Ashton's EU faux pas

Catherine Ashton has kept a low profile since becoming EU High Representative, to the detriment of the EU's global influence

By Lucie Le Moine

December 1 2009: the Treaty of Lisbon came into force; the first step toward an institutional restructuring of the EU. Catherine Ashton, non-elected peer in the House of Lords, who has been described as ‘low-profile’, was appointed the EU’s first High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, making her responsible for the creation of a new EU diplomatic service, the ‘External Action Service’.

But, for three months, Catherine Ashton has seemed to understand the role’s prerogatives in a very restrictive way. While the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, went to Port-au-Prince, in Haiti, on the January 16, just after the earthquake, to show US support, Catherine Ashton decided not to take part in what she called “disaster tourism”. She did not even stay in Brussels to organize the coordination of European aid, but to went back to London.

But in diplomacy, symbols are as important as acts. The EU is indeed a great economic power, but has struggled to gain credibility as a diplomatic power. As the High Representative of Foreign Policy, Catherine Ashton should clearly put the emphasis on this weakness of the EU. But once again, European countries have not been able to act under one “European banner”. To the rest of the world, the Haiti Relief effort will be remembered as an American endeavour, partly because of their effective use of symbols and the media-friendly visit of Hillary Clinton, and partly because the EU has not effectively publicised its contribution.

Ashton’s presence at international summits is also a way to improve European credibility and to create an identifiable chief of diplomacy. Thus, her choice not to attend two important international meetings, one organized by Ban Ki-moon, and the other organized in Canada as an international conference for Haiti, allowed José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, to send a high functionary from the Commission to the first meeting, and allowed Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign Minister, to take the limelight in Canada.

This is exactly what Catherine Ashton should avoid, because as long as she fails to establish herself and her service as a power, member-states and the Commission will try to encroach upon it, as long as her service is still under construction.

Her troubles are probably symptoms of wider rivalries between two ideologies concerning the European Union. Historically, there have been two opposing tendencies within the EU: Atlantism, traditionally supported by the UK, wary of the rise of a continental power, and Europeanism, which promotes the development of a common EU foreign policy, to make Europe credible as an actor on the global stage. This is what the reactions to the earthquake in Haiti have showed: there is a tension between these two ideologies, especially as the Lisbon Treaty clearly encourages European diplomacy.

Under the pressure of ‘bad-press’ and of some politicians, irritated to see her ‘killing the job’, Ashton’s response to critiques, in this ‘image-war’, consisted in her deciding to travel to the Balkans on February 15, and, finally, to visit Haiti during the first week of March, which may show her acknowledgment of her role as the High Representative for foreign affairs in EU. In the same way, British Defense Minister Bob Ainsworth recently issued a Defence Green Paper, recognizing that “the EU has demonstrated it can play an important part in promoting our security”. These shifts from Britain’s traditional approach to foreign policy may indicate a new willingness to take part in the European project.

However, Catherine Ashton still lacks the skills necessary to empower European diplomacy: “she will start travelling a lot more now (…) But she really felt it has been essential for her to learn the ropes in Brussels before heading abroad” said her spokesman, just before her new diplomatic ‘faux pas’, that is, the nomination of the new US delegation chief, without applying the new principles of transparency and of discussion between member-states. Perhaps she needs more time. Five years? Enough to destroy any hope of truly European diplomacy.