The EU's diplomatic priorities for the “next 12 months” according to Ashton. Exploding

(ANALYSIS) A few days ago (January 14), the Administrative Secretary General of the Diplomatic Service, David O'Sullivan, detailed during a speech in Dublin, the "strategic objectives identified by the High Representative of the EU, for the next 12 months" for EU foreign policy. Uplifting!

Cathy Ashton's four "strategic" priorities for 2011

- Stability and prosperity in the neighborhood. "A necessity" is it explained. "This will be the first test file for HR and EEAS". But it is the Western Balkan area that requires all the attention. It "poses a particular challenge until we resolve the existing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia". The southern shore of the Mediterranean is only mentioned in an appendix: "We need to deepen and broaden our cooperation". Point

- Middle East Process. This solution will "pave the way to build a more stable and prosperous region“The example is the European support for the Palestinians and the recent visit to Gaza by the High Representative.

- Strategic partnerships. This is the work started a few months ago by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Heads of State or Government for the countries considered as main by the EU (the United States, China or India, like Russia...). Useful work according to a senior EU diplomat because it makes it possible to prepare summits more effectively.

- Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance "it's the silver thread that runs through everything we do". The High Representative also considers important the role played by " electoral observation missions ».

Comment: a vision that is not very realistic and not very responsive
foreign policy but very ideological

One can only be struck by the very ideological omissions of these objectives which are not, in fact, very strategic.

The strategic oblivion of Africa. First of all, forgetting the "dark continent" in a list of objectives is, for me, symptomatic of a state of mind and proceeds from a fundamental error. If Europe can bring added value to the world with its common foreign and defense policy, it is in Africa, through its common cultural and historical past with most of the countries of the continent, and above all through its investment for years (financial and technical assistance, development, defense missions in the Congo, Chad, Somalia-Uganda...). If the Chinese invest this continent economically today, and the Americans militarily, it is not for nothing. Now is not the time to leave. Forgetting Africa is therefore a strategic mistake.

Crisis prevention. Then, we can notice that in these objectives, the role that Europe can play in terms of peacekeeping, crisis prevention is totally forgotten in favor of a paler and good-natured notion of "good governance". It is as revealing as the isolation in a small box of the organization chart of crisis management structures.

Lack of responsiveness. Incidentally, we can notice the lack of responsiveness. The events in Tunisia have already started and are almost over. The average viewer knows that President Ben Ali is already gone, that Tunisia is in "accelerated democratic transition". And that we are living the end of a certain era, in the Maghreb at least. Nothing has changed...

A great confusion in the objective of the CFSP. In the end, it is striking to note how great the confusion between foreign policy and trade policy remains. This panoply does not only target areas where there are risks and dangers, challenges and strategic issues. But above all those is the well-understood commercial interest of Europe. As if the former portfolio of Trade Commissioner for Cathy Ashton and Director General of the DG concerned for David O'Sullivan still rubbed off on the priorities of the external service. And as if Europe had in fact abandoned all foreign policy ambitions.