In his recent speech at the College of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, likened the European Union to a convoy of twenty-seven ships, each flying both the Member State and the European flag. If the image is apt, some Member States’ ship seems to be a submarine though, for it is not always evident that all Member States are part of the European convoy. Even a submarine is useful however, provided that it does not go off on its own initiative, but acts in co-ordination with the rest of the fleet, co-ordination to be provided by the Admiral – or President.

That, as Mr. Van Rompuy rightly emphasised, requires a common strategic vision. He simultaneously stressed the role of the European Council in generating this strategy. Again, he probably is right that in the intergovernmental arena which the Common Foreign and Security Policy still is only the Heads of State and Government can create the political drive that is required to force the Foreign and Defence Ministers of the twenty-seven into – joint – action. It was the European Council that adopted the first European Security Strategy (ESS) in 2003; it should now be the European Council that, with the input of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, completes the ESS by defining more concrete objectives in the priority areas that are key to Europeans’ position in the world. The resulting “sub-strategies” will be the mandate for the Foreign Affairs Council, chaired by the High Representative.

Mr. Van Rompuy himself already mentioned one key area: to review and strengthen our relationship with key partners – the United States, Canada, Japan and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). As the President stated, the European Union needs more than conviction to win them over to its proposals; it needs to reflect what it can do together with them. The European Union has so-called strategic partnerships with all of these, but they are often void of content and lacking in coordination. It is never quite clear who on the European Union side is driving these partnerships. A European Council strategy to guide a really strategic use of the partnerships would therefore be more than welcome.

The European Union could identify shared interests with each strategic partner, in order to establish in a number of priority policy areas (climate, energy, non-proliferation…) effective practical cooperation with those partners that share European objectives in that specific domain. Overlapping clusters will emerge, with the European Union co-operating with certain strategic partners on one issue, and with partly the same, partly others on another issue. Gradually, these forms of co-operation can be strengthened, institutionalised and linked up to the permanent multilateral institutions, notably the United Nations. Such a pragmatic approach of coalition-building and co-operation, on very specific issues to start with, can expand into broader areas, including with regard to values. If e.g. it is unlikely that we will see China at the forefront of democracy promotion, it has an economic interest in promoting the rule of law, if only to ensure that the mining concessions that it acquires are not simultaneously offered to someone else. Through cooperation on shared objectives, the European Union can gradually and consensually convince the other global actors of the validity of our policies and values.

Other areas as well demand a more strategic view from the European Council. What is the desired end-state of the Neighbourhood Policy? Can only democracy create a consensual value-based community and thus safeguard our interests, or will democratisation create such upheaval that our interests would be damaged? Only when our interests and red lines are clear can a true strategic partnership with Russia be pursued. What is the future of enlargement? A successful instrument so far, further enlargement is determining for relations with Russia and for the geopolitical position of the European Union – and cannot proceed therefore without strategic debate.

Further, before making room for the BRICs, the European Union must sharpen its view about the desired multilateral architecture, reconciling reform with increased effectiveness of European representation. Last but not least, European strategic thinking about conflict resolution and crisis management remains weak. A Common Security and Defence Policy sub-strategy should define Europe’s ambition as a security actor. Regardless of whether in a specific case Europeans deploy under the flag of the Common Security and Defence Policy, the Atlantic Alliance or the United Nations: which types of operations must European forces be capable of, which priority regions and scenarios require intervention, and which is the scale of the effort to be devoted to these priorities?

Once the European Council defines strategic guidelines on all of these issues, coordinated fleet action will be possible.

• A version of this article was originally published in Global Europe on 4th March 2010.

Viru värav (Getaway to Tallinn Old Town). Source: Website of the Estonian Ministry of Fureign Affairs

The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put up the new Estonia Quiz 2010. People are invited to test their knowledge and win a trip for two to Estonia.

One Vienna-based Spanish diplomat likes to describe European Union’s security and defence policy in action as a ‘jazz band, not a classical orchestra: musicians with different abilities and instruments participating in a permanent jam session, with a basic tune and a general idea of the kind of music they want to produce [. . .] a band which finds it hard to agree on a specific arrangement, but which can eventually sound harmonious – though not necessarily completely homogeneous.’ The band is well known among music connoisseurs, while the general public either ignores it or is bemused by the strange sound. Other – more successful – bands, on the other hand, praise some of their individual qualities, as well as the fact that they do play (some kind of) music, despite all the problems, whilst grinning at its lack of success. That is a fairly good description of the European Union’s overall performance as an actor on the global stage during the rather unstable decade we are about to leave behind: some tactical achievements, the valuable experience of learning on the job as a European Union twenty-seven, but with a pervading sense of a lack of direction.

The Treaty of Lisbon should put an end to the European cacophony or to put it another way: make the very richness of European pluralism in foreign policy an effective added-value element for the European Union as an actor – and not a permanent hindrance. The new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, should conduct the idiosyncratic music group. A chorus of the best diplomats throughout Europe should support her in the demanding task to produce some music: the European External Action Service. But the post-Lisbon reality is different: the Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council as well as the Member States haggle over personnel and finances, trying to get hold of that future backbone of European foreign policy. The only ray of hope is the role of the European Parliament. It has used the current power vacuum in Brussels and seized its way into the realm of foreign and security policy, not formally and through legal novelties, but by adeptly using its budget powers as well as the expertise of the parliamentarians. In fact, this revamped Parliament carries with it the potential to energise the strategic culture among Europeans, and, not less, building a strong democratic legitimacy to the European Union’s developing security policy.

Accordingly, the European Union is (again) dealing with inner-European issues – the self-centred approach, we all complained about over the last years. The problem is only, that the world moves on, even if the European Union is not yet ready to face that. Transatlantic relations serve as a vivid example: Barack Obama skipped the European-American summit to be held by the Spanish presidency in Madrid in May 2010. It became known that the president regarded this meeting with twenty-seven heads of states and governments (plus the representatives of the European Union) as boring and non-productive. From a certain point of view, this could be taken as a snub. However, it may be just seen as a wake-up call. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reaffirmed the message just a few days ago , and emphasising the great expectations the United States pins on the new so-called Common Security and Defence Policy. She offered the European Union direct partnership with the United States in security-related issues – something that until now has been the exclusive realm of the Atlantic Alliance. Probably even this call will trail off unheard and unanswered, because the European Union still does not know exactly, who could be speaking for the Union: the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso? The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy? Or the High Representative? Apart from that, there is also no guidance at the European level, in terms of overall priorities and means to achieve them, apart from the brilliantly formulated but rather fuzzy European Security Strategy from 2003 (plus the Implementation Report of 2008).

This is not enough for a European Union, which is widely regarded as a global actor. Nor it is up to the responsibilities Europe as a whole has towards the international system; as the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, put it in Munich, both the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance are seen by the international community as providers of security. How can the European Union contribute through its civilian and military capabilities to maintain peace and security in an increasingly unstable environment – and thus make Europeans safer?

Yet there still is a huge strategic vacuum in the Common Security and Defence Policy: there is no ‘Grand Strategy’ and there is not even any operationalisation of the Security Strategy. Nonetheless the European Union has already conducted more than twenty missions worldwide. We therefore lack an ambitious but realistic policy orientation for the European Union as a global actor; we have not yet undertaken a Strategic Defence Review or – to use the continental term – a White Paper on Security and Defence. Such a White Paper should lay down our ambitions as a relevant power in security policy as well as a road map on how to achieve these ambitions:

1. A European White Paper should first contain clearer messages on why and how to intervene abroad – a sort of common European lines on interventions, combining tactics with strategy – as well as on the possible and necessary balance of civil and military means.
2. The White Paper should clarify the Post-Lisbon institutions and their interactions, to enhance coherence of the different policies of external action (from enlargement, to the neighbourhood policy, to security and defence policy); it should also pave the way for global visibility of the new High Representative, as the face and telephone number of global Europe.
3. There should be strategic guidelines for European partnerships with main global powers, like the United States, Russia, China, India, as well as NATO, and so on. These partnerships need to serve European norms and interests.
4. The White Paper should clearly spell out the necessary means a global Europe will need. Until now, there are many different frameworks and headline goals, without explaining the purpose of the capability building process.
5. The European defence and technology industrial base is a precondition for an efficient use of means especially in the military field. Therefore the White Paper needs to lay down the consequences of a Common Security and Defence Policy for the national defence industries.

Catherine Ashton, the new ‘conductor’ of European foreign and security policy, has quite a hard task. The European Union’s difficult worldwide challenges, the constant disunity of the Member States, as well as the huge footsteps of Javier Solana she is following, are demanding beyond description. By initiating a European process towards a Security and Defence White Paper, she could provide a consistent policy orientation and thus build on the rather successful achievements on the nearly eleven years of European Security and Defence Policy. This policy orientation could be used as a ‘sheet of music’ for her Jazz band. She will probably never transform it into a chamber orchestra, but maybe they would produce eventually one or two smash hits per year. And this will be in the interest of Europe as a whole, although some governments are slow to grasp the realities of the modern world, and try to get with their own music into the chart list.

National Human Rights Institutions Forum at NHRI website

Here is a link to the International Human Rights Law Video Library, and the link to the International Law Video Library.

You can find links to the subjects and sources of international law; responsibility for international wrong; peaceful settlement of disputes; sites on disarmament; UN human rights system; regional human rights systems; international criminal law sites; national human rights institutions; and National Human Rights Institutions Forum; women’s rights site; genocide site; the slavery project; international humanitarian law; inter-governmental organizations; non-governmental organizations; and theories, perspectives and concepts from here.

Other than as a naval station during the first half of the twentieth century, the Falkland Islands were largely unknown before the War of 1982. Wet and windswept, and without any native population, the Islands were discovered by Europeans in the sixteenth century. They were then claimed and ruled by France, Spain, Argentina and the United Kingdom. But that is all history; what matters now is that they have been British since 1833, bar for a few sad weeks in 1982 when the Argentine junta decided to invade them.

London sent a naval squadron to eject the occupying force, which resulted in a swift and decisive British victory. Since then, the Islands’ prosperity has increased substantially – standards of living are now akin to those in Southern England. Whereas before their mainstay was sheep farming, the Falklands have today become a large centre for pastoral farming, fishing and tourism. Port Stanley, the Islands’ capital, has doubled in size since 1982 to include almost every modern urban facility bar a university, and receives tens of thousands of tourists each year from passing cruise liners. London has also bolstered the Islands’ defences considerably: they now sustain a vast military station, including an aerodrome (RAF Mount Pleasant) and a naval facility (Mare Harbour). Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons and Royal Navy gunboats are on constant patrol to protect the Islands’ sovereignty.

Buenos Aires has made sporadic claims on the Islands, normally coterminous with periods of economic or political difficulty in Argentina. London has normally just rebuffed or ignored the Argentine behaviour. Recently, however, a British oil company was granted permission to begin surveying a basin to the north of the Islands, to much Argentine bluster. Twelve years ago, in 1998, Shell also conducted a number of geological surveys in the area to see whether there was oil under the seabed. The findings were inconclusive, however, but oil was thought to exist. With the price of oil at an all-time-low in 1998, it was not deemed commercially viable to begin further attempts at extraction.

Yet British eyes are looking south again, especially now that oil costs over €50 per barrel; that reserves in the North Sea are declining; and that advances in undersea mining have occurred. It has been estimated, albeit roughly, that there could be as much as sixty billion barrels of oil under and around the Falkland Islands, meaning they could become the second largest known oil field on the planet. Substantial gas fields could exist too. Argentina, currently under the unpopular President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is obviously anxious to claim the prize, and has been stepping up pressure on the British to surrender their sovereignty over the Falklands once and for all.

The Argentines have rallied the South American nations to their side, including Chile and Brazil. Even Venezuela’s crazy Hugo Chavez tried to get in on the act. Never missing an opportunity to spout some anti-imperialist claptrap, he denounced the British in one of his amusing and long-winded television broadcasts. But such capers aside, the Argentines have sought to undermine Washington’s support for Britain by threatening to work with other South American countries to form a new regional organisation that deliberately excludes the United States and Canada. This would not suit American interests and Washington has tried to keep its distance, describing the issue as a bilateral problem between Buenos Aires and London exclusively. Perhaps in an attempt to douse Argentine anger, Hillary Clinton, the American foreign secretary, even implied that British sovereignty was not necessarily absolute – a move the British did not appreciate.

A MAP SHOWING THE GEOSTRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS

Here comes the crunch: how and why does this all matter to the European Union? Well, apart from the fact that the Falkland Islands are populated by British – and therefore European – citizens, whose right to self-determination must be resolutely upheld, British sovereignty is important for three reasons:

1. Any energy reserves or other natural resources found in the South Atlantic could almost certainly be shipped back to the European Union, reducing our collective dependence on unruly or unstable foreign suppliers (e.g. Russia and the Middle East). Given that North Sea reserves, which were around fifty billion barrels, have powered-up much of the European economy for nearly four decades, the possible sixty billion barrels under the Falklands could keep Europeans going for just as long – and this fact becomes even more important should conflicts break out over key minerals in the future.
2. The Falklands are geostrategically significant due to their particular location. Just five hundred kilometres from the Strait of Magellan and Drake’s Passage, they give their owner total command over the lower part of the South Atlantic (see map, above). Other than the Panama Canal, these two ‘strategic chokepoints’ are the only direct links between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
3. And crucially, given that parts of the Antarctic continent could eventually be uncovered or made more habitable with the onset and acceleration of climate change – revealing potentially enormous mineral wealth – British possession of the Falkland Islands makes any future European territorial claim over parts of the southern hemisphere more likely and legitimate. Equally, the Islands are actually quite large (roughly half the size of Belgium), so could support the infrastructure necessary to support a connexion with any potential European resource extraction facilities in the Antarctic.

So those who dismiss the Falkland Islands as an anachronism are mistaken. The Islands’ geopolitical significance to our economy – the European Union’s economy – could only just be about to begin. No European Union Member State should do anything to harm the British claim; and Argentina should be told politely but firmly by Europeans to mind its own business.

At least, I cannot say that I have not taken a boat trip at Strasbourg the year I was almost convicted (in absentia / by default) in my home town

To create some more order, here are some links to parliaments and their relations in Europe:

Interparliamentary websites:

COSAC

ECPRD - The European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation

Council of Europe

IPU: Inter-Parliamentary Union

ASGP: Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments

EP Relations with National Parliaments

Exchanging information among parliaments:

IPEX – Interparliamentary EU Information Exchange http://www.ipex.eu/ipex/cms/home;jsessionid=86722EDF4D8F90ED0FF1CB8769797C0D

Database http://www.ipex.eu/ipex/cms/home/Documents;jsessionid=8E75374CDA35008C8558202032D0FCC3

Comments of the European Commission on opinions from national parliaments http://www.ipex.eu/ipex/cms/home/pid/4;jsessionid=86722EDF4D8F90ED0FF1CB8769797C0D

Source: The Council of Europe’s website

I just finished translation of the ECtHR’s decision on admissibility of Application no. 42551/98  by Oleg Svinarenkov against Estonia, into the Estonian language. The facts of the case relate to deliberate homicide and unlawful possession of a firearm. The complaint to the ECtHR alleges violation of the following Articles of the European Convention of Human Rights: 5 § 3 (reasonable time), 5 § 4 (unlawful detention), 6 § 1 (fair trial), 6 § 1 (impartiality of courts in examining the case), 6 § 2 (presumption of innocence), 6 § 3 (b) (not enough time and adequate possibilities for the preparation of defence), 6 § 3 (d) (failure of the first instance court to grant the requests to hear witnesses and to conduct their confrontation), 8 (respect for private life and home), 13 (lack of an effective remedy).

I am thinking of the meaning of the following sentence in the decision: „In particular, under its case law the Convention does not entitle an accused to have access to the case file if he is represented by a lawyer“. What consequences could the sentence in practice have, for example, in the cases where the state determines the defence lawyer? Could that lead to my dependence on the defence lawyer to the extent that in the end s/he really could confess my guilt instead of me?

Source: Wikipedia

To create some order, here is a list of EU legislative databases:

EUR-Lex: The portal to European Union law

OEIL: The Legislative Observatory (European Parliament)

PreLex: Monitoring of the decision-making process (European Commission)

N-Lex: A common getaway to national law

Committee of Regions: Subsidiarity Monitoring Network

TOAD: Committee of Regions Database of EU Documents

Council Register

Information sources and contacts: Databases in alphabetical order

By Subject – http://europa.eu/documentation/order-publications/databases-subject/index_en.htm

In alphabetical order – http://europa.eu/documentation/order-publications/databases-alphabetical/index_en.htm

1. Lack of political authority

Previous incumbents of the European Council presidency enjoyed considerable power and prestige derived from being elected and serving heads of state/government. By comparison, as an appointed figure the new president lacks the political authority and democratic legitimacy of a serving national leader.

2. Lack of national political/administrative resources

 Although the new president has gained a small secretariat, they have lost the far more significant political and administrative resources that elected heads of state/government are able to wield within their home countries – not simply access to national bureaucratic machines, but also the network of wider political contacts that serving leaders enjoy.

3. Disconnection from the Council of Ministers

Because the various Council formations continue to be chaired by the rotating presidency, the European Council president loses any ability to influence, direct or control the legislative process. Previously it was their ministers and officials that would chair all the sectoral councils and working groups.

4. Competition with rotating presidency

The new European Council president is placed into direct competition with the head of state/government from the rotating presidency, particularly because the latter now lacks a formal institutional outlet for their diplomatic energies. Recent tensions over the location of the forthcoming EU-US summit between van Rompuy and Zapatero illustrate this point.

5. Competition with the Commission President

Although the presidents of the Commission and European Council are both now appointed by national leaders, the former has access to vastly superior administrative resources and enjoys the democratic legitimacy that derives from being formally approved by the European Parliament. This may place them in a stronger position in inter-institutional battles.

6. Competition with the High Representative

The new High Representative now chairs a Foreign Affairs Council and heads the new External Action Service, combining the resources of both the Commission and Council. Hence the emergence of an inverted division of labour in which the High Representative serves as the EU’s ‘external face’, while the European Council president is relegated to brokering internal deals.

7. A qualified majority only exists for a ‘weak’ president

Because the smaller member states fear the appointment of political heavyweight from one of the ‘Big Three’ states, they will always tend to constitute an effective blocking minority. Because the larger member states are unlikely to ever wield sufficient votes to push through their preferred nomination (assuming one even exists), a weaker compromise candidate will almost certainly be the outcome.

8. Few formal powers

The vagueness of the Lisbon Treaty’s job description may permit the incumbent to mould the position to suit their own particular priorities, but it may also be seen as a potential weakness – not least because it permits the members of the European Council (national leaders) to dictate the terms of the office for themselves.

In the British media and political discourse, the recently appointed President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is often poked as a figure of fun. He frequently gets called ‘Rompuy-pumpy’; the British Broadcasting Corporation produced a humorous video about him; and Nigel Farage, the anti-European UKIP MEP created a storm when he called him a ‘damp rag’ and a ‘low-grade bank clerk’ in the European Parliament. While many of these attitudes smack of British arrogance, it is fair to say that President Van Rompuy lacks the aura of power or charisma of someone like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Tony Blair.

However, these slights aside, Mr. Van Rompuy has battled on. Yesterday, he gave his first major speech – called ‘The Challenges for Europe in a Changing World’ – on foreign and security policy since he assumed his presidency, choosing the College of Europe as his venue. And actually, it was quite impressive. The President began his speech by looking into the changing global balance of power, which has begun to have a profound impact on the place of Europeans in the world: on their own, the Member States are no longer strong enough to have much influence on the key issues. This, he says, should not turn Europeans into ‘declinists’; rather, he points out, the only way forward is for the Member States to work together to project their power – yes, power – across the globe through the European Union.

As such, he outlined two key objectives for his presidency:

1. Reforming the European economy, because this will provide the means to remain relevant and provide an incentive for Europeans to remain heavily involved in world politics;
2. Transforming the European Union into a global power, because it is only through having influence and the means to enforce it, that Europeans will get their way and protect their social and economic well-being in the twenty-first century.

As he put it:

As you have learned here at the Collège, Europe started as a market, with a unique working method. We can be proud of what it achieved. However, building a market is different from being a power. “L’Europe-puissance”, as the French like to call it. [. . .] At the Copenhagen Summit we experienced that Europe can no longer shine by the “force of its example” only. You need more than the conviction that your proposal is the best, to win them over. To get in the deal-making game, the Union needs to assert itself politically.

President Van Rompuy’s approach seems to be informed by the approach taken in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which was a seminal book by Paul Kennedy published in the late 1980s. Professor Kennedy argued that a country’s geopolitical power can be correlated to its financial dynamism, economic productivity and industrial might; successful powers are those most able to project themselves economically and geopolitically, without over-extending themselves. In this respect, Mr. Van Rompuy’s approach suggests a good dose of critical strategic thinking on his part, which is a breath of fresh air for those of us who often deplore the wishy-washy mumbo jumbo so frequently pumped-out by Europeans on foreign affairs.

So is Herman Van Rompuy a ‘Rompuy-pumpy’, or is he a closet Machiavelli? Is he a ‘damp rag’, or is he a quiet but clever strategist, working tirelessly behind the scenes to flesh out and project the European interest? Only time will tell. But his first speech on foreign and security policy certainly shows promise, and demands that Europeans should have more respect for their new president, and pay him more attention.

• Credit to Luc Van Braekel on Wikipedia for image.