Europe’s foreign policy in line of fire over Libya

As the international campaign against Moamer Gaddafi gathers strength, one target emerging in the line of fire is Europe’s much-vaunted and long-awaited common foreign policy.

Barely a year after launching an EU diplomatic service almost a decade in the making, leaders of the 27-nation bloc head for a two-day summit Thursday after ‘not a good week for EU unity’, as British conservative Euro MP Charles Tannock put it.

In a historic move, Germany broke ranks with its European Union partners by abstaining on last week’s Libya resolution at the UN Security Council, while Italy and others have shown growing irritation with coalition leaders Britain and France.

Split over the Libya campaign, not to mention future policy towards the bloc’s Arab neighbours, much flak for the lack of a single European voice is being directed at the Brussels chief of the fledgling EU diplomatic corps, Catherine Ashton.

At hearings of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee Tuesday, Ashton came in for a barrage of fire from MEPs. She heard everything from ‘We would like to see from you a more proactive approach’ to ‘your job is superfluous, it’s money thrown out the window’.

Analysts concede that Ashton has disappointed by taking a low-profile stand as EU mouthpiece rather than taking the initiative — all this in times of economic recession when many governments are cutting back on embassy staff, but paying for the EU corps.

‘It is not too late to set out a determined new plan for Euro-Arab cooperation,’ said Giles Merritt of the Friends of Europe think tank. ‘But that will not happen if Baroness Ashton remains a low-profile operator.’

But EU member states themselves are divided, said Andre Deletroz of the International Crisis Group. ‘So it’s difficult to ask Brussels to act alone or put up a common position.’

Tensions between member states were ‘less dramatic’ and ‘less impassioned’ however than in 2003 over Iraq, when France refused to join military action, he said.

‘The problem,’ Ashton herself said, ‘is the reality of 27 member states who are sovereign, who believe passionately in their own right to determine what they do, particularly in the area of defence, who will take different views.’

But many leading European politicians remain concerned over the bloc’s lack of unity in responding to events unfolding in its own backyard.