“On 10 February European Commission President Romano Prodi declared before a Latvian audience that “any attack or aggression against an EU member nation would be an attack or aggression against the whole EU, this is the highest guarantee.”
This – sensational – statement of high policy has not been commented upon by any government, politician or media in the European Union. This may be interpreted as if Mr Prodi´s statement is agreed EU policy.
If implemented as stated this statement marks a quantum shift of EU from an socio-economic union into a military defence alliance. Such a development might risk to promote the development of a renewed cold war in Europe, says TFF director Jan Öberg.
Quotation
– “European Commission President Romano Prodi surprised his Latvian audience Feb. 10 by declaring that “any attack or aggression against an EU [European Union] member nation would be an attack or aggression against the whole EU, this is the highest guarantee.” If implemented as stated, this marks a quantum shift in EU policies from the purely economic into the security realm &endash; a change that Russia cannot afford to ignore. Now Russia will feel just as threatened by EU expansion as it has by NATO expansion.”
– “But it is Prodi’s statement that will truly shock Russia. The fact that the proclamation came from the European Commission’s president &endash; the highest non-rotating position within the EU superstructure &endash; indicates that the intent to implement security guarantees is no mere trial balloon, but new EU policy.”
– “If the EU fully adopts Prodi’s plans, it would conjure a nightmare scenario for Russia. A soft-power EU and hard-power NATO would become formal partners in Western expansion. Traditionally neutral countries such as Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden would be co-opted into a NATO-EU military structure. An economically powerful EU, backed by a militarily powerful NATO, would dig in along vast lengths of Russia’s eastern border. Russia’s acquiescence to EU expansion will rapidly come to an end, and what little is left of the Russia-West “friendship” may be completely gone.”
From Stratfor.com – Global Intelligence Unit February 11, 2000 at http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/giu2000/021100.ASP
End of quotation
Neutrality and democracy
“The EU is entering a phase of militarization. This development will have implications for the member countries pursuing a policy of neutrality. peace, globalism and democracy. Due to size, complexity and information speed, transparency, dialogue and accountability may shrink in Western democracies. The public debate in security policy-making is being drastically reduced and is inversely proportional to the huge implications for future security in Europe.
Government projects and statesmen’s self-assumed ‘duty to take responsibility for European democracy’ (peace, human rights, values…) are increasingly being perceived as non-popular or anti-popular. A case in point is the ordinary citizen’s feeling of deception, the sense that ‘those up there don’t care about us.’ This is the stuff that political apathy and parties of discontent à la Mr. Haider’s are made of: top leaders’ remarkable contempt for the citizens who elected them as their representatives combined with their inability to provide a people´s based security in the age of uncontrolled globalization,” says Oberg.
“Neutral countries could contribute to a pluralist Europe from an independent global perspective based on common security and humanism and the central role of the United Nations in a normative, security-building process. Instead they are being co-opted into a NATO-EU military defence alliance structure highlighted by the statement of Mr Prodi. Sweden – once a special UN member – is now the acquiescent actor tailing after EU powers and the United States.
Step-by-step militarization
At no point has the European Commission President been given a mandate to express security guarantees to members and candidate member countries. Europeans are, on the contrary, continuously being told that there is nothing extraordinary about the ongoing militarization. It is said to be a “natural process” of improving democratic peace-keeping in Europe. What we get is step-by-step decisions in one direction such as:
(1) subordination of the West European Union (WEU) under the EU; ever closer military-industrial integration; a decision to set up a new EU intervention force of 60.000 soldiers to be ready by 2003; the establishment of a series of military decision-making bodies: a security political committee, a special military committee, and an advisory professional military staff. We get step-by-step co-ordination between the EU and NATO.
(2) Former Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Javier Solana, has been rewarded for his actions during the Kosovo crisis and become not only Secretary-General of the EU Council of Ministers and High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) but also Secretary-General of WEU.
(3) We get a far-reaching and fateful NATO expansion and now a EU President who uses the formulation of NATO’s charter to convert the EU into an alliance.
(4) Study recent statements from leading ministers, top generals, EU leaders and NATO. They invariably state ‘that we have learnt in Kosovo’ that we need more military capacity, more force. NATO’s Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, tells the world that “the time for a peace dividend is over because there is no permanent peace – in Europe, or elsewhere. If NATO is to do its job of protecting future generations, we can no longer expect to have security on the cheap.”
(5) In contrast, very little movement toward the building of capacity for peaceful conflict-management and violence-prevention.”
In democracies, never only one way
Jan Oberg continues: “Again, this is not known to be anchored in the political will of Europeans in general. True democracy can only be defended by a convivial civil society debate – not by elites accumulating weapons.
Empire building in centre-periphery structures is a specialty of the cosmology and politics of major European colonial powers. For one who, over the last thirty years, has witnesses the development of the ‘European project’ there can be no illusion that today’s European Union is what TFF adviser Johan Galtung – in 1972 – termed a superpower in-the-making.
Kosovo is the modern catchword for a decade-long failure of EU to develop a common foreign and security policy capacity. When intellectual analysis and principled politics crumble, the disaster becomes a recipe! It’s time to wake up and see that the emperors of Peaceful EU are not naked but dressing up in uniforms.
© TFF 2000
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