Since we have an external action service—basically a diplomatic corps—now, it would seem sensible to ask a particular question: where is Europe? Of course, geographically we’re stuck on the edge of Asia, next to the Middle East, and above Africa, but politically, where are we?

It’s been a funny couple of decades. The first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the radical unbalancing of the world’s balance of power were a bit like that feeling you get when the lights are suddenly switched on after watching a film in the dark; a brief moment of bewilderment, scaled to international politics and spread over a decade. And then in 2001, we realised where we were and what was happening. People said 9/11 changed everything, it didn’t, but it did let us know that everything was changing.

The old and comfortable wisdom that international politics consisted solely of states and a few of their instruments such as the UN or the EU, with multi-national companies lurking somewhere nearby, vanished; along with it went the notion of a world with two carefully balanced superpowers. Ours is now the age of the ‘non-state actor’ and the stage these particular actors tread on is a multi-polar world.

More concerning for Europe is not the actors or the stage, but the play being performed. The challenges which determine this script are rather large: climate change, energy security, economic crisis, and development of the poorest states.

We used to be able to say that the West would use its globally dominant position to ensure that any moves to deal with these problems would be to our favour in some way. Multi-polarity has done away with this. If we take a poor and corrupt developing state with lashings of oil and other valuable natural resources, and put it in the global marketplace that it funds itself in every day, who is it going to sell its stuff to: a country demanding assurances on human rights and other popular liberal concerns, or a country which will pay the same or more and not ask any awkward questions about the sanctity of ballot boxes at the last election, or the destination of the money being paid? The very same goes for development aid and assistance.

I’m not a pessimist on this; the influence of the EU and the US won’t decline too much, but it will be joined by a competing model of international policy. There is something to like in this competing model: it uses trade in a way which has the capacity to make a lasting difference. Of course the mode of its application by the likes of China is abhorrent to liberal democracies—or at least, it should be. I suppose we have to look on the bright side of things and make the best of the new order of the world. Adapting our overseas aid (by which I mean Europe’s aid in totality) and investment policy to offer more incentives to developing states to swallow the poll of reforms to reduce corruption and further human rights. Focussing on our close neighbours and making sure that we ‘do’ development properly will go a long way to securing a safe position for Europe in the diverse world we now live in.

This post is already a tad too long, so I’ll leave the energy security and climate change problems to some future posts in this theme.

I blame the sheer number of presentations, essays, and exams which have thrust themselves upon me over the past few weeks for the absence of any updates to this blog, but with the final line of a dramatic interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact, I have (briefly) been freed from all that, so I’ll have a go at keeping things a little more updated. What an awful lot has happened since my last post! Lisbon is ratified, a President of the European Council chosen, and a foreign mi…High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy appointed. But my question is, does anyone recognise the man in the photo above?

Obviously, those of us following politics right now know that he is President van Rompuy, but if a more nondescript character who stands for nothing could be thought of, I’d be very impressed. We now have a EU with what will probably amount to a visionless President, more of the same (ie. nothing of any note) from Barosso in the Commission, and a foreign minister who has little foreign policy experience. I know that the consensus way of filling these posts inevitably means that the most bland will rise, but this isn’t what Europe needs! It will ensure that no one outwith the group of politics geeks like myself, and others with EurActiv on our RSS feeds, will really care what is happening in Brussels, and the same old legitimacy arguments can carry on being wheeled out by all the Union’s detractors.

P.S. The title of this post should mean (if my Dutch is up to scratch) “the boring president”.

Klaus cannot be serious! After the struggle to get every member state to ratify Lisbon, with just Poland (though it seems like it is soon to ratify) and the Czech Republic still to do so, and with his own Parliament supporting ratification, he has the gall to suggest an amendment that might require another ratification round!

This can be nothing but obstruction for obstruction’s sake; even if there was some substance to his request for a footnote, it’s unlikely to be compatible with the spirit of the Treaty. All I can see from the European Voice and BBC articles on this is that Klaus wants something vague on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which in his political context likely means a weakening of it—and yes, I know the UK has an opt-out on the Charter, which I disagree with, but at least we negotiated it at the right time, and in the right way.

So, what are the chances of full ratification before the Tories figure out a way to withdraw the British ratification?

Image by Bertelsmann Stiftung on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons licence.

It was quite amusing to read that some think tank or other has spent the last six months putting together a report that concludes that expats in Brussels don’t integrate. I once spent an evening in the company of a Flemish anti-capitalist who had the idea of giving the EU to another city. I think the words he used to describe the expats advances toward his neighborhood were, “crawling up the hill from Schuman”.

Seriously though, if you move somewhere because of a desire to live in that particular place, then it’s likely that you’ll try to integrate a bit, but moving somewhere because it is the place you have to be to do what you do, especially when what you do is international politics, is never going to encourage you to integrate. Brussels just happens to be where the EU is.

As an aside, this post may, or may not be the first in a series of ‘useless X of the week’ posts. It depends how much I can be bothered.

I’m having a little holiday in Brussels at the moment—hence the lack of posts lately—so I decided to take advantage of the availability of European Voice in print form, and spend a while reading in the Jubelpark, which led me to see the following quote from Barroso on why he should be re-appointed as President of the Commission:

“I am the only candidate. I am the only one who presented before the elections”

Is it just me, or does that just sound like someone with a total lack of vision for what Europe should be, and what the Commission should do for the next four years? He gives the impression that he’s interested in power for power’s sake, and feels entitled to the office. Hardly what is needed to take the EU forward, and tackle the significant things it should be tackling.

Ok, it’s time that I posted something. My extended absence from posting here can be explained by my recently moving house, but it isn’t a good excuse any more. Anyway, reading EurActiv over breakfast this morning, I had a look at their LinksDossier on the Swedish presidency of the EU. After the joke that was the Czech presidency (sorry to any Czechs reading this, it isn’t personal), it was refreshing to see the programme that Sweden has lined up for their six months at the helm. While an “effective, open and results-oriented presidency” sounds a bit too much like management speak to me, it’ still something worth pursuing, while the commitment to ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and the ambition to push Europe forward on actions against climate change are both things which I’d tentatively support (tentatively, as I haven’t had time to look through anything in much more detail than the LinksDossier).

Even if they can’t succeed with all of their programme, as the Centre for European Reform mentions, “Internal political stability and a skilled diplomatic corps should help.”, so I doubt another Czech-style presidency will be seen just yet (again, sorry to any Czech readers).

But it is the risk that the presidency could go wrong again so easily, and the inherent instability that comes from a six-month rotating presidency that just makes such a good argument for a static president with a political mandate. All eyes should be on Ireland to see whether that can happen.

My last post was resolutely negative, but I said I was doing two posts, so here is the second, and it’s thankfully a lot more positive. In the UK, we held our two seats: there are still two loud Green voices from the UK in the EP. True, we didn’t manage to increase our seats as we had expected to do, but we held our base firmly, and the UK-wide increase in the Green vote was 50%. In other words, the electoral system is just a tad crap for us, but we did pretty well. Now we need to build on that and make sure that we get those extra seats next time. One of my favourite set of numbers for the night was Brighton & Hove, where we took the most votes, beating all other parties. Lets hope we can have a repeat performance when it comes to the general election.

Looking elsewhere in Europe, the state of the greens is rather good. In France, we saw a gain of 8 seats, taking us to a total of 14. In Belgium, Groen! (Dutch-speaking greens) suffered at the hands of Vlaams Belang (far-right), but Ecolo (French-speaking greens) won two seats in the EP (up one from last time), and are also the third largest party in the Brussels Capital Region Parliament. Not all results are in, but by my estimates, we’ve gained 13 seats across Europe, making the European Greens a stronger force in EU politics. I’ll try and keep that pan-European thought in mind, rather than the UK results.

So Iceland could be an EU member state by 2011. As an expansion of the Union, it’s an interesting one when compared to other recent additions. Culturally Scandinavian, Iceland will have friends already inside, and there are little if any of the corruption problems that have blighted Bulgaria, or the myriad of issues that have come with interest from the other Balkan states.

I’ve posted on this before, and I’m still in a bit of a split mind about expansion of the EU. The problem which is blocking me from taking one view or the other is that I want to think of there being some form of common European identity, which can act as the bond that will keep European states together, and allow more integration. It’s clear that this is present in Iceland, but try as I might, I find it hard to extend this to Turkey. There is much in Turkish society to give it close links to Europe, but just as that may be the case, there is more to distance it from the cultural bond in music, art, language and society that is shared between people and states in ‘old’ Europe.

I said I was in a split mind though, and I’ve just given reasons why I think Iceland should be admitted to the EU, while Turkey shouldn’t. The other part of my mind wants to see Turkey in the EU, along with Iceland, to fulfil the idea of the EU being a way of spreading the values of human rights and democracy.

I still don’t know which argument I agree with more. I guess I have to choose between a tightly integrated cultural Europe, or a looser beacon of all things good Europe.

Little tiny disclaimer: I’m differing from European Greens policy quite a lot here, so even though there is a European Greens election banner at the top of the page, this post in no way reflects the view of the party. Oh, and think big, vote Green!