EUROPEAN UNION'S CFSP UNRAVELS AT OSCE
The OSCE's year-end ministerial conference on December 5-6 witnessed the unraveling of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The unraveling was so far-reaching that not even the usual façade of unity could be preserved at this conference. Unity of purpose was, to be sure, maintained on democracy issues, which the EU regards as a major component of its desired CFSP. But, on the hard issues of conventional arms control and regional security in its neighborhood, the EU and its major member countries spoke with divergent voices or fell silent. If a lowest-common-denominator consensus was sought, it clearly was not reached. Britain, current holder of the EU's Presidency, was represented merely by a sub-cabinet official with marginal foreign-policy responsibility, the State Minister for Human Rights Ian Pearson. The low level of representation seems inexplicable, considering the high level of this event and Britain's role to speak on the EU's collective behalf. In that capacity, Pearson called on Russia to fulfill its 1999 Istanbul Commitments on troop withdrawal from Georgia and Moldova. The EU welcomes the start on the withdrawal from Georgia this year, he said, but it "regret[s] the continuing lack of progress on withdrawal from Moldova" and urges Russia to withdraw its forces "as soon as possible." This latter qualifier is an unfortunate carryover from the OSCE's 2003 Maastricht conference, allowing Moscow to determine what is possible and when. It gives Moscow the opportunity to claim -- as it does, at this conference included -- that the "necessary conditions are not present" and troop withdrawal is "not possible" until the Transnistria conflict is resolved on terms that suit Moscow and Tiraspol.
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