The European Connection

In a very interesting interview on FT.com, World Bank president Robert Zoellick warns about the dangers inherent in the current global economic downturn. With rhetoric reminiscent to historians’ talk about the 1930s, Zoellick makes an interesting point about Eastern Europe and its relationship with the EU.

Considering the relatively recent openness of these economies and the lack of “strong foundations” in their market and democratic institutions (merely as a function of time, if nothing else), it is important for developed economies to help reduce the volatility associated with Eastern European economies. Given the importance of European FDI and its political stake in the region, Zoellick convincingly argues that it falls on to the EU to act. Unlike where the French and British may be heading, the solution is to help these economies not veer away from the path of market integration, open regulation, and perhaps most importantly, democratic institutions.

Even in the era of the European Union, the Weimar Republic nightmare is never too distant in Central Europe.

 
For several months, it has been clear that the partnership between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is an engine for European integration. They have agreed to disagree in some issues, such as France’s mare nostrum idea of a Mediterranean Union, yet in most issues they are together. Examples of that are global warming and how to deal, by and large, with the global economic downturn.

Today, they took it to the next level, publishing a long op-ed in Le Monde, published simultaneously in the German press. As the Gaullist Sarkozy prepares to rejoin the NATO high command, which President De Gaulle abandoned in one of his many acts of self-assertion forty years ago, the op-ed promised increased security cooperation. Quite revealing was the op-ed title: “Security – Our Common Mission.”

Security cooperation is a much-talked about principle since the creation of the Common Security and Defense policy doctrine in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, but little has been achieved in practical terms, despite the hard work of people like Javier Solana. The new proposition centers around a European defense strategy that actually cooperates with the US, while maintaining a usable and well-stocked military force built upon cooperation.

Without real European federalism, it may be difficult to have French and German soldiers fighting along one another, but the programs proposed by Sarkozy and Merkel – including the stationing of German soldiers in a base in France for the first time since the end of occupation in 1945 – is most definitely a promising first step. With a potentially nuclear Iran and a belligerent Russia in the cards, the world needs a strong Europe, both diplomatically and militarily. The plan foresees that kind of cooperation, as well as a stronger NATO and better ties with President Obama. 

And just like the European Steel and Coal Community sixty years ago, Franco-German cooperation is a useable blueprint for the rest of Europe. Hopefully, one day we may have a European defense policy, a (real) European foreign minister, and a (true) European High Military Command. So that the next time Henry Kissinger feels like calling Europe, he can actually get through.

Attraction May Go Beyond Diplomacy