The EU needs an interagency process for foreign policy

Is European diplomacy still relevant ? Not too long ago, the question would have been brushed aside as European envoys were actively present in all diplomatic fora. Today, as Russia’s war in Ukraine stalls, Europe’s commitment to assist the government in Kyiv appears to be losing steam. In the Middle East, with the conflict extending from Gaza to Lebanon and the risk of an out-of-control regional confrontation between Israel and Iran, the EU is powerless amid the current efforts to lower tensions.

In the past, European interventions may not have always been an unmitigated success, but Europe was there at least to be accounted for. With geopolitical storms gathering speed, the EU seems to have lost its foreign policy.

It is true that Europe is not well-suited to manage international crises. Because of its multilateral nature, it cannot pretend to deliver the same diplomatic tradecraft as that of a state. But in its characteristically cumbersome and slow-paced fashion, Europe had found its agency in the past. Initiatives like the Venice Declaration in 1980, the Quartet format for the Middle East Peace Process in 2002, the Iranian nuclear program initiative launched in 2003, and later the roadmap to settle the Serbia-Kosovo dispute have illustrated Europe’s capacity to infuse its diplomacy with agility. Today, calls for action from Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, sound mostly like screaming into the void as the union’s members question the added value of European diplomatic initiatives.

Paradoxically, the outgoing European Commission’s tenure has also been marked by constant public messaging about the need for a more geopolitical Europe. With this purpose in mind, substantial reviews and discussions have fed into this geopolitical agenda inside the commission and just as many meetings of the twenty-seven member states, over the last five years. The rightly praised Strategic Compass—the EU’s security and defense strategy—topped this overall effort two years ago, equipping the EU with a full foreign policy framework. Yet the more Europe has been polishing its diplomatic agenda, the less it has seemed prepared to respond to ongoing crises. Europe is performing as if its comprehensive strategic thinking could not translate into action.

One of the reasons behind this contradiction may well lie in the absence of a place where European leaders can discuss strategic security matters and do so in a confidential and informal manner: a kind of EU-member state interagency process aimed at identifying threats and objectives as well as policy options. The EU has to develop its own model for managing these sensitive strategic discussions. But the changes to be considered will have to tackle both the method and the frame of mind presiding over these debates.

Current sessions of the European Council do not provide for these types of exchanges. When dealing with security, they often lack focus because of an overcrowded agenda and a process that is too formal and does not adequately distinguish between security matters and other issues. What the EU needs today is a working process akin to the ones applied in the U.S. National Security Council or in the defense committees that many European states regularly convene at the national level. Naturally, such an innovation inside the EU system cannot be a copy-paste of these national experiences.

On the process, specificity is what should prevail. In-depth discussions on strategic security require a bespoke chain of decisionmaking, enshrined in deep confidentiality and allowing stakeholders to comprehensively unpack implications and contingencies before the issue moves up to the leaders in the European Council, where final decisions must be made. This unique channel of preparation should be nurtured with exhaustive reports, clear analyses of the situation on the ground, and option papers that cover all possible scenarios and realistic choices for action.

This work should naturally involve all relevant EU institutions and member states’ ministries. It must also be enshrined in deep confidentiality, an administrative culture that Brussels needs to learn. Ad hoc meetings could be carved out for the national security advisers to the member states’ leaders before going to the foreign affairs ministers and the EU heads of state and government. On that final stage, the European Council should have exclusive sessions entirely dedicated to strategic security and encompassing both geopolitical issues and matters related to economic security.

Any significant step toward a more strategic Europe also needs to consider changes in mindset that have so far prevailed among EU players. Making Europe a credible geopolitical actor requires Europeans to learn the hard thinking beyond the immediacy of crisis management and to immerse themselves in the more challenging long-term perspectives. Defining a successful outcome in the war in Ukraine implies that, at some stage, EU leaders must engage in a serious discussion about the common Russia strategy they are ready to adopt.

To effectively shape and contribute to a sustainable peace in the Middle East, the EU and its member states will need to overcome their divisions and agree on a common concrete set of actions toward the establishment of a future Palestinian state, the preservation of stability in Lebanon, and the management of their relations with Iran. The long-term perspective does not come naturally to Europe but it must gradually become the norm for any future European strategic action.

Needless to say such a transformation runs the risk of shattering old habits and sewing deep divisions. But this is the price to be paid if Europeans are genuinely committed to regaining their influence as a global player on the international stage.