THE HANDSTAND | JANUARY 2008 |
To Lead the Masses From : german-foreign-policy.com GUETERSLOH, Germany 16 January 2008 (Own report) - Germany's most influential political think tank is demanding the comprehensive disempowerment of smaller EU member states in questions of foreign and security policy, as shown by the newly published strategy report of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The report promotes "Europe's" development of global power and contains numerous suggestions for the EU's formation, including the demand to establish an "EU Security Council" to supervise all of the EU's security policies. Only those seven countries with the largest military budgets will be permanent members. All other states, according to the Bertelsmann document, have to content themselves with a temporary and rotating membership. It is proposing comprehensive arms programs and is calling on the EU to compete with US power policy. Because the population of the EU is more concerned about the fight against poverty than the development of global power, the document's authors are calling for concerted propaganda measures and determined leadership. The strategy report "Beyond 2010 - European Grand Strategy in a Global Age", published by the Bertelsmann Media Concern and Foundation, has been elaborated by the "Venusberg Group," a group of experts, active since 1999 at the initiative of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The Bertelsmann Foundation is by far Germany's most influential private think tank.[1] Over the past few years, numerous draft and strategy reports of the Bertelsmann Foundation have served as the basis for policy decisions in Berlin and Brussels. The "Venusberg Group", a group of six experts of the Bertelsmann Foundation and seven scholars and politicians from various European states, is elaborating blue prints for the EU's future foreign and security policy. The newly published document is the group's third comprehensive strategy report. Now or Never With the publication of this report, the Bertelsmann Foundation is seeking to intensify the debate on a common foreign and security policy of the European Union. Cooperation has to be reinforced "now or never", says the report, otherwise "the dangers faced by the European citizen will become acute". Every chapter ends with the warning "The clock is ticking". But "Beyond 2010" is not dedicated to the prevention of dangers, but rather to the question of how to enhance the EU's global position vis-à-vis the rise of China and the momentary weakness of the United States.[2] No Longer an Add-On According to the authors, the "assumptions upon which the transatlantic relationship was founded" - the US leadership during the cold war - "are no longer valid". "Hitherto European strategy, such as it is, has been little more than an add-on to American strategy." But "multilateralism" is on the agenda. The EU must "provide a modernized transatlantic relationship with strategic options", admonishes the "Venusberg Group". "Put simply, Americans must be open to the prospect of partnership; Europeans must be capable of meriting it." EU Security Council Therefore, according to the authors, the EU needs, above all, an effective organisation of its foreign policy and it must upgrade its security policy. Brussels needs not only a Foreign Minister, as stipulated in the EU Treaty, currently up for ratification [3] but also a "foreign service backed by a potent intelligence capability". The "Venusberg Group" is also proposing the establishment of a "Security and Defence Group under the Chairmanship of the new Foreign Minister". This group should supervise all foreign and security policies of the EU and "could evolve in time into an EU Security Council." Leadership Group The report states that "a new balance will have to be struck between sovereignty and security" meaning a de facto disempowerment of smaller EU member states. As the Bertelsmann experts propose, the seven countries with the largest defense budgets (in absolute numbers) should be permanent members of this "Security and Defence Group": Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland (the "leadership group"). The other EU member states would take a temporary and rotating seat in the group. In the meantime they would lead subaltern "task-oriented working groups charged with looking at specific security issues, such as climate change, water shortage, the changing demand for food, population growth etc." Special Forces, Missile Defence The "Venusberg Group" plans to also curtail the rights of sovereignty in the military domain. To ease the burden on the EU's leading military states, the smaller members should participate in the "common funding" of future military interventions. The European Defence Agency, the report states, must be strengthened to coordinate the arms build-up of the EU countries in accordance with central planning guidelines. All types of weapons are being planned - from precision-guided munitions, to inter alia limited space-based assets and unmanned aerial combat vehicles, to theatre missile defence. "European special forces are vital components of counter-terrorism operations," the report further states. "Command structures also need to be Europeanised' on a far greater scale than hitherto leading in time to the creation of an EU Operational Headquarters (EUOHQ)." The "Venusberg Group" says their report "most certainly does not call for a militarist Europe" - a remark obviously referring to even more far-reaching propositions of security policy expert groups. Public Opinion The authors had to recognize that their demands are not very popular at present. According to opinion polls, 43 percent of the EU population said that "top priority" should be given to the fight against unemployment and poverty, against a mere 5 percent wanting the EU's development of global power to have higher priority. "Europe's political leaders must, together, convince Europe's people that the time to properly prepare for a secure future is now and that it will cost effort, commitment and money," writes the "Venusberg Group". To date "too many of Europe's leaders seem only willing to follow public opinion, rather than lead it." Number One "Beyond 2010" is a logical sequel to previous strategy papers by the Bertelsmann Foundation and Werner Weidenfeld, the political scientist, who only recently left the Foundation. For years, these papers have outlined the rise of the European Union: "The European superpower," as it was termed already in May 2003, that "completely abandons the idea of being a civilian power and makes unlimited use of the means of international power politics."[4] Weidenfeld, under whose direction these papers were written, only recently was again declared Germany's most influential policy advisor.[5] german-foreign-policy.com documents excerpts from <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56124>"Beyond 2010". [1] see also <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/50976>Umsturz, neue Folge, <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56028>Highest Ambitions, <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/56531>Teilnehmer des Internationalen Bertelsmann Forums 2006, <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56076>Post-War Dead Weight and <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/56884>Netzwerk der Macht - Bertelsmann [2] Hier und im Folgenden: The Venusberg Group: Beyond 2010 - European Grand Strategy in a Global Age; Gütersloh, July 2007 [3] see also <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/56888>Richtungsentscheidung [4] see also <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/33300>"Downfall or ascent to world power", <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/33304>"Supermacht Europa" and <http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/56396>European Way of Life [5] Nummer Eins der Politikberatung; www.cap-lmu.de/aktuell/meldungen/2007/politikberater.php _______________ The Times Saturday 19 January 2008 All the best EU jobs are stitched up by men, complains the top woman They are the most prestigious public jobs in Europe and, according to the EU's most powerful woman official, they are being stitched up behind the scenes by a mysterious male elite to the exclusion of women. Women in business and industry will no doubt sympathise with Margot Wallström's complaint. In time-honoured fashion, the successful candidates for plum posts emerge from an unaccountable process that takes place among cabals of senior men, operating in almost masonic secrecy. Invariably the Chosen One is one of the guys. Ms Wallström, the Vice-President of the European Commission, spoke out yesterday about the clandestine horse-trading already taking place behind closed doors to decide who will fill the new high-profile positions of EU Foreign Minister and full-time President of the European Council. The names in the frame are familiar - including Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, and Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Secretary - and they are all men. Moreover, Ms Wallström, a Swede with a quaint Scandinavian fondness for openness and transparency, has spoken out because they are being chosen through the same old European back channels. She believes that women in particular and accountability in general are almost entirely absent and said that it was bringing the European Union into disrepute. With MPs poised to debate the latest EU treaty next week [?], a document that was supposed to reform its institutions but has little to say about nominations for the top jobs, her intervention is certain to cause more embarrassment to the European political Establishment. "Where does this debate really take place? I am still puzzled," said Ms Wallström, who joined the European Commission in a senior role in 1999. "It is extremely strange. All I know is that it is always men, and very rarely do you hear about female candidates. Men choose men. That is the disadvantage of this situation." Historically, this is the way that Old Europe worked. French and German diplomats came up with a candidate and he - it was always he - was foisted on the rest of the EU. Sir John Major wrote at length of his frustration about this in his autobiography when he was forced to veto a Belgian federalist as Commission President, only to have another federalist, the little-known Jacques Santer from Luxembourg, stitched up by Paris and Berlin a few weeks later. In recent years the inner circle of power widened a little and Britain under Mr Blair muscled in but Ms Wallström believes that faits accomplis by the most powerful countries are no longer acceptable in an EU that has grown to 27 members. "We have to have more names," she said. "Very rarely do you hear of any female candidates being nominated. "Everything that takes place like this behind the scenes or behind closed doors is not good for Europe." Mr Blair has been openly nominated by President Sarkozy of France but in recent days there has been much speculation in Brussels that this was simply a smokescreen to smuggle in his preferred candidate, said to be Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, an arch-federalist considered unacceptable by Britain. The conspiracy theory has it that Mr Sarkozy will withdraw support for Mr Blair, who is widely considred unacceptable because Britain did not join the euro, and then expect British support for his replacement candidate. It is the kind of byzantine game that Ms Wallström objects to. The 53-year-old Swede is in many ways an outsider herself, despite her senior position as deputy to José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission. She is sometimes sneered at by Brussels intellectuals for her lack of university education and her plain-speaking. But she is admired in her native Sweden, where she rose quickly because of her common touch to become Health Secretary and Culture Secretary in the centre-left Government. Europe's political elite could argue that there are no high-calibre women candidates for the new jobs being created next year by the EU Reform Treaty. But Mary Robinson, the Irish President, could be considered for President of the European Council, as could Tarja Halonen, the respected Finnish President; candidates for the post of EU foreign minister could include Emma Bonino, the former EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection who is now Italy's Trade Minister. Ms Wallström's complaints about the glass ceiling in Brussels follow concern about the underrepresentation of women at senior levels of the euro-crat bureaucracy. Only two of 26 Presidents of the European Parliament have been women and none of the 11 European Commission Presidents. One of Ms Wallström's main roles is to better communicate the work of the EU. She also claimed yesterday that the European Council had prepared a readable version of the jargon-filled Reform Treaty but was refusing her requests to publish it until after ratification. Critics of the treaty believe that this "consolidated" version is being sat on because it looks too much like the EU Constitution, which was supposed to have been ditched and upon which the Government promised a referendum. Balanced books? "Equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work and pay" Article 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Since 1995 the European Union has set annual targets for the appointment of women to all top-grade posts, with almost a quarter of the 6,000 such jobs now filled by women ==13% of the European Union's directors were women in 2004 ==17% of all middle managers were women - up from 10 per cent a decade earlier Source: European Union |