Before and after Brexit, London will be a key player and essential for the foreign and defence policy of the EU. And France and Germany have taken advantage of the rebound of the tension in Iran and Libya to make clear that will continue to view the Uk as an ally privileged after its exit from the EU (planned for January 31), with the that will keep, in the field of international relations, a contact even more closely with some community partners.
The emergence of this triumvirate post Brexit it has been displayed on Tuesday in Brussels, during a meeting on the libyan crisis organized by the High Representative of Foreign Policy of the EU, Josep Borrell. The meeting has also addressed the growing tension with Iran following the killing by US of general Qasem Soleimani, even if that crisis will be treated more extensively next Friday at an extraordinary meeting of the Foreign ministers of the EU.
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The appointment this Tuesday, which has been attended by the Foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, mark the turn toward a diplomacy community that the franco-German it is proposed to mark the passage of the European Union and the foreign aid of the United Kingdom and the cooperation of community partners more involved in the international crises that may occur. In the case of libya, has been invited to the meeting to the Foreign minister of Italy, the country most involved with the Government of Tripoli in the civil war that is bleeding, with a growing presence of foreign powers, the north african country since April of last year.
“The meeting of today is very symbolic because it announces the pattern of the future relationship with the United Kingdom in terms of foreign policy,” admits a source in the European External Action Service (EEAS), the arm is a diplomat of the European Commission led by Borrell. The presence of the british minister of Foreign affairs, Dominic Raab, in a meeting on a topic that is seemingly foreign to London as Libya confirms the intention of several european partners, and France in particular, continue to enjoy the such as british support essential in the EU on the international scene.
France and the Uk are the only two partners of the Union with nuclear weapons, with a permanent seat in the Security Council of the UN and have the two largest armies on the Continent. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has already made it clear on more than one occasion that the Brexit may not involve the rupture of a strategic relationship with London, which largely depends on the security of Europe.
“I Think that the british have an essential role to play,” said Macron, in his widely read and commented on an interview with The Economist last year. “I’ve always said that it is necessary to have the germans with us and that the british should be a partner in terms of the Europe of defence”, added the French president.
The relationship with the United Kingdom on matters of security, defence and exchange of information can be more essential than ever if the us Administration keeps its intention of neglecting a good part of Europe, and even reduce its commitment to NATO.
In response to the new attitude of Washington, Brussels has already accelerated the construction of a Europe of Defence, in large part, under the impulse of France. But Paris is aware of that will take years to achieve the strategic autonomy of NATO. And that, at least during that long period, and probably much more, the collaboration with Uk will be a strut indispensable.
The Commission, chaired since last December 1 by the German Ursula von der Leyen, also seems resigned to the rise in the foreign policy of a triumvirate that will have one of the legs on a capital outside europe from next February 1.
Von der Leyen has defined his new team as the “Commission geopolitics”, as a sign of his intentions that the community body to enhance its strategic dimension in a global scenario that is facing the disintegration of the international order that emerged after the Second World War. But Brussels is aware that its capacity to influence in matters of defence and security is very limited and must be coordinated with the great powers of the club, with France and Germany at the head, and with a external power such as the United Kingdom after his imminent departure.
the reaction to The iranian crisis has proved the difficulties of Von der Leyen to control the international agenda. The president of the Commission was one of the last european authorities in taking a position after the murder of Soleimani. Your reaction, on the 6th of January, came after the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, who spoke out on the 3rd of January, and only after that Macron, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and british prime minister, Boris Johnson, have been fixed in a joint statement the common position of the tripartite.
Von der Leyen tries to retrieve role
The president of the European Commission, and Ursula von der Leyen, has called for this Wednesday an extraordinary meeting of the agency to address the escalation of tension in Iran and Iraq after the U.S. kills with a drone in the general iranian Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad airport. The meeting allowed the High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, and the rest of the curators comment on the community reaction to the latest developments in a region vital to the strategic interests of Europe in areas such as energy supply or transport.
The extraordinary meeting will also allow Von der Leyen regain some prominence in the first great global crisis of the mandate of his Commission, which he has hung the label of “geopolitics”. The term is risky for a community agency without hardly any competences in the field of defence and with a diplomatic service, which needs the unanimity of all the capitals to take a position on the more sensitive issues of the international agenda. Borrell, according to community sources, it took almost 11 hours of phone contacts to achieve a common position on the death of Soleimani and ask to Tehran in a press release, issued on January 5, which does not contribute to the escalation of tension and will remain faithful to the nuclear agreement that limits the ability of the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium.
