After Iraq: The EU and Global Governance (Global Insights‪)‬

One of the central motivations for the Convention on the Future of Europe was to devise a way for the European Union (EU) to play a stronger and more effective role on the world stage. In spite of the Union's leadership on Kyoto, the Doha Development Round, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), a widespread feeling existed that the EU was still not pulling its weight. As the convention entered the home stretch in the spring of 2003, the Iraq crisis exposed deep divisions in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This prompted some critics to ask if the EU should continue with its global pretensions. In this article, I suggest that the draft constitutional treaty produced by the convention provides only a shaky basis for a more coherent external policy. However, the Iraq crisis, as with previous crises, is likely to galvanize the EU toward a more prominent and effective role on the world stage, especially in strengthening the multilateral institutions of global governance. This was clear as EU member states welcomed the security doctrine presented by Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for CFSP, in June 2003. (1) A central theme was the need "for effective multilateral institutions." Solana did not define "global governance" but emphasized the importance of "a rules-based international system." (2) Long before Iraq, the EU was on an opposite track from the United States in this arena. Washington had a dismal record with regard to UN financing, the rejection of the Kyoto protocol, efforts to destroy the ICC, and the refusal to ratify a host of arms control treaties, notably the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The present Bush administration's "a la carte multilateralism" at least has the advantage of truth in packaging.