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Munich Security Conference: Emmanuel Macron and EU security policy in the era of Joe Biden

2021-02-19T13:25:49.190Z


Emmanuel Macron wants to make Europe more independent of the US on security issues. Despite the new US president, the proposal makes sense - but is the EU really capable of doing so?


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The French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle": where is Europe headed in terms of security policy?

Photo: Christophe Ena / AP

A democratic US president wants to realign America's policy on Asia.

France is calling for "strategic autonomy" for the European Union because it fears the United States may withdraw from Europe.

To person

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The political scientist Bruno Tertrais, 58, is deputy director of the “Fondation pour la recherche stratégique” in Paris, member of the “International Institute for Strategic Studies” (IISS) and Senior Fellow at the renowned Parisian Institut Montaigne.

Tertrais has worked for NATO and the French Ministry of Defense.

During the 2017 election campaign and at the beginning of his term in office, he was one of Emmanuel Macron's foreign policy advisors.

Does that sound familiar to you?

That was the case in the 1990s.

And so it is now again.

The world has changed since then, but the transatlantic debate has been conducted in the same way since the Cold War.

This also applies to the demand for “strategic autonomy” - which means something like: more security policy independence of the Europeans from the USA and NATO.

Time and again it is viewed as an exclusively French project - but it hasn't been for a long time.

This formula has appeared in official and jointly agreed EU documents since the decade of the new millennium.

Two arguments have always been put forward to support this concept of defense and security policy:

  • For one thing, it was said that the European integration project was not complete without the ability to demonstrate military strength.

  • On the other hand, there could be a situation in which the United States would not be willing or able to act.

The result: as early as 1999 in Helsinki, the EU member states defined a common defense agenda for the alliance.

Strategic autonomy does not mean being strategically self-sufficient

It is not about building an alternative or even a competition to NATO.

The aim is even less to set up a fully fledged and integrated "European army", even if this term is used repeatedly by some politicians.

France, originally somewhat ambivalent on this point, abandoned these ideas in the mid-1990s and rejoined NATO's military command structure in 2009.

(

Editor's note: France had left the military command structure of the alliance under Charles de Gaulle in 1966

).

The EU Treaty of Lisbon, which also came into force in 2009, contains a mutual defense clause.

However, for the member states of the EU, which also belong to NATO, this treaty expressly states that the military alliance has priority.

It is also clear that all of the defense instruments developed by the Europeans - with the exception of some planning, command and control resources - are available for NATO operations.

In addition, autonomy does not exclude the possibility of military cooperation with non-members.

It's about the »ability to act autonomously, whenever and wherever necessary and together with partners, wherever possible«.

Ultimately, strategic autonomy does not mean being strategically self-sufficient.

Kramp-Karrenbauer misunderstood Macron

Brexit, the Trump presidency, the corona pandemic and an increasingly aggressive China show how important and how complex this debate is.

French President Emmanuel Macron saw both Brexit and Trump as an opportunity to advance his European agenda without replacing the United States.

He got into a dispute with the German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer - but it was more of a misunderstanding than an actual divergence.

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Kramp-Karrenbauer argued in November of last year that it was time to bury "the illusion of European strategic autonomy."

She interpreted the concept as if it were about replacing "the decisive role of the USA as guarantor of Europe's security."

This conclusion goes beyond Macron's intentions.

"Strategic autonomy" does not mean "European sovereignty"

Considerable progress was made in the Trump years with regard to the European security architecture: with the creation of the framework for structured cooperation between the European armies (PESCO) and the European Defense Fund (EVF).

According to its most determined proponents, "strategic autonomy" no longer only covers the defense of the continent.

Key industries, infrastructure, technologies and the health sector in Europe should also be protected.

The idea of ​​"strategic autonomy" therefore no longer refers only to the United States, but also to every other great power - including Russia and China.

Macron stands for strategic autonomy and European sovereignty

Macron sometimes surprises its European partners by putting the United States on a par with these powers.

But his neo-Gaullist stance still distinguishes between allies and non-allies.

At the same time, he sees that everyone is competing with one another, especially in the economic and technological areas.

The expansion of "strategic autonomy" is one of the reasons why the term is increasingly used as synonymous with "European sovereignty".

But in truth, sovereignty means something else: not being hindered by foreign dependence or guardianship.

It is a somewhat problematic term because it traditionally applies to states and not to the amalgamation of countries - even if the European Union is the subject of international law and, in some respects, a quasi-federation.

Emmanuel Macron stands for both concepts: strategic autonomy and European sovereignty.

And he is aware that there is a conceptual fuzziness here.

The corona pandemic has led him to give priority to the question of sovereignty - at French as well as European level.

Because the coronavirus has made it clear how much Europe is dependent on foreign resources for health care, think of the procurement of masks, but also the production of medicines.

This explains why Macron is now increasingly using the slogan “Take back control”, which is best known as the slogan of Brexit supporters.

The debate about "autonomy" and "sovereignty" is a very theoretical one anyway: the best way to close it is to simply see it as two sides of the same coin.

Relations with the US have always been complex

But this is where Joe Biden comes in.

The narrative of the "return to the good old days of transatlantic relations" has already been thoroughly disenchanted.

Relations with the US have always been complex;

the context today is different from that under Obama.

With the election of the new US president comes the risk that the need for strategic autonomy for Europe may no longer be perceived as being so urgent.

At the first meeting of NATO ministers after Trump on February 17, the mood was friendly, it was like a family reunion.

But the experience of the Clinton years shows that even if transatlantic relations are rather friendly, Washington is critical of European efforts that could lead to US influence on the continent (and its arms sales being reduced).

The US government can restrict European freedom of action with its policies - for example with laws that also apply outside the USA, in particular with sanctions.

You already irritated Europeans in the nineties.

Discussions about strategic autonomy could therefore remain polite but become difficult.

Especially when it comes to US access to the PESCO project, which aims to bring the European armies together in a structured manner, and to the European Defense Fund.

For all these reasons, the desired strategic autonomy of the Europeans could not lead to the hoped-for quantum leap in the next four years, but it could cause irritation in the transatlantic alliance.

The China question could divide Europe and the United States in NATO

Nevertheless, under Biden, Europe can further develop this strategic autonomy positively and constructively.

If the US wants to concentrate on reconstruction at home, as well as on East Asia policy, it will be easier to sell Washington the desired autonomy as a "form of burden-sharing."

Especially since almost every euro that is spent on defense by member states of the Alliance also benefits NATO.

But transatlantic disagreements may be sparked less on European ambitions than on the China issue.

Several alliance members could be bothered if too much attention is paid to the challenge that Beijing is currently presenting to NATO.

Because they either fear that this will divert NATO from the necessary focus on Russia.

Or that the mandate of the defense alliance would be expanded beyond its core tasks.

The French share both objections.

After all, they were the staunchest defenders of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which defines the alliance case.

But Paris is definitely in favor of serious talks between the Allies about operations in Asia, because it believes that some EU partners limit their security policy too much to one continent of their own.

Some have questioned Macron's ties to NATO after he made provocative comments in an interview in 2019 about the alliance's risk of “brain death”.

But at the time he was concerned with the conflicting interests of the alliance members - especially with regard to Syria.

He was not concerned with the constitution of the military organization as such.

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Icon: Spiegel PlusIcon: Spiegel Plus Border conflict comes to a head: Erdoğan risks war with Greece By Maximilian Popp

Since then, tensions between the NATO member state Turkey and some of its allies have increased.

Macron confirmed this by saying that he had rightly called for a “clarification” of Turkey's place within NATO.

US President Biden is expected to take a tougher stance on Turkey than his predecessor.

That in turn could exacerbate Erdoğan's position.

But what happens when Washington is no longer able to defuse an open conflict between Turkey and Greece?

Would Europe then step in?

And could it defend Cyprus - a non-NATO member, but which falls under the defense clause of the EU Treaty of Lisbon?

The situation in the Eastern Mediterranean could turn into a first test case for Europe's new strategic autonomy sooner than many expected.

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-02-19

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