Liberal Realism

Solana´s speech on the future of EU´s Foreign Policy

This is a speech, given by Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the CFSP, called "Europe in the World: Next Steps". You may read also the analysis of it made on Global Power EU blog. And I think it would be really interesting to compare it to what Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, says about the future of US Foreign Policy on her recent article "Rethinking the National Interest", published in Foreign Affairs. I will get back to this as soon as I get time to the make the comparison my selves. But I can say in advanced that they both talk about the rise of Asia as some kind of threat to the west.

The Power of Lobby in Europe goes under no control

Legaltoday.com: La Lobbycracia Europea

Aparicio Caicedo,
analista del Gertrude Ryan Law Observatory

En Estados Unidos, la industria farmacéutica rompió un nuevo record en 2007. Ha empleado más de 168 millones de dólares en persuadir a los más influyentes legisladores de la nación norteamericana sobre la política sanitaria más "apropiada" para sus ciudadanos. Por otro lado, en suelo europeo, Telefónica ha sido la primera multinacional en suscribir el registro de lobbistas en Bruselas, ha declarado que el año pasado ha gastado casi un millón de euros en defender sus intereses ante la tecnocracia comunitaria. Dos incidentes que poco tendrían en común si no fuera porque ponen de relieve la creciente influencia de los grupos de poder corporativo en los altos centros mundiales de decisión.

La vinculación directa del mundo empresarial en el proceso político es una práctica de mucha tradición en Estados Unidos y puede decirse incluso que es tan americana como el pie de manzana. A finales del siglo XIX se originó una profunda transformación en las relaciones institucionales entre la clase empresarial y los dirigentes políticos del Congreso estadounidense, iniciándose un fenómeno conocido como pressure politics. Tras el avance de las telecomunicaciones y el transporte, proliferaron asociaciones y colectivos empresariales por todo el territorio. Las empresas localizadas en distintos puntos geográficos del país, antes prácticamente incomunicadas entre sí, empezaron a cobrar conciencia de sus intereses comunes y de los beneficios derivados de actuar en forma conjunta frente a los órganos del gobierno federal.  Sociedades de todo tipo incurrieron en este nuevo modus operandi, desde productores agrícolas hasta la industria del acero. En adelante, esto permitió a los colectivos corporativos ejercer presión política de forma más coordinada y eficaz. No obstante, es en años recientes que esta vinculación ha adquirido matices alarmantes. Según Public Citizen, más del 40 por ciento de los legisladores que abandonaron el Capitolio desde 1998 hasta 2005 fueron reclutados luego por las grandes firmas de lobbistas en Washington.

Nunca ha estado completamente definida la frontera entre el lobbyism y la corrupción pura y dura. Y esto ha sido objeto de un frenético análisis por parte de académicos, activistas y políticos en Estados Unidos. Se trata de grupos industriales buscando la adopción de medidas proteccionistas, de asociaciones campesinas luchando por la obtención de cuantiosos subsidios agrícolas, contratistas militares en puja por jugosos pactos con el Pentágono, grupos étnicos (como el lobby israelí o el de los indios americanos), movimientos religiosos, etc. Es muy difícil definir cuándo, quién y cómo se traspasan los límites de la ética. Todos tienen derecho a defender sus valores e intereses frente al gobierno. El problema comienza con los grupos corporativos que buscan comprometer a los encargados de la toma de decisiones para satisfacer sus propios intereses, a costa del bien común. El escándalo protagonizado por Jack Abramoff, otrora todopoderoso lobbista muy cercano a la jerarquía del Partido Republicano, destapó hace pocos años una caja de Pandora que parece no tener fondo. Sobornos, lujosas invitaciones, regalos inconcebibles: esas son sólo algunas de las fórmulas utilizadas por los empresarios para compensar las gestiones de congresistas y senadores. El caso Abramoff fue sensacional, puso de manifiesto toda la suciedad que se escondía bajo la alfombra, y aún hoy las investigaciones siguen cobrando víctimas.

Todos saben que si quieres algo de Washington, no hay que escatimar a la hora de pagar los elevados honorarios que demandan los "mediadores" profesionales con contactos apropiados en el Capitolio, la Casa Blanca o donde se los necesite. Los más solicitados son, generalmente, legisladores y funcionarios retirados que aprovechan su cercanía y acceso privilegiado para pedir favores y lucrar por ello. Sin embargo, pocos sospechan que precisamente lo mismo sucede en el Viejo Continente. Los ejemplos son cada vez más numerosos. En terreno ibérico tenemos, como muestra reciente, el caso de Eduardo Zaplana. Telefónica sabe que no todos los caminos llevan a Roma y, por ello, muchos señalan que fichó al antiguo vocero del PP, cercano a Silvio Berlusconi, para afianzar la estabilidad de sus inversiones en Italia.

¿Qué pasa si descubriésemos que en las herméticas esferas del poder europeo se escuchan sólo las voces de las grandes empresas? Pues bien, cada vez más personas se lo están preguntando, y con razón. Hay más de 15.000 lobistas en Bruselas. La capital belga es el segundo centro de poder político con más lobistas después de Washington. Son hombres y mujeres que se ganan la vida buscando que los euro-funcionarios tomen las decisiones que más favorezcan a sus clientes. Se trata de decisiones que afectan la vida de todos. No existe control alguno sobre su actividad. ¿Tendremos uno o varios Abramoffs europeos pululando en el Parlamento o la Comisión? Nadie lo sabe. Y ello se debe a que, al contrario de lo que sucede al otro lado del Atlántico, nadie los supervisa. Precisamente ello motivó a un grupo de activistas a formar la coalición ALTER-EU, orientada a proponer reformas normativas que regulen la actividad de los eurolobbyist. En Estados Unidos, si bien el problema está lejos de resolverse, existe ya un conjunto de normas e instituciones que han permitido que se descubran importantes affairs de corrupción como el antes descrito. Y, lo más importante, se ha logrado que sus protagonistas reciban el castigo que merecen. ALTER-EU no se manifiesta conforme con los tímidos proyectos, actualmente en práctica, de establecer un programa de registro voluntario de lobbistas. Sus responsables señalan que todas sus iniciativas han sido paralizadas por la pesada impronta de algunas asociaciones poco acostumbradas a la claridad en su accionar.

Son muy variadas las razones que han llevado al enquistamiento de los lobbistas en Bruselas. En algunas ocasiones se trata de una simple falta de escrúpulos y en otras de  mera necesidad técnica. No obstante, una de las causas primarias es que estos agentes privados facilitan enormemente el trabajo de una sobrecargada tecnocracia. Los lobbistas lo saben, y con sus abultadas cuentas de gastos no escatiman en la elaboración de informes técnicos, propuestas legislativas y todo lo que consideren necesario para agradar a los servidores públicos que puedan satisfaces sus aspiraciones. Todo ello es bienvenido por una burocracia incapaz de desdoblarse para cumplir con una abrumadora carga de tareas. Sin embargo, no por ello hay que renunciar a la transparencia y el establecimiento de parámetros más rígidos de control sobre la veracidad y objetividad de la información proporcionada por los grupos de interés. Hasta entonces, el ciudadano común seguirá confiando en los causes institucionales, hipnotizado por las formulaciones abstractas de un contrato social que es quebrantado día a día. ¿Qué hacemos? ¿A quién tenemos que invitar a almorzar?

Global Power Europe Blog: France´s New defense strategy

France’s strategic defence review: leading the debate

Guest article by Luis Simón Navarro

On Tuesday morning, President Nicolas Sarkozy presented in Paris a new strategy of security and defence for the next fifteen years, before an audience of some 3500 people, including military officials, police officers, diplomats and other civil servants, experts and journalists. The publication of France’s Livre Blanc pour la défense et la sécurité nationale comes at an appropriate moment: a good six months before the expiration of Javier Solana’s deadline to come up with a revision of the European Security Strategy, only two weeks before France’s takeover of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, and at the very early stages of the deliberations aimed at providing NATO with a new Strategic Concept—expected next year in the Alliance’s sixtieth anniversary summit, to be held in Strasbourg and Kehl. A new American administration will be in place by January 2009 and the European Union seems on track (Dublin forbid) for giving itself the necessary instruments—mainly in the realm of the Common Foreign and Security Policy—to tackle the challenges of the twenty-first century more coherently, robustly and effectively.

Indeed, it is a good time for strategic reflection. For one thing, the hindsight of time, and the (ongoing) lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, have contributed to a better understanding of the nature of the new puzzles that arose from the smoke of the Islamist attacks on 11th September 2001. Furthermore, the current instability in financial markets—partly rooted in the important disruptions in the chain of global energy supplies—and the, largely related, alterations in the European and global balances of power (i.e. the resurgence of Russia or the rise of Asia) are notable developments that deserve careful strategic reflection.

France’s new Livre Blanc replaces a previous strategy from 1994, and provides a guiding framework for the country’s foreign, security and defence policy over the next fifteen years. The deepening of globalisation and subsequent growing interdependence, resulting in rapid and considerable transformations in the strategic environment, are highlighted throughout the new strategy. Arguably, one of the most noticeable features of the Livre Blanc is the absence of a cut-clear, one-stop threat to the security of France and its allies. Instead, the density of the current strategic landscape derives from the coexistence of the new post-Cold War, post-11th September threats with the kind of old challenges from which Europeans thought they had moved away only fourteen years ago.

Particularly alarming is the emphasis placed on Europe’s relative decline in international affairs, a decline illustrated by a substantial shift in global geopolitical and economic attention towards Asia or the challengingly growing protagonism of Russia on the European scene. Today and tomorrow’s challenges are inherently entwined and multidimensional: a blurring distinction between the internal and external dimensions of security; the evil triangle of terrorism, failed states and weapons of mass destruction proliferation; energy scarcity (a challenge whose European dimension the document particularly emphasises); organised crime; threats to cyber security; the emergence of global pandemics; and the advance of global warming.

According to Louis Gautier, the defence advisor to former French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, and national delegate for strategic affairs in the Socialist Party, the Livre Blanc feeds a narrowly conceived paradigm of the world, one dominated by the West’s fears. As he says, in this mindset, ‘international security will result from arms superiority, the effectiveness of protection systems and the unity of the West.’[1] Regrettably, Gautier contends, the spirit of the Livre Blanc propels a pessimistic attitude: alternative options such as the promotion of multilateral schemes for disarmament or the strengthening of international regulation simply do not qualify as credible means for delivering French security. This emerging paradigm is not just a consequence of the growing disillusion with dreams such as The end of History, but is also a source for uploading suspicion and lack of confidence into the international system over the years to come. This is the ‘security dilemma’ in action.

For the Livre Blanc, the world’s growing volatility calls out for a flexible strategy: entwined and multidimensional challenges require comprehensive solutions. It says that more coherence is needed between military, diplomatic, economic and other civilian means, but also between and among partners, the various regional and international organisations or other elements of global civil society. The Livre Blanc proclaims prevention, deterrence, protection and intervention as France’s core strategic functions. Particularly recurring is the theme of prevention and the corresponding emphasis on the acquisition and distribution of information—a concept the French used to refer to as intelligence. It is in this sense that we can understand the substantial budgetary increase in the field of satellite communications and other space-based assets—from the current figure of €380 million to over €700 million in the next few years.

Possible concerns with a potential activation of more traditional (inter-state) conflicts are well covered by the continuing accent on independent nuclear deterrence—the ultimate guarantee of France’s protecion. Finally, the ongoing globalisation of security challenges puts a premium on attributes such as deployability and readiness; on intervention. This explains the envisaged reductions of personnel—a cut of 54,000 over the next six to seven years—and assets restructuring in the armed forces (i.e. rationalisation of military facilities in French territory). The direct target behind the restructuring is to reverse the current ratio—sixty percent of the French defence budget and assets are devoted to logistics and maintenance and forty percent to operational punch—in order to close the gap with Britain’s armed forces, were those figures are reversed. Finally, the absence of a decision over the construction of a second aircraft carrier for the Marine nationale is perhaps the most notable news in the realm of capabilities.

The Livre Blanc identifies a ‘geographic axis of strategic priority’, namely the strategic corridor that connects the Euro-Atlantic space with the Indian Ocean. The new geographic axis runs from metropolitan France, through the Mediterranean and the Gulf, and on into the Indian Ocean. Special importance is also given to Western and sub-Saharan Africa, areas in which the French have traditionally played an active role and remain currently engaged. Such an explicit reference to a strategic geographic axis represents, arguably, a step backwards from a (alleged) prior global focus that today seems financially unattainable. Most significantly, the new French strategy seems to ignore Latin America, as well as the same Asia that the document catalogues as the strategic locus of the twenty-first century.

France’s ‘Geographic Axis of Strategic Priority’

Regarding France’s vociferated reintegration into NATO’s military structure, the new strategy puts emphasis on the fact that the announced move is just part of a wider pattern of cooperation between France and NATO that goes back to the early-mid 1990s. Such a pattern is best illustrated by France’s return to the Alliance’s military committee in 1996, or Paris’ active participation in NATO missions.[2] Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy: it is this very issue that the French Socialists have attacked, given the scepticism that the noises of a comeback triggers both within France’s administration and the country’s public opinion at large.

Last and, most certainly, not least is l’Europe. Europe and the European Union play a pivotal role throughout the Livre Blanc, for which it is almost impossible to conceive a French strategy without a European strategy. The document pays special tribute to the historical character of the Franco-German couple as the driving force behind European integration, but also points to the Franco-British connection as an indispensable asset in the road towards the consolidation of the European Union as an international power and security provider.

Down at the level of specifics, the document advances, in a rather raw form, some of President Sarkozy’s ambitious proposals for the further development of European Security and Defence Policy: first, the need to boost Europe’s autonomous capabilities for effective crisis management (including the creation of a Permanent Headquarters in Brussels for the planning and command of European operations); second, the creation of a European strategic reserve force of some 60,000 personnel with the required naval and aerial components; third, a reinforcement of the mechanisms for common funding for European operations; fourth, the establishment of European schemes for training military and civilian personnel; fifth, the rationalisation of Europe’s defence industry; sixth, an expansion of the Union’s functions in the realm of security beyond crisis management, such as common defence (notably strengthening the internal dimension of European security); and finally, the call for a European Defence White Book. Interesting times certainly await Europeans with France’s upcoming presidency of the European Union!

[1] Le Monde, 19th June 2008 (own translation).
[2] On France’s relationship with NATO after the end of the Cold War see: Frédéric Bozo, ‘Alliance atlantique: la fin de l’exception française?’, Document de Travail (Paris: Fondation pour l’Innovation Politique), February 2008.

Luis Simón Navarro, EFSPS Scholar, is completing his Ph.D. in French and European defence policy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is currently a guest researcher at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique in Paris.

Corsi et recorsis storici: Euroskeptics (anti-federalist) v. Europhiles (Federalists)

The similarity that exist between what is happening now with the EU´s integration process and what happened 200 years ago (1787-1789) during the debates for approval of the Constitution of the US are amazing. Just to mention a few:

1. The states authorities were called to the Philadelphia convention to reform or improve the terms of a existing treaty, the Articles of the Confederation. The reason was the need to assure a more unitary position on certain issues such as foreign policy, trade policy and others. For the thirteenth liberated colonies the Articles were nothing more than a Alliance that provided some common institutions, the Continental Congress, and which was really useful during the independence war but now had to be reform to face the challenge of an independent nation. The same reasons that UE wanted a Constitution and now wants a new treaty.

2. The debate in Philadelphia, as EU had it not long ago, was also about the most proper mean to give birth to the new nation: Through a Confederacy Treaty (which just needed parliamentary ratification) or a Constitution (which need plebiscitary approval). Read more: GOLOVE, David: "Making and the Nation: The Historical Foundations of the Nationalist Conception of the Treaty Power", MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW. 98.

3. After the Constitution was signed, the political opinion was divided. On one hand you had the so-called "federalist", which are the equivalent to what we know would call "europhiles", the supporters of the creation of a central-federal government with strong powers. On the other hand were "anti-federalist", the equivalent of "euroskeptics", which did not want to give up much sovereignty in favor of a central power (From a TNR article from Alvaro Vargas Llosa: We the European People). Finally, as history shows, the federalist prevails but not without a critical and hard debate to conquer the ratification of the Constitution on, at least, nine of the 13 states.

4. As in Europe today, the final born of the US Constitution did not mitigate the regional tension. On the contrary, the functioning of the federal level institutions such as the executive government, the Supreme Court or the National Congress was polemic from the beginning and, sometimes, its act served as source of social polarization, specially between the South and the North elites on issues such as slavery regulation, trade policies, foreign affairs, etc. Finally, far from arrange their differences; the South and the North started a long, cruel and devastating Civil War, 70 years after the approval of the Constitution.

The morale of all this is simple: Is better to go slow and consolidate the institutions on society, rush could mean conflict in the future.