How the eurozone crisis undermines EU power « Neighbourhood

How the eurozone crisis undermines EU power « Neighbourhood

How the eurozone crisis undermines EU power

It is clear that the Euro-crisis has and will have huge implications for EU foreign policy. A lot depends on what happens in the next months – the solution to the Greek or Italian problems, the contours of a multi-speed Europe and how messy a solution or non-solution to the euro-crisis will be. Things can get worse, or they can get better. But it is already possible to take a snapshot of the foreign policy implications of the Eurozone crisis. The picture contains a push to the background of all foreign policy issues, followed by fewer foreign policy resources and a coma for EU soft power, made worse by the fact that the EU understanding of power is so unhedged.

1) Less time for foreign policy

When your house is burning, this is a bad time to be chatting or engaging neighbours. When political leaders and administrations are engaged full time in managing the economy – saving the Euro, reducing public spending or stemming the tide of unemployment, foreign policy is pushed even more to the bottom of the list of priorities. Leaders simply have less time and desire to understand or strategise about how to react to foreign policy events – be it Putin’s return to the presidency, the latest turn in the political mess of Egypt, Tunisia or Ukraine. And foreign policy issues which sometimes need not just competent diplomatic management, but also high-level political drivers, is relegated to working level – where many issues cannot be solved. Foreign policy matters are then seen like issues that need to be put aside, postponed, thrown under the carpet and get out of the way until more urgent problems are solved.