between separate national as well as state institutions in US foreign policy making (Smith 1998a; Peterson and O'Toole 2001), which will not necessarily always H agree among themselves about the positions to be adopted in relation to the EU. H 'Cooperative federalism', in which powers and competencies are shared and treated ' . as shared between levels, is another way of characterizing the US decision-making H structure (Nicolaidis and Howse 2001). Shared authority affects the capacity of the A USA to exercise international relations, because as Peterson and O'Toole (2001.
300) argue, 'federalism usually gives rise to less formal intricate structures within ...which a large number of actors, each wielding a small slice of power, interact'. It ... is not clear how and to what extent this enables the EU collectively or through its p many possible agents to intervene in US domestic economic and political processes, > but it is clear that there are important respects in which the changing nature of the global political economy has led to a convergence of state forms on the two sides of the Atlantic.
Many scholars have begun to focus on multiple actors and multiple levels of influence within international relations theory more generally (see Putnam 1988; Risse-Kappen 1995: Milner 1997). The idea that domestic and international politics are not separable, and that domestic agents—be they political institutions, domestic groups, state or non-state actors—influence international negotiations, is uniting a number of emerging IR theories. In this respect, the overlapping and interpenetrating external relations systems of the EU and the USA can be seen as a key example of growing trends in the international arena as a whole. But it is clear that the most concrete examples of this phenomenon can be found in the area of political economy—dealing with the choices made and the positions adopted by the EU and the USA in respect of welfare and a widening range of social issues (M. Smith 2009a).
What happens when we look at the EU's system of international relations in the more political and security-related domains? Here we have to consider the notions that statehood and strategic action by major players still shape a large number of international patterns, including those in which the EU and the USA are
H ■
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
increasingly engaged as pan of the global security system. The relationships between the EU and its member states are very different in political and security concerns from those that have developed in the political/economic domain, as is'; the capacity of the USA to intervene and to exert influence in the system. Mote., specifically, the US ability to incite defection from common EU positions, to develop 'special relationships' with member states, and to undermine the solidarity of ■ the EU is greatly increased. This need not be a matter of conscious or explicit US policies; it can simply be a reflection of the different incentives and natural political leanings shaping the policies of the member states, as well as an indication of 1 the more intergovernmental nature of the EU's institutional setup in the areas of I \ CFSP and European security and defence policy (ESDP, now CSDP after the Lis- ' bon Treaty) (Hyde-Price 2007).
There are thus effectively two parallel narratives of the EU-US relationship when we examine the EU's system of international relations (McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapter 2). On the one hand there is the political economy narrative, which : \ stresses the ways in which the EU has developed a powerful set of institutions and * resources that can be used lo undertake collective action in a range of confess I j These contexts are often 'domestic' as well as 'international': thus EU-US inter- • action occurs via many agents at a range of levels, from the global (for example, io-' I the World Trade Organization (WTO)) through the European and then the nation- | al to the sub-national and the local. In the political-security domain, however,the ■ narrative is very different. Although in many respects the EU's CFSP and ESDP I have been developed because of the USA—as a means of filling the gaps in US pol-icies, or responding to the challenges of successive US administrations, especially- ! during the 1990s and 2000s—they are also severely constrained by the dominante % if not hegemony of the 'only superpower when the questions are those of crisis ' I and conflict, and of the commitment of real resources to the conduct of war a I near-war operations. The incentives for EU member states to act collectively are I very different in the two areas, with the balance between solidarity and detection''. \ or abstention only shifting slowly in the political and security area towards the I 'European' level.
Examples of this contrast have been legion since the end of the Cold War, with 1 the most important of them emerging from the 'war on terror' and the invasiono( I Iraq (see also Chapters 9 and 10). Whereas in both of these cases the EU could I maintain solidarity in the economic sphere, with the imposition of sanctions or I the implementation of reconstruction programmes, the EU's system of internation- :' |-al relations became subject to strains if not to disintegration as soon as the issues became those of 'hard security'. The collapse of European solidarity at the height of the Iraq crisis, leading to the stand-off between 'old and new' Europe and [o I. intense frictions between Britain and France in particular, seemed to indicate thai : whenever the USA placed intense demands on the EU's foreign policy system ihert j would be the likelihood of disintegration rarhcr than a great leap forward in cooperation (Peterson and Pollack 2003; McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapters 8 and9).
I I
The EU and the United States
But this is not the whole story: one of the other strands of development during the 1990s and beyond has been the growing scope of areas of 'soft security' and security activity engaging the 'internal' mechanisms of both the EU and the USA (see also Chapter 10 in this volume). This picture highlights very different results from the story of EU-US security cooperation and competition. The EU's system in such areas as justice and home affairs, or environmental protection, or civil administration in the aftermath ol conflict, possesses far greater resources for interaction with the USA. Indeed, some have argued that in these areas the EU has a comparative advantage over the USA bestowed by the enduring traces of'civilian power'.
What implications does this system of shared competency, of penetrated decisionmaking, and of competing 'languages' of international relations carry for EU collective action? First, it is clear that the overlapping decision-making competency between the internal and external spheres of politics complicates the process of collective action. It is still difficult to gauge 'who speaks for Europe' (Allen 1998: .Meunier and Nicolaidis 1999; Meunier 2000b). Although the Commission is able to exercise strategic authority in some areas of policy making, it is clear that institutional deficits and the lack of a single EU negotiating authority mean that the EU often suffers from a 'capabilities-expectations gap' (see Hill 1993a, 1998a) (and even a simple 'capabilities' gap hecause there are just no instruments available), particularly in the foreign and security policy area. This gap has been visible even during many EU-US economic policy crises including those surrounding the Blair House agreement in the course of the Uruguay round (1992). the failed new transatlantic marketplace agreement negotiations (1997-8) and most EU-US trade disputes (Peterson 1996; Pollack and Shaffer 2001, Petersmann and Pollack 2003). As noted above, it is starkly apparent in areas where the issues are those of'high politics' and 'hard security', where the stakes arc different if not higher and where the USAs decisional capacity and institutional strength act as a competitive advantage. These'gaps' in EU capacities for collective action are likely to be severely tested by EU-US relations, given the range and intensity of the encounters and their signifi-cance for 'internal' parties as well as the broader world arena (Smith 2004b, 2006)
While the USA has repeatedly expressed frustration with the EU's inability to reach decisions and thus provide real burden sharing in the hard security area, it has also made strategic attempts to use European disintegration to its advantage in other areas of foreign policy. This mixed view of European integration has led the USA to play an unintentional role as a 'regulator' of European integration (Peterson and Steffenson 2009). In their efforts to solicit internal security cooperation in tracking transnational terrorist cells, US negotiators have attempted to leverage special relationships with not only the UK but also with several newly admitted Eastern European member states. Transatlantic negotiations over passenger name records, visa waivers, money laundering, and mutual legal assistance have exposed divisions between old and new member states, prompting an invitation to the Commission to explore the possibilities of further European integration in these areas of judicial and police cooperation. Thus, US efforts to divide and
■
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
rule may have inadvertently motivated the member states to close policy gaps in • pillar three.
The Lisbon Treaty represented a much more significant attempt to close capabil- ; § ity gaps and to establish a single European voice in external and internal secut- : (':■" ity. When the implementation of Lisbon began in 2010 after a long and tortuous h ratification battle, the debate both within Europe and across the Atlantic turned ' to the capacity of the new institutional structures to deliver common positionsS IP and deliver clear lines of external communication. Initially, at least, it appeared | that the creation of new EU foreign policy positions exacerbated the problemoI'S E 'who speaks for Europe?' Etrst. the decision to establish an EU President andi-S\ g new High Representative for Foreign Affairs without eliminating the rotating 1 Council Presidency and the External Trade Commissioner created additional ne« '~~ foreign policy voices in the EU and ambiguity regarding how the foreign policy' I agenda would be set. Second, even before the treaty granted it new foreign policy p powers, the European Parliament had begun to exercise a louder voice in EU-liS - i relations. One issue that repeatedly struck a chord with MEPs was the needloll 1 ensure EL) data privacy rules were upheld in US attempts to negotiate counter- J £ terrorism information-sharing initiatives between the USA and the EU. In earlv : l. 2010 the European Parliament refused to give its consent to the interim agreement I 1 on banking data transfers (known as the SWIFT agreement) signed by the USA '. \ and the Council. The capacity of the European Parliament legally to make void the 1 Council agreement exacerbated tensions with the USA; the lack of decisive legal | authority in EU-US negotiations had already been established when the European-jl m Parliament initiated a European Court of Justice decision to overturn the 2004 1 Passenger Name Record agreement on the grounds that agreements should haw '■ 1 been negotiated by the Council and not the Commission. This evidence of lnstitu- EJ tional contestation within the EU over matters of EU-US relations could be seen K as a significant modification of the EU system.
It will be evident from the argument so far that the transatlantic relationship is ceil* I tral to the broader processes of international relations. Despite the growing dial- 1 lenges from China, India, and others such as Brazil (see Chapter 16), the EU and . ^ the USA are the two dominant actors in the capitalist world economy. They art. | central to the institutions of the global system, and they contain many of the most E powerful military powers, including the dominant military power in the post-Cold | War world. Thus, the development of transatlantic relations themselves is of great I importance to the process of world politics, and their engagement with the wider.' |
The EU and the United States
world is highly significant to the operation of a host of broader economic, political, and security processes. A number of key analytical dimensions connect EU-US relations and the processes of international relations.
First, it is important to look at the nature of the transatlantic relationship .itself. Not all European-US relations are centred on the EU, and the persistence and evolution of NATO in particular means that the EU-US relationship is part of a'multi-institutional' transatlantic system (Sloan 2002). Nonetheless, the EU-US relationship has been consistently at the core of this system, and has arguably become more central and more dominant as the EU has developed its foreign and security policies. During the 1990s, there was a consistent effort on both sides of the Atlantic to institutionalize EU-US relations and to provide a framework of rules and procedures, which would make them easier to manage (Pollack and Shaffer 2001; Steffenson 2005; Peterson and Steffenson 2009). At the outset came the Transatlantic Declaration (TAD) in 1990, which established some broad principles of organization. This was followed in 1995 by the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA), which greatly expanded not only the scope of the arrangement but also included more detailed areas of joint action between the EU and the USA, and in 1998 by the Transatlantic Economic Partnership (TEP), which focused more specifically on the achievement of mutual recognition agreements and other technical agreements dealing with the management of trade and competition. One of the most significant outcomes of these transatlantic agreements was the establishment of an institutional structure to manage bilateral transatlantic relations, including an EU-US summit plus a host of transgovernmental dialogues designed to bring together a much larger range of foreign policy actors from the USA, the Commission, and the Council. As Figure 17.1 shows, the 'intergovernmental' and 'transgovernmental' arrangements were accompanied by efforts to construct non-governmental transatlantic dialogues and networks between business, environment, consumer, and labour groups (Pollack and Shaffer 2001; Steffenson 2005).
One implication of shared competency at different levels of decision-making is that it gives rise to 'intense transgovernmentahsm' (see Wallace and Wallace 2000). Theintra-EU process of decision-making is reflected in the way the EU forms relations with external partners, and there is no more convincing demonstration of this than in transatlantic relations. The EU-US process of institutionalization has created a dense structure of decision-making processes that mirror in many respects the competencies of the EU. For example, the TAD, the NTA, and the TEP have established three branches of governmental dialogue to accommodate the different competencies of EU external negotiators (Pollack and Shaffer 2001; Steffenson 2005). There is also a dense network of economic and political working groups, such as the NTA task force and the TEP working groups (see Figure 17.1). The TEP was revitalized and refocused during 2007, as the result of an initiative by the German EU Presidency, and a Transatlantic Economic Council was established consisting of high officials from both sides of the relationship. The creation of the TEC as well as other high-level issue-specific dialogues, such as the one established to
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
FIGURE 17.1   Transatlantic institutions (selected)
TAD, NTA.TEP institutions
High Level Political Dialogues
Expert Level Regulatory Dialogues
Expert Level 'Global Challenges' Dialogues
People to People Dialogues
EU-US Summit. Ministerial Meetings, ■'■:■' Troika Working Groups, Senior Level ' >1 Group, NTATask Force, TEP Steering || Group,TEPWorking Groups,The Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue I
Transatlantic Economic Council "-;
Policy Dialogue on Border and Transports Security. Dialogue on Climate Change, I High Level Regulatory Cooperation I Forum
Financial Markets Regulatory Dialogue, Insurance Dialogue. Task Force on *jĚ Biotechnology Research. Dialogue on I Innovation Exchange
Dialogue on Terrorist Financing, FBI- m Europol Exchange Judicial Cooperation -and Joint Investigation Teams. Transatlantic Development Dialogue, 9 Dialogue on Customs Cooperation $
The Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue, 1 The Transatlantic Business Dialogue,The-': Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue.The '.-Transatlantic Higher Education Dialogue'
manage EU-US interactions on climate change, was intended to increase thepolw cal weight behind transatlantic discussions. A range of complementary regulator/: dialogues was created to include US regulatory agencies in discussions on transatlantic market-opening strategics. In this way, it could be argued that the Eu-liS relationship in political economy was 'deepening', with potentially far-reaching" implications for the broader process of global governance and regulation. Aithe same lime, however, the emergence of new economic powers challenged the'privileged partnership' of the EU and the USA in new ways (Smith 2009a), and the intensification of'competitive interdependence' in the global political economy*! seen as creating new areas of EU-US rivalry (Sbragia 2010).
Transgovcrnmental networks are also prominent in the security relationship. However, the trajectory of development and the broader institutional contextin. this area are very different in some respects, which again raises questions about the extent to which the security domain, with its distinctive set of ELI-US relations, power distribution, and external challenges, can be governed, especially through joint processes in which the EU and the USA act as relative equals. Whiles number of new political dialogues have emerged to facilitate EU-US counter-ten* ism cooperation, decentralized internal security coordination on both sides of the
The EU and the United States
Atlantic has inhibited effective information sharing. Institutional reorganization after 11 September 11 2001 consolidated many US internal security agencies under
-the new US Department of Homeland Security, which in turn required adjustments to the membership of transatlantic institutions such as the political dialogue on border and transport security (see Pawlak 2007). The EU also sought to increase coordination between the member states, despite lacking the power to consolidate internal security agencies, through the creation of an EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator and Europol's Counter-Terrorist task force. However, these institutions have limited capacity to overcome barriers to information sharing stemming from distrust within and between the member states' decentralized law enforcement agencies (see Chapter 10).
The institutional changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty became a wider source of uncertainty and confusion in transatlantic relations. In 2010 a diplomatic row broke out after the Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero learned via media reports that Obama was not planning on attending the spring EU-US summit, which would have been held in Madrid because it fell during the six-month Spanish Presidency This revelation was widely reported in the media as a snub to the EU, especially after Obama's advisors were quoted as saying that the President had not found the previous summit meetings useful and that the creation of new European foreign
/policy actors had created confusion about the role of the new Lisbon institutions in Europe's foreign policy structure.
Beyond the transatlantic arena, the post-Cold War period has clearly introduced new dimensions into the processes of international relations. In a number of areas theEU and the USA often find themselves working in competition, rather than in some kind of strategic partnership. Take, for example, policies towards developing countries, where the EU has developed a wide-ranging and highly institutionalized
' set of relationships with the African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries (ACP), as detailed in Chapter 14, and where as a result there is a tendency—not least within theEU itself—to see the Union as a 'development superpower with an advantage over the USA. With regard to global environmental management, the EU has at times acted as the leader of a broad coalition in the face of US intransigence and refusal to ratify major instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol (Bodansky 2003; see also Chapter 15).
The unpopular, often unilateral, policies of the Bush administration presented an opportunity for the EU to exercise its soft power, allowing it to engage other partners such as China and Russia in fighting transnational challenges. This trend continued after the 2008-9 global financial crisis when Obama faced a hostile EU, China, and Russia at the G20 meetings. The EU, led by France and Germany with the noted absence of UK solidarity was joined by China and Russia in calls for a new global financial regulatory system. The USA shied away from the idea of any such system, focusing instead on the need for a strategy that would limit the role of theEU due to its lack of fiscal federalism. Significantly, however, when crisis erupted within the eurozone during early 2010 because of the problems of the Greek
ma
418    Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
economy, the USA was prominent in proposing international solutions involving the IMF and other financial institutions but also major injections of liquidity through the European Central Bank.
The EU's ability to exercise leadership in the soft power arena was called into-; question again after the UN climate change meeting hosted in Copenhagen in December 2009. The Obama administration managed lo intervene decisively a' the end of the conference and upset Europe's plans for a new binding globalcU-^ mate change treaty when the President convinced the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa. India, and China) to agree to his alternative plan for a non-buidinj Copenhagen Accord. To add insult to injury, the European leaders felt compelledio endorse the agreement, despite their open irritation with Obama's diplomatic coup, even though it did not come close to their outlined targets. In this case theEUwas: left looking like a junior partner; this suggests that whilst in this and other areasol 'soft security', EU-US competition is conducted on changing terms, with the EU's-strategic assets becoming increasingly visible and important, it is open to question how far the EU can mobilize those assets in any given negotiation, especially in die: new international constellation of emerging powers.
Nonetheless, the terms of engagement change again, often dramatically, when the • focus turns to 'hard security'. Here, in relation to the process of international relations, the EU has much less leverage. Some would argue, indeed, that US dominance in this field allows the EU to evade responsibility for international security: processes, leaving it free to focus on those areas where its assets count (Kagan 2002, 2003). Bush's inability to rally the Europeans to donate more troops to Afghanistan after the dispute over Iraq was not a unique problem; getting the Europeans to contribute continued to be a source of tension for the Obama administration. In Febni-, ary 2010, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned the Europeans that NATO's' budgetary crisis was a matter of 'life or death'. He acknowledged the unprecedented level of burden sharing in Afghanistan but noted that the security organization' would face long-term systemic threats if European allies failed to heavily investin their defence budgets. When it comes to the management of international conflicts,^ the past decade has made it abundantly clear that the EU is unlikely to act col-" lectively or to exercise influence when the stakes are high. Whilst the EU might be seen as the kinder, softer partner, it is not seen as a real player in manyareasof 'hard security' and conflict management.
This conclusion seems to be borne out by the historical record. In successive conflicts during the 1990s, the Europeans passed up various opportunities to contribute collectively to conflict management. For example, many Americans felt, particularly in the early stages, that the conflict in former Yugoslavia was ait opportunity for Europe to exercise its common foreign policy. In the end successive failures of EU collective action led the USA. with support from NATO allies, and varying degrees of legitimation from the United Nations, to take decisive action (Zucconi 1996; Peterson 2003). Likewise the successive US engagements in the Gulf, leading eventually to the Iraq conflict of 2003, saw the EU left on thr
The EU and the United States 419
sidelines and hardly involved in either the military action or the post-war reconstruction and stabilization. Former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson made repeated comments at the lime blaming the EU member states for reinforcing a culture in which 'Americans fight wars and Europeans do the dishes' (Black 2002;
p.. see also Peterson 2003).
Despite their shortcomings, it can be argued that the EUs attempts to partici-
fe"' pate in international security processes arc not completely ineffective. For example, Brussels is well equipped to deal with post-conflict management. The EU has led reconstruction efforts in the Balkans with the EUFOR (European Union Force) mission in Bosnia and the EULEX (European Union rule of law) mission in Kos-
•     ovo. In both instances Europe demonstrated its capacity as a regional security actor : through its nation-building activities and its willingness to dangle EU membership as a carrot to Serbia. The EU has played an important part in the post-conflict reconstruction of Afghanistan, and indeed there is a sense thai the EU is the only
■     actor that could do so.
f. There has also been significant—and increasingly EU-centred—engagement with conflicts beyond the European continent independent of the USA (sec also Chapter 9). The EU peacekeeping mission in Chad and the Central African Republic form one example where the member states have been able to take advantage of historical links with local parties. The EUs commitment to provide security and
': humanitarian assistance, with UN approval, to nations coping with refugees spilling out of the Darfur region in Sudan demonstrated its growing legitimacy if not its capabilities as a security actor. Its legitimacy via the USA in the international system
?. made it the only actor capable of exercising quick diplomacy when fighting broke out between Russia and Georgia in 2008. Whilst the USA was quick to condemn Russia from afar, demand the withdrawal of its forces from the region, and quickly move to publicly support Georgia's application for NATO membership, EU negotiators quickly flew to the region to broker a peace deal. Russia allowed EU observers
> into the region, and coincidentally announced that they would provide air support (or the EU mission in Chad. The EU presence failed to eliminate hostilities in either
| of these conflicts, but these cases do demonstrate that the EU has an important role to play in international security As with all external policy areas, the size of its
I role is predetermined by the commitment of its member states to act collectively (see Chapter 9); and the Georgia example, which showed elements of competition between the French Presidency of the EU, acting on its own behalf, and other EU
§ institutions, shows both the advantages and the limitations of the EUs processes. . One way in which the EU can be seen as offering a different perspective on the .process of international relations is through the exercise of its normative influence, which has led some to argue that the EU embodies a normative or 'civilizing' process in the broader world arena (Manners 2002; Sjurscn 2007; Whitman 2010—see also Chapter 18). Many of the EUs most important disputes with the USA reflect underlying value differences—for example, the conception of risk as it relates lo the precautionary principle, environmental burden sharing and
Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
consumer protection with regard to data privacy and food safety (for further exam- . pies in the trade and environment fields see Meunier and N'icolaidis, Chapter 12;' . f sec also Chapter 15 in this volume). There are also varying views among the rr.ei- I ber states on issues of neutrality and security (focused partly on the EU's internal security policy developments but also on external policies such as those towards ■ I the Middle East and the successive US plans for a missile defence system). Irn';: f number of areas this translates into quite profound differences about the power I of 'critical dialogue' or the comparative merits of sanctions, force, and diploma! j (Lindstrom 2003b, Chapters I and 2). For instance, in approaching the problem I of relations with 'rogue states' or the so-called 'axis of evil', the EU has showna | consistent tendency to emphasize the merits of critical dialogue in contrast to tie.-' 1 US focus on more coercive measures including ultimately the threat of force More II generally, it can be argued that the EU places more emphasis on ideas andproc- '■ I esses of conflict prevention in international relations rather than coercion or even I pre-emption as preached and sometimes practised by the USA. Iran would bean S important case here—initial EU3 efforts seemed to establish a distinct role, butasI f tensions rose the EU was squeezed to the margins.
Furthermore, the EU's efforts to pursue international, regional, and bilateral coop- ? cration arc strongly shaped by ideas about best practice' within the EU (McGuire and Smith 2008, Chapter 7). There is a conscious effort to export the model (oral 1 least some of the key principles and structures) of European integration in develop I ing regions such as Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. The externaliza- I lion of practices used within the common market also applies to the EU's relations 1 £ with major trading partners. For example, in the case of the expanding networked" \ mutual recognition agreements for a range of products and processes, it is often the I EU, not the USA, that lakes a lead in the negotiations. The contrast between thedis- % courses of EU and US policies can be found in very powerful ways when it comesio I handling inter-regional issues of human rights or environmental matters (see Aleci I dc Flcrs and Regclsbcrgcr 2005). As in the case of the areas mentioned earlier,it I can be argued quite strongly here that the EU possesses and can exploit a form of I comparative advantage in processes of international relations, many of which have I become markedly more prominent in the post-Cold War world.
A further and related set of questions about the connections between EU-US fe relations and the broader international arena relates to the problem of global gov-":' § crnance and the strengthening of multilateral institutions. To what extent does the I EU shape the agenda of such international institutions, and how does that bring;! | into collision with the United States? To what extent has the EU developed a dis-. I tinctive role and identity in areas where it interacts with the USA (that is to say, in' | almost all areas of its activity)?
What is clear is that the capacity of the EU to act is wide-ranging but often con- | ditional. Thus, there are some international organizations within which the Cora- & mission can speak and negotiate on behalf of the EU's members, such as the WTO i and a number of global environmental organizations, but there are others whereth; I-
The EU and the United States
. EU's representation is mixed and its voice is less unified or consistent as a result. . Although the Lisbon Treaty has endowed the EU with 'international personality' for the first time, it has clearly not done away with this mixed system of representation. This means that on the one hand there are organizations where the EU as a whole can take a key role in agenda setting, in negotiation, in coalition building, and other .aspects of international institutional life, and there are others where in order to achieve EU solidarity there has to be a continuous process of internal coalition -building and management. In addition, there is often some discursive confusion about not only who speaks for Europe but about whether there is any EU message, in terms of values or of expectations, lo communicate. For example, in international monetary and financial institutions, there are effectively 'three EUs' for different purposes: the EU of 'Euroland' comprising the curozone member states, the EU of 27 member states agreed on certain economic and financial positions, and the EU's member states as independent financial and monetary authorities with voices and votes of their own. This kind of divided 'voice' was especially evident in some phases of the 2008-9 financial crisis, which prompted an internal debate between eurozone and non-eurozone stales over the need to close the internal gap through EU-wide regulation of financial services. Whilst the Lisbon Treaty addresses this problem of consistency in a number of areas, it is far from clear that it will eliminate them in the short term (see Chapters 4 and 5).
It is important in the context of international institutions to evaluate in more depth how the EU as opposed to the member states operates in international relations and to identify the ways in which this tension feeds into transatlantic relations. As we will argue in the following section, the EU is primarily a soft power and an economic power. This 'power inventory', including the power of ideas and values, can be mobilized, often in juxtaposition or in opposition to the USA, in a ■variety of arenas, but it remains less substantial and less wide-ranging than that even of an internally divided USA. During the late 1990s and 2000s, the range over which the EU can deploy this kind of resource to affect the process of international political economy has been significantly broadened with the introduction of the euro, but as noted above, at least in the initial stages, this was subject to a number of limitations arising not only from the incomplete membership of the curozone but also from the imperfections of macroeconomic management within the zone (see also Chapter 11). Thus the impact of the euro on the expectations of the USA and other players and on the interactions between the EU and the USA in international forums has to date been uncertain and patchy, and this picture continues in groupings such as the G20 that have become more prominent during the financial crisis of 2008 and after. When it comes to the potential capacity of the EU to play a bigger role in the 'hard' part of the spectrum, as its own security policy (centred on the CSDP) develops, the story is even less clear. Still, there is already some evidence that the EU collectively has more of a capacity to make its voice heard on international security issues within international institutions. At times this has caused significant friction with the United States. Although the USA was initially
422    Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
The EU and the United States 423
annoyed by European security organization, which seems to parallel if not duplicate NATO's functions, it soon came to realize that the EU is unlikely to rival NATO at least in the short term In the longer term, the increasing development and institutionalization of the CSDP and of the CFSP is likely to cut increasingly across US interests and make itself felt in organizations where the USA has traditionallyhada commanding role (Sloan 2002; Lindstrom 2003b). Arguably, this would constitute an important modification not only of the process of EU-US relations, but also of broader international security governance.
There is a more general question about the ways in which we can characterize the EU's participation in international organizations. Do the member states havea
higher capacity for collective action given their experience with European integra- I
tion? Sbragia and Damro (1999) argue that the EU is able to adjust policies over f
lime to international cooperation because the member states already have expert- E
ence of working cooperatively. Nicolaidis and Egan (2001) argue that in terms of 1 %
regulatory cooperation—a policy area where the member states have a consider- l
able level of integration—the EU has initiated the exporting of its policies in order u
to benefit from 'first mover advantage'. This means that in studying the EU as a I
contributor to international relations it is imporiant to examine it as a model of ' I
governance. As the most advanced international organization, it has become both I
a target for anti-globalization groups and an archetype of governance, given its I
emphasis on the participation of civil society. It has also arguably become a major t
player in the 'management of globalization' both on its own account and in termso! : '§
its engagement with global institutions (Jacoby and Meunier 2010).The issue here \
is the extent to which these kinds of assets and trends bring the EU into collision . f
with the USA, and the ways in which these encounters are managed. What impact I
docs EU-US discord have on the process of international relations as a whole? One 1
set of implications relates to the EU's developing international role and the fact that £
in many areas of activity its international initiatives inevitably and immediately run I.
into the positions and actions of the USA. The EU has proceeded in part by tryu,g f to rival the USA, in part by trying to contain it, and in part by trying to create ties
foundations for EU-US cooperation (see for example Sbragia 2010). The develop- f
mcnl of the EU's international role, and thus its contribution to the processes ot I
international relations in a wide range of arenas, has been driven to a signifrcan! 1
degree by this ambivalent relationship with the USA and by the EU-US encounters $ to which it gives rise.
In the context of this role initiation and role development, it is important to t
remember that in many respects the US role in the post-Cold War era has also bee: |
conditioned by the existence and the widening impact of the EU. There isasers- I
in which the EU takes up imporiant elements of burden sharing that the USAis H
cuhcr unwilling or unable lo sustain, both within the global political economy §
and the diplomatic or security arenas. As can be seen from Box 17.3. in the ares I
of counter-terrorism activity, the EU has been able to enter into a wide ranged I activities alongside the United States and in the context of a variety of international
IttXHMjl Areas of EU-US cooperation on combating terrorism
• Support for United Nations conventions on terrorism.
• Financial action task force on terrorist financing.
• Work towards laws and regulations enabling asset freezing
• Strengthening regulation of financial institutions.
| .Increased law enforcement cooperation and intelligence.
• EU-US agreements on extradition and mutual iegal assistance.
• Increased security of international transport: container security, passenger records.
• Promote development, democracy, and good governance.
organizations. It is arguable that in key areas the EU has a greater 'capacity to cooperate' and to play constructive roles in newly developing international processes or institutions than does the USA. The EU has gained legitimacy in a variety of international contexts, not only from its internal integration process but also from its representation of an increasingly distinctive 'European' position. One could draw the conclusion that the evolution of individual EU and US discourses and practices has had significant restructuring effects on the broader world arena—in other words, that the EU has begun to establish itself as an independent and influential force in the definition and development of global governance systems. Equally, .one might conclude that the deepening of EU-US partnership in a number of fields might lay the foundations for a strengthening of a form of joint leadership in which they could act as the core of new international regimes. But one must never forget the problems that arise for the EU in the 'hard' end of the spectrum, or from the increasing securitization of a range of issues since the turn of the millennium. Inexorably this point leads to the consideration of EU-US relations in the context oi understandings about the EU as a 'power'.
EU-US relations and the EU as a poweir in international relations
The evolution of the EU as a 'power' in international relations has inevitably become a point of tension with the USA (Kagan 2002, 2003; Kupchan 2003; Gordon and Shapiro 2004). As pointed out many times in other chapters of this book, and in the preceding section of this chapter, the development of EU power resources and the processes by which they arc mobilized and deployed has followed a distinctive path, conditioned by the fact that the EU is an organization that is ultimately founded on states. This accounts for the conditional grants of foreign
- yi —
424   Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
policy power lo the EU and for the ways in which the member states have retained their own distinct national preferences, positions, and resources. In other words it explains the fact that in many respects, the EU continues to be a 'civilian power'in the international arena and that its influence is largely confined to those areas that fall outside the realm of hard security and high politics.
As noted above, this has important implications for the ways in which the EU and the USA interact, both in areas affecting the EU's system of international rela-. lions and in areas that relate more to the broader process of international relations. In this part of the chapter, the emphasis is rather different. Here the focus is on the. ways in which the EU and the USA express apparently different types or 'mixes' of power, on the ways in which this enters into EU and US discourses, and on the ways in which this affects EU-US relations. The EU-US relationship encompassesa number of profound ambiguities emerging from the internal evolution of both parties and their shifting roles in the broader world arena.
Examining the EU as a power in international relations raises fresh analytical and empirical puzzles. A first problem, and one that led to intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 2000s, is the nature of power itself. Power isa major preoccupation of IR theory, and brings with it a huge accumulated baggage of ideas about resources and capabilities, about the combination and mobilization-' of power, and about the management of power both at the national level and at the level of world order. It is thus not surprising that the end of the Cold War launched an obsessive examination by scholars and policy makers of the new power situa-^ lion, in which the United States seemed to have an almost unqualified dominance, especially in military affairs- An intense debate followed in the early 2000s around what came to be seen as two qualitatively different types of power, one US, one European.
Key to this debate was the idea that the EU was constructed around a predominantly 'soft' notion of power, focusing and rationalizing the Union's interests asa 'trading state' with key interests in the economic and social realms. By focusing on soft power, the EU could logically focus on ways to achieve both economic gains and key welfare objectives. More negatively, it was argued by some that the EU version of power was a rationalization of the Union's essential weakness and that it had been so since the beginnings of the European integration project. Some argued that EU leaders settled for a second-best version of power, built on its comparative advantages, because they could not hope to match the major military powers in matters of 'hard security'. In any case these judgements were not just empiii-. cal: they were also essentially moral, on the one hand identifying the Europeansas more likely to compromise with bad regimes and bad leaders than those whosaif the real nature of the international power game, and on the other seeing them as; eschewing militarism and aggression. A phrase often quoted in the early 2000swas,. 'Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.' and there was no doubt for many US commentators where virtue lay when confronted with the 'axis of evil and other threats to the new world order (see Kagan 2002, 2003: M. Smith 2004a).
The EU and the United States 425
By contrast, the logic of American power was seen as essentially rooted in the 'hard' end of the spectrum. It had resources and could address problems in a way that the Europeans simply could not envisage. During the 1990s, this disparity was most apparent in the capacity to intervene on a global scale. It was also made very apparent much closer to home for the EU, when the Union had to rely on the USA to inject a large number of troops and other materiel into the former Yugoslavia at short notice (Zucconi 1996). The key here, however, is not just what happened in practical policy terms, but also what effect this had on the expectations and understandings of policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic. Quite simply.
: the mindset of policy makers in the USA, especially but not only during the first George W. Bush administration of 2000-4, was one that accommodated the possibility and even the probability of the use of military power (including its unilateral
; use), whereas such options were effectively foreclosed at the collective EU level (M. Smith 2004a, 2009b) As explained earlier, this has had a significant effect on the ways in which major EU member stales have perceived the incentives to operate at the EU level and has also conditioned their readiness to defect at crucial moments of crisis and conflict management.
How far does this power disparity extend, and how far arc its effects felt in the area of non-military power? It is clear that the EU is still predominantly an economic power, and that it most legitimately rivals the USA in international economic arenas. The EU's economic position makes it a viable foreign policy actor, especially where the use of economic sanctions, aid, or other inducements is in question; it has also invested considerable effort in its capacity to act as a soft power in terms of aid and development assistance and to operate in arenas where institutions and
: regimes are still being formed, such as in the environmental domain. As a result, it is possible to argue that the EU can exert a growing amount of'institutional power' through international regimes and organizations, and that its capacity to construct wide-ranging international coalitions on certain issues gives it influence comparable to if not more impressive than that of the USA. The EU' is less able to establish collective preferences and understandings in the security field, but there is a sense in which the EU has inserted itself into an increasing range of situations as a diplomatic actor, and in which it might develop considerably greater capacity to supplant the USA either with US agreement or with US 'absence' (cf. the situation in the Balkans).
To what extent does the USA—in the shape of its political leaders and commentators or analysts—perceive the EU as a major power? There is a sense in which ihe answer to this question has remained constant since Henry Kissinger pronounced it as'civilian' and 'regional' in the early 1970s. The EU is also increasingly seen (both by its member states and by outsiders) as a 'soft security actor', with a significant role in the European order and an increasing but often frustrating role in the broader diplomacy of world order. For example, the EU has functioned as a full contributing member of the so-called 'Quartet' group on the Middle East (with the USA, the UN, and Russia), helping to produce the 'road map' for an Israeli-Palestinian
426   Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
peace settlement that was published in 2003—but the Quartet's diplomatic sue-.:-cess has been distinctly limited . The creation of the High Representative for Com- -mon Foreign and Security Policy—the post first held by Javier Solana, and then developed into a key institutional aspect of'European foreign policy' by the Lisbon Treaty—means that the EU is equipped to play a more significant role in international diplomacy (see Chapter 4). A key question, though, is whether other key actors perceive the EU as a persuasive voice in international affairs. The EU has established a role in Afghanistan that might be seen as parallel to that assumed in the later stages of the Balkans conflicts, but do diplomatic and reconstructive functions give the EU equivalent status to that enjoyed by the USA? Equally, the EU has a well-established role in the G7/G8 groups of leading industrial countries hut it is not clear whether this has reinforced or weakened the perception of the: Union as a key player in Washington or indeed in the capitals of some member states who are also G7/G8 members. As noted above, the effective replacement of the G7/8 by the G20 in 2009-10 created new questions about the extent to which the EU collectively could be seen as a leading member.
This raises major questions about the EU's role in the broader international \ arena. Firstly, can the EU be plausibly seen as an alternative player to the USA for diplomatic or even security purposes in situations of regional or local conflict'This . { possibility has at least been raised by the EU's actions in a number of conflicts,for I example in sub-Saharan Africa, during the early years of the new century. Or,sec- I ondly, should the EU be seen as a balancing force for the USA in a variety of insti-IE tutional and other contexts, providing the 'soft cop' to balance the USA's 'hard cop!'. I Take for example the case of Iran's nuclear policies (see Box 17.4 and Everts 2004). I This case seems to indicate that there was at least initially a tacit division of labour I between the EU (especially three of its leading members) and the USA in trying to I handle and to defuse the possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear capacity. Whilst this, i I one episode cannot be seen as typical, it is important at least to raise the possibility I that the EU and the USA could be more complementary than competitive ia their I uses of international power (Moravcsik 2003).
More likely is the third possibility apparent under George W Bush's administia- | tion: that the EU would be ignored, and even 'disaggregated' either as the result of I deliberate US policies or as the result of the inevitable tensions between different I positions within the EU. for example on Iraq (Howorth 2003: Lindstrom 2003h,i I M. Smith 2004b). In this case, the distinction notoriously made by Secretary of I Defense Donald Rumsfeld between 'old Europe' (France, Germany, and their sup-'. | porters) and 'new Europe' (the UK, Spain, and many of the newly acceding states § from Central and Eastern Europe) was intended to convey US opposition toappar-.' I cm European feebleness, but also to detach some of the more significant prospec-: I live new member states such as Poland.
It is apparent that the EU has faced, is facing, and will always face a problem with i | the management of IIS power. It might also be argued that the USA has a growing I
The EU and the United States 427
v:ie EU, the USA, and Iran's nucfear programmes
During 2003-4, differences su'faced between the EU member states and the USA over iihowto handle nuclear weaoons programmes :n 'ran. These tensions reflected a longstanding divergence or approaches, with the Europeans having emphasized the value r;pf 'critical dialogue' with Tehran and the Americans having adopted a strategy based .oncontainment or even 'rollback'. Iran being one of the members of the so-called 'axis ~pf evil'. The probiem was also underlined by the transatlantic disagreements that had emerged during the build-up to and the conduct of the US-!ed attack on Iraq in 2003. -In the case of Iran, however, there was a united EU position in favour of diplomacy and '/a multiiatera' solution; the UK, which had been the most loyal and substantial of the 'USA's allies in the Iraq action, pursued a strongly 'Ejropeamzed' line on Iran, and played a leading role rhrough what became known as the 'EU3' group along with France and Germany. Having secured Iranian agreement to adhere to the Nuclear Ncn-Droliferation STreaty during 2003, the EU3 (supported by Russia) then decided to offer kan incentives to susoend its work with enriched uranium, and to muitilateralize the process through the involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency in monitoring and surveillance. However, the Bush administration did not endorse rhe package ana explicitly can-^vassed the possibility of coercive sanctions or even a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Tne victory of George W. Bush in the US Presidential election of November ■2004 created further tensions between the EU focus on 'soft power' and multilateral solutions, and the US emphasis on 'hard power' and the possibility of force. The EU's preference for using multilateral channels coupled by internal divisions among European foreign policy actors seemed unlikely to lead to EU-US convergence over Iran even after 'Obama too* office During his campaign, Obama had stressed the importance of abandoning the Bush administration's pplicy of isolation in favour of diplomatic engagement 'with states such as Iran In early 2010. however, the EU and the USA were still divided on how *.o approach Tehran after Iran publicly defied the international community with a ■series of weapons tests. After months of going back and forth over the need for diplomacy through the UN. it was announced in March that consensus had been reached on the need for a new UN-led action. After an EU Council meeting in Helsinki, the Finnish Foreign Minister announced that the EU would back the USA and impose unilateral sanc-itions.if Russia or China vetoed the orpposed UN sanctions programme
problem with the management of the EU's power and that both of these facets will profoundly affect the EU's developing international relations. The USA is clearly a major factor in the uneven development of the EU's own international power position, both structurally and as the result of successive policies emanating from Washington. The United States is also, as noted earlier, present in the EU itself, both as the result of the US stake in Europe and as the reflection of the place Washington and its power occupy in the minds of European political leaders and officials
In consequence, when discussion turns to the 'capability-expectations gap' in EU policies (Hill 1993a, 1998a), Washington is both a ma|or incentive for the gap to
428   Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
be closed and a major reason why in certain areas it may never be closed. This does not mean that the EU is not a 'power' in the international arena, but rather that its status has been, and most likely will continue to be. embedded maUS-dominatcd Western or global order. The President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, during his first confirmation hearings in July 2004, felt the need to make two apparently conflicting points during his testimony. On the one hand, he attacked the arrogance of the USA and called for a more equal relationship between Brussels and Washington; on the other hand, he was at pains to emphasize his 'Atlanticisť credentials, his support for the US attack on Iraq and his commitment to support US policies in the war on terror'. To a greater or lesser degree,all EU leaders have had to reconcile these components in the attempt to pursue the EE's international role after 11 September 2001, and not just with respect to the Bush administration; with the accession of the Obama administration in January: 2009, the Commission and a scries of national leaders in the EU were concerned both to emphasize the EU's status as a key partner for the USA and to stress to varying degrees their separatencss from the USA on key issues.
The USA has also given EU institutional actors a mixed reception in the foreign, policy arena. In addition to confusing the established channels of transatlantic-diplomacy, the election of Herman van Rompuy as the first EU President was met with disappointment in the USA by those who would have preferred to see a pro-US. foreign policy personality such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair take up-the post. Similar criticisms surrounded both the creation of the High Representative post and its initial occupation by former Commissioner Catherine Ashton. The perceived 'failure' on the part of the EU to fill these posts with political heavyweights reflected Washington's ongoing struggle to understand the internal dynamics of the EU; from an 'internal' EU perspective, these choices could be seen as a delicate step towards further integration through quiet diplomacy inside the EU, because neither; van Rompuy nor Ashton ran the risk of directly overshadowing the foreign ministers of the member states.
Additional uncertainty exists in the USA over the capacity of the Lisbon Treat)' to transform the EU into a rival power. The controversy surrounding the ambiguity of the new foreign policy posts led some such as political scientist Stephen Wall to argue not only that Obama was right to absent himself from the 2010 EU-US summit in Spain but that he should also scale back on European commitments more generally; often, this kind of argument was coupled with the view that US policy should focus much more on China and other emerging powers than on the EU (sec Chapter 16). Others in Washington feared that the Lisbon Treaty constituted a dramatic step taken by the European elites towards achieving their goal of a European superstate, which would rival the USA even in terms of hard power. Reports such as those made to Congress by Heritage Foundation analyst Sally McNamara did little to acknowledge what a small step the introduction of majority voting rules in the CFSP pillar was in relation to the wider capabilities gap that-
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would need to be closed in order for Europe realistically to assume that role (Walt 2010; McNamara 2009).
Conclusion
This chapter has explored four key topics: the evolution of EU-US relations, the ways in which EU-US relations enter into the EU's system of international relations, the impact of EU-US relations on the EU's role in the process of international relations, and the ways in which the EU-US relationship feeds into the part played by the EU as an international 'power'. The key findings are as follows:
• The developing EU-US relationship has been a key force in shaping the development of the EU's international relations, but it is a force full of contradictions.
• In many respects, the USA (both as a governmental and a private actor) is 'present' in the EU's system of international relations, and the EU-US relationship has played a key (and contradictory) role in development of the EU's foreign policy mechanisms.
• The EU-US relationship has been crucial in conditioning the development of the EU's participation in international processes, and it will continue to be a key factor shaping the EU's role in many international contexts, including key global institutions. In this way also, it is a key element in the search for
a new international order to reflect the emergence not only of a 'new' EU but also of other new economic and political forces.
• As a result of the factors mentioned above, the EU's role as a 'power' in international relations must be seen at least partly in the light of its relationship with the USA. This is so not only because of the dominant American position in a number of areas of international life, but also because of the way
in which the USA enters into the expectations and understandings of those making policies within the EU as well as their key international partners. To put it directly, the fate of the EU as a 'power' is directly related to its success in constructing an elfective partnership with the USA.
The overall conclusion from this discussion is necessarily nuanced and reflects a number of contradictory lines of development. In terms of international relations theory, it is clear that any analysis of EU-US relations raises major questions about ■power and interdependence' and the extent to which different worlds of international relations can coexist. EU-US relations also generate and crystallize key questions about the role of institutions in world politics and the ways in which they can be seen as sources of legitimacy as well as sources of information, support, and
430    Michael Smith and Rebecca Steffenson
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influence. More specifically, they also raise in a highly concentrated form questions about the possibilities and limits of collective action in international relations,both at the EU and at the global level. The EU and the USA exist in conditions of intense-, yet uneven integration, within an international context full of uncertainty, and dealing with its most 'significant other' will remain a dominating item on theEUs-international agenda.
FURTHER READHIMG
There is a vast literature on the general area of transatlantic relations, which has beerj a key focus of scholarship and debate since the 1940s The list below gives a sampleofil the more recent commentaries and of the literature relating EU-US relations to broad-Si er problems of international relations. Peterson (1996), Guay (1999). and McGuire ani^ Smith (2008) provide historical reviews as well as dealing with contemporary policy.^ issues: each of them also links EU-US relations to issues of international relationsanarv-.j? sis The more specific debates about the end of the Cold War. the conflicts of the 1S9fls'j and the tensions over Iraq are dealt with by Gordon and Shaoiro (2004), Kagan (2003|;5 Lundestad (2008). Peterson and Pollack (2003). Sloan (2002). and Smith and Woolcodr? (1993) Issues of political economy are covered by the general texts cited above andbys Pollack and Shaffer (2001). The possible futures of EU—US relations are covered by many; of the texts and specifically by Moravcsik (2003).
Gordon, P. and Shapiro. J (2004), Allies at War: America. Europe, and The Crisis Over 9
Iraq (Washington DC: Brookings Institution). Guay.T. (1999), The United States and the European Union: The Political Economy oh I
Relationship (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Kagan, R. (2003), Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
(London: Atlantic Books). Lundestad. G. (ed.) (2008). Just Another Major Crisis'1 The United States and Europe I
since 2000 (Oxford Oxford University Press) McGuire. S.. and Smith, M. (2008), The European Union and the United States: Comr»;
tition and Convergence in the Global Arena (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan), | Moravcsik. A. (2003). 'Striking a New Transatlantic Bargain'. Foreign Affairs, 82/4. 74-89. -Peterson, J (1996). Europe and America: the Prospects for Partnership. 2nd edition !
(London: Routledge)
Peterson, J., and Pollack. M. (eds) (2003). Europe. America. Bush: Transatlantic Relators:
in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge) Peterson, J... and Steffenson, R. (2009). 'Transatlantic Institutions. Can Partnership Be 1
Engineered?', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol 11/1.25-45. '; Pollack. M.. and Shaffer. G. (eds) (2001). Transatlantic Governance in the Global Econo-'.
my (Lanham. fvID Rowman and Littlefield).
Sloan. S. (2002), NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community: The Transatlantic Bargain Reconsidered (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield)
Smith, M. (2009a) 'Transatlantic Economic Relations m a Changing Global Political Economy. Achieving Togetherness but Missing the Bus'. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol 11/1, 94-107
Smith, M., and Woolcock, S. (1993). The United States and the European Community m a Transformed World (London: Pinter/Royal Institute of International Affairs).
WEB LINKS
The most useful sites for information about EU-US relations in general are the Commission's Europa site (http://ec.europa.eu). especially the trade and CFSP pages, and the website of the Commission delegation in Washington DC (http://www.eurunion. org). See also the various US government websites including that of the US Mission to the EU (http://www.useu.be/) and that of the State Deoartment (http://www.state. gov) There is of course a huge variety of both governmental and commercial sites dealing with the wide range of EU-US issues: see for example the site of the Brookings Institution Centre on the USA and Europe: http://www.brookings.edu or the site of the Institute for International Economics: http://www.iie.org : or the site of the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Transatlantic Relations, which houses the American Consortium for European Union Studies http://transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu/partner-ships/eu-us-partnership