Brussels, 07/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Convention is not a "political parliamentary assembly", but nor must it "provide the spectacle of an ivory tower" that works without contact with reality, exclaimed Ben Fayot, representing the Luxembourg Government, at the Convention's 7 February plenary session, when raising the issue of the Iraqi crisis. One of our objectives is to render Europe "more visible and stronger" in the world, but "as soon as the first major international test arrives, Cfsp is in tatters", deplored the member of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. He also recalled that just three days after the compromise secured by the Greek Presidency of the EU Council of 27 January, four Union Member States believing they had to declare "allegiance to the United States" adopted a joint declaration, followed two days later by the ten of the Vilnius Group (seven of which future EU members). Certain States "act outside the Union structures, the Presidency is short-circuited", he said indignantly, wondering what a full-time president of the European Council could have done "had that occurred to him or her". All this, agreed Jean-Luc Dehaene, confirms the conclusions that my working group on external relations reached by which, "for now, there is no common foreign and security policy, but at most joint actions, when there is the political will to do so". Political will is not created "by decree, but comes from negative experiences we want to avoid in future", repeated the former Belgian Prime Minister, citing the example of the division of Europe at the beginning of the wars in former Yugoslavia, and then cohesion in the Kosovo crisis. It's thus not the Convention that will create this political will, but it can create the instruments allowing it to be expressed, he went on, calling on leaders in Member States to understand that Europe will only have influence when they act together. Europe's "impotence and division" are no "fatality", said European Commissioner Michel Barnier, he too recalling the lessons drawn from European "impotence and division" in the 90s, "on the European continent". This, he says, must incite the Convention to move ahead, notably by creating, in Brussels, "a new and mixed place" where a "culture of common foreign policy" would develop, where joint analyses by diplomats often in competition with each other in the past would lead "at the end of the road to joint action". We are here "to prepare the future", but without "closing our eyes on the present", agreed Josep-Borrell, representative of the Spanish Parliament, remarking that for some the Iraqi crisis was confirmation of the importance of the work of the Convention, whereas for others it demonstrated its futility. When it is a question of war or peace, we simply must overcome our differences, shouted Elmar Brok (CDU), chair of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, for whom the Iraqi crisis must be a "catalyst" inciting the Convention to be "even more daring" in its proposals. All this underpins the need to have a European Foreign Secretary, said Erwin Teufel, Minister-President of Baden-Wuerttemberg and representative of the Bundesrat, while placing emphasis on closer co-operation between Europe and the United States.
There were two dissenting voices in the debate: first that of Lord Tomlinson, representative of the House of Lords, for whom the Iraqi crisis "is outside our mandate". The British Labour member and former MEP, castigated those who, according to him wallowed in "emotional spasms" in such discussions. As for William Abitbol, French "sovereignist" member of the group of Europe of Democracies and Diversities in the EP, qualifying the messages of solidarity with Washington on the part of certain Member States as a "putsch", he wondered about what would happen next. As it is now almost certain that we shall have a war, that some Member States approve (and will take part) and others not, "should not the work of the Convention be put on hold during the war?" he pondered.
Giscard d'Estaing answered him indirectly. The current situation requires that we be "vigilant and wary", he suggested, calling on the Convention to draw lessons from it, and wondering in particular: is the political will there to have a common European foreign policy? What mechanisms would enable such a will to manifest itself? Yet, according to him, Europe has even taken a step back in relation to the Maastricht Treaty which, in its Article 2 paragraph 3, states: "Member States shall actively and unreservedly back the Union's foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity …. They shall refrain from any action contrary to the common interest or that could harm its effectiveness as cohesive force in international relations". "That's not what happened", observed the former French President. He then added: "There is one thing missing. What do Europeans think?". For that reason, without citing the Eurobarometer, he said he had written to Romano Prodi to as him to "use the instruments at his disposal to sound out Europeans".