INTERNATIONAL

The European Union by 2010

--Dick Gupwell

The further development of the EU is likely to be dominated over the next ten years by three things: * the completion of Economic and Monetary Union-EMU; * Progress in developing the Common Foreign and Security Policy-CFSP; * Enlargement to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

As regards EMU, enormous progress has been made in the last ten years or so, following a period of relative stagnation. Much of this progress was due to the leadership and foresight of Commission President Jacques Delors.

First, was the completion of the Single Market, by the end of 1992, which removed a host of internal impediments to trade. This resulted from the Single European Act-signed in 1986, in force from 1987- which was the first major revision of the three founding Treaties which had been concluded between France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg-Treaty of Paris of 1951 setting up the European Coal and Steel Community, Treaties of Rome of 1957 setting up EEC and Euratom. The single market has provided a great boost to internal trade within the European community. Side by side with the Single Market came the Schengen Agreement for the removal of border controls, although some member states, for example, Britain, were not party to this agreement.

Second, has been the progress towards monetary union and the adoption of a common currency, the Euro. The first steps towards this were laid down in the Single European Act but more progress was made in the Treaty of Masstricht in 1992, which laid down a binding time-table for introducing the single currency, to be managed by a federal European Central Bank. Again, however, some member states chose to opt out of this development, including Britain again. The common currency came into operation in January 1999 but the existing national currencies are still, for the time being, in circulation. It is too early to be certain whether or not the euro system will be a success but it is clear that there is massive political will on the part of the participating countries to make it succeed. Moreover, while the Conservative administration of Mr. Major in Britain was opposed to joining-a position maintained by his party-, the present Labor government of Mr. Blair is increasingly showing positive signs of being committed to taking Britain into the system after the next general election, but only after a promised referendum. The repercussions of the introduction of the euro will dominate the economy of the EU for several years to come. There will be other internal development of importance, including further reform of the Common Agriculture Policy-CAP , moves towards tax harmonization and measures to protect the environment and consumers etc, but it is not necessary to dwell on these in this paper.

What will be of much greater interest to the SAARC countries will be the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The idea of Europe or Western Europe-having a common foreign and defense policy goes back to the start of the movement towards European integration. The treaty of Brussels, between Britain, France and the Benelux countries set up the Western Union Defense Organization in 1948. However, its defense role was short-lived, being taken over by NATO (set up by the Treaty of Washington in 1949) in 1950. Then, following the collapse of the European defense Community project in 1954, the Brussels treaty was revised to transform the Western Union into the Western European Union-WEU-, with the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy also as members. In effect, the WEU provided the acceptable means for German rearmament only ten years after the end of the Second World War. Thereafter, it served little purpose, except as a link between Britain and the six other WEU countries which had set up the ECSC in 1951 and the EEC and Euratom in 1957.

In 1969, the Hague summit meeting of the six EC countries had paved the way for Britain's membership of the Communities, after this had been vetoed by De Gaulle in 1963. It also provided for the start of European Political Cooperation between the foreign ministers of EC in 1970. This was not part of the ECs supranational institutional set up but was pure intergovernmental cooperation among "EC foreign ministers meeting in Political Cooperation". It enabled attempts to be made to harmonize the foreign policy positions of the member states as issues arose and, when successful, statements were issued.

Next in 1984, a decision was taken to re-activate the WEU with a view to its serving as a form of defense wing for the EC. This development was largely dogged by the positions of France and Britain, in particular. Britain, very much attached to its defense links with the United States, did not want the WEU to be given a role which might in any way prejudice cooperation with through NATO. France, on the other hand, loyal to De Gaulle's decision to pull France out of NATO's defense structure, wanted to develop the WEU to have a role largely independent of that of the NATO.

Progress was made however, under the treaty of Masstricht. In this treaty, apart from further revising the ECSC, EEC and Euratom treaties-the EEC was henceforth known as the European Community-the member states agreed to add on two new forms of inter-governmental cooperation. The first was to develop a Common Foreign and Security policy. This was aimed both at attempting to develop joint policies and at discussing how set up appropriate mechanisms in which to do this, building on the earlier experience of EPC. On the one hand, CFSP at this stage enabled the ministers to move from just adopting common positions to taking joint actions-blocking visas to Europe for members of Burma's military junta and their families-.On the other, progress was made which led to the subsequent provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam. The second was to develop cooperation between the ministers of Home Affairs and Justice to harmonize positions on issues such as immigration, made necessary by the Single European market. While the EC, ECSC and Euratom remained the main pillar of these new arrangements, these two forms of inter-governmental cooperation were dubbed the second and the third pillars. Together, these three pillars would constitute a new entity called the European Union-EU.

The treaty of Amsterdam was signed in June 1997 and entered into force in the autumn of 1999. Here, the CFSP is taken even further. The member states are now to develop common strategies. In doing this, they will be assisted by a High Representative, who also doubles as Secretary General of the Council of Ministers. A new Policy Unit will assist him, in turn, in the Council Secretariat. This gives to the post an authority equal to that of the President of the Commission. To prevent the High Representative from being over-burdened with work, a new Deputy Secretary-General will take care of the EC part of the Council's work. The person chosen as High Representative is Javier Solana, formerly Secretary General of NATO. He gave his first address to the European Parliament in mid-November.

It has also been announced that Solana will further be appointed as the new Secretary General of WEU. Cooperation between the EU and WEU was already formally provided for in the treaty of Masstricht but this new move comes closer to merging the two organizations. As regards membership, this is now quite overlapping. Apart from the first enlargement of the European Communities in 1973, Greece became the tenth Member State in 1981. Spain and Portugal then joined in 1986 and Austria and Finland, Sweden in 1995. As regards the WEU, Spain and Portugal became the eighth and ninth members in 1990 and Greece the tenth in 1995. All these countries are members of NATO. The five other EU members States have been given observer status in the WEU. Of these, only Denmark is a NATO member, the others-Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden- being traditionally neutral. Moreover, three other European NATO members-Ireland, Norway and Turkey- are associate members of the WEU.

A further important development has been the agreement reached between Britain and France at the end of November to propose to the forthcoming EU summit in Helsnki the setting up of a new 60,000 strong force for the EU/WEU with its own command, control and logistical capabilities to provide a capacity autonomous of NATO to act in cases where the whole of NATO does not take part. The motive for this is not only to reinforce the concept of EU but also to redress the serious inadequacies of Europe's defense capacity as seen first in Iraq-Occupation Desert- and more particularly, in Bosnia. It is not clear how far, if at all, it is envisaged that this force could operate outside the NATO area, to which the EU/WEU is not formally limited.

In terms of the development of common strategies through CFSP, it is expected that there will be an initial concentration on Europe's neighboring regions of Balkans, Russia and the Middle East, which the EU has seen as the most likely source of instability, if not threat. As regards Asia, Simon Manley of the EC Council's External Relations Department, recently told a conference in the European Parliament, that the CFSPs position on Asia contains certain "common threads" these are: trying to work with Asian partners to enhance security in the region, especially through the ASEAN Regional Forum-ARF-; helping to overcome the Asian financial crisis and develop prosperity; helping Asian partners to develop democracy and respect for human rights; and cooperation, especially through ASEM and with ASEAN. From the point of view of security threats, Mr. Manley identifies five main challenges. These were North-South Korean relations, the future of East Timor, developments in Indonesia, Burma and "Pakistan". As regards this last, he said that the EU had been "concerned" by the nuclear tests conducted by India  and Pakistan in 1998 but "more concerned" by the Kargil episode. The EU felt UN Resolution 1172 should be implemented. Their concerns had hen been further heightened by the military coup in Pakistan. He said that there was no such thing as "a good coup" and the Council had called for a speedy restoration of democracy and sent an envoy. He felt that there was little scope for a dialogue with SAARC on security issues as SAARC itself was reluctant to take on these matters. The EU had started political dialogue with SAARC but the real venue for discussing Asian security issues was the ARF and India had now been admitted as a dialogue partner to this Forum.

In conclusion, the CFSP is a brand new development in this form and, if linked to the setting up of large rapid reaction force, as proposed by Britain and France-the two permanent members of the UN Security Council- will almost certainly be the main development in the Eus external relations between now and 2010.

The last major trend will be enlargement. Most of Central and Eastern Europe is now queuing up to join the EU. So also are Turkey, Cyprus and Malta. The most obvious candidates for early membership are Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic, all of whom joined NATO early 1999. Some others, such as Estonia, may also join at the same time. This will probably reinforce the EUs tendency to be largely inward looking and very much absorbed with its own problems, the biggest of which will certainly be how to cope with Polish agriculture. In terms of CFSP, many of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who are likely to join EU by 2010, have already become associate Partners of WEU. None of these countries have a tradition of relations with Asia, such that their accession is not likely to give any great impetus to the EU to change the emphasis of its external relations towards Asia. (Paper read out by the author at a CASAC seminar held in December 1999, last year-chief editor).

 Servicemen offering Humanitarian aid

-Sylvie Bullo, France

^Go where mankind calls you ^ is their motto, and off they go, sent by the French government, to save human lives and to offer their help. They are all in the armed forces and they are involved in humanitarian aid. Turkey, like many other countries, has not forgotten them.

"I will never forget that moment, the look on the face of that little 11 years old girl brought out of the hell. I couldn't describe it but it was a moment of intense emotion, seeing that father finding his daughter again after such terrible trials." Sergeant Major Maille, a non-commissioned transmission office of Civil Defense, was one of the French servicemen come to help the Turkish people who, last August, had suffered from a terrible earthquake. Turkey, Rwanda, Taiwan, Greece, Cameroon, the Honduras, Albania, Kosovo…. The examples are legion. Wherever the earth gets angry, where ever a catastrophe occurs or where war threatens, doctors, nurses, first-aid workers, rescue dogs and psychiatrists come and bring their help. Unlike NGOs, they always and only act on orders from the French government.

"The Humanitarian mission of the French Army is a vocation which goes back to the Sixties. At the time, we had a system organized in modules, adapted to the kind of the catastrophe, the nature of the epidemic and, of course, the needs of the locals. It was very difficult to manage and to implement and so it was gradually abandoned in favor of Airborne Surgical Units". Doctor-in-charge Laurent, from the Army Health department explains. Of the five existing units, one is always on alert 24 hours a day every day of the year. Each unit is made up of two surgeons, an anesthetist, five nurses, three stretcher-bearers and an administrative assistant, and, as soon as one team has set off, another one is placed on alert. "I would say of these units that they are our Humanitarian missiles: efficient, fast and light just over 3 tons of material-, they are able to react quickly in the face of an emergency or a serious event," he goes on. On 17 August, at three O'clock in the morning, the earth trembled in Turkey. There was already reports of 22,000 deaths, 59,000 wounded and 40,000 missing. On 21 Augusts, the French government launched the "Mission of Local assistance in Turkey" and sent a Humanitarian aid unit on the spot. In agreement with the local authorities, a place was found to set up this country hospital. On 22 August, it was operational.

This team came to reinforce the servicemen of the civil defense. The latter come under the Ministry of the Interior. These firemen had already located the first bodies and pulled them out from beneath the rubble as well as carrying out the most urgent surgical operations. "We have been on site for about 16 hours. Any chance of saving Kadir's hand seems vain. As he is suffering agony, the decision to amputate his hands seems irremediable. The team is extremely upset but they realize that it is the only way to get the casualty out of the rubble", Sergeant Major Rahal recounts. The catastrophe is so vast that Turkish doctor and French first aid units are unable to cope. They need extra help from the Airborne Surgical units, a hospital service and a support group. "The teams from the civil defense department perfectly complement those from the army, reputed for their well-tried logistics and their great ability to react fast. Just like them we always intervene after receiving a request for international aid, and, three hours after being given the mission order by the Ministries of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs, we have to have reached the nearest airport. Depending on the kind of event, a Reconnaissance and Evaluation unit, an Aeromobile Catastrophe Intervention Detachment, rescue dogs or a Rapid Medical Intervention Civil Defense Unit set off", Head Doctor Viala, who has been on site for 20 years, explains. All the teams work in very close collaboration and without any respite in the emergency, and the only purpose is to save lives. An Airborne Surgical unit can perform about 15 surgical operations a day, thanks to self-sufficiency of 48 hours. "But we always work with local doctors. It is important that they should be able to provide a medical follow-up to the operated patients after we leave and it is also important for the local population to trust their own doctors. Medical humanitarian aid also implies that," head doctor Viala goes on.

These men arrive in a country at its own request and they leave it when they are asked to. "We are not there to interfere in a country's affairs, only to give it our help. It is true that sometimes we insist a little to stay longer if we really believe that we can still help. On that score, I think that the French media have deformed the position of the Turkish authorities a little. They have not shown any aggressiveness at all towards us and we did not feel any pressure from them to leave their country", Dr. Viala considers. "One sentence will always remain engraved in my memory. It is some thing a man whispered in my ear, "You know, you have made 60 million friends for yourselves in Turkey," Head Sergeant Gance remembers.) Courtesy:  Actualite en France).