ABSTRACT
The European Union member countries had long-established mechanisms
in the United Nations in New York through which to discuss and, as far as
possible, harmonise their policies towards issues under consideration in the
General Assembly and the Security Council. (This may seem surprising at a
time when the members have been at loggerheads about how to proceed
over the crisis in Iraq.) Although the French and British protected their
freedom to act on their own account, as Permanent Members possessing the
veto, they had committed themselves to consult with, although not be bound by, the others. These arrangements were usually discussed in the
context of the issues that concerned the Common Foreign and Security
Policy (CFSP) of the EU; the extent to which they applied on economic and
social matters was rarely addressed directly. In consequence, the arrange-
ments for coordinating the policies of the EU actors, member states and
Commission, and Presidency/Troika in this area were often much weaker
than expected. They illustrate the incapacity of the EU in an area in which,
with a little effort, they could be much stronger. This discussion is about the capacity of the EU to organise its soft power
(to use the distinction between hard and soft power used by Joseph Nye).2
The thrust of the argument can be baldly stated: if the EU got it right in the
various multilateral forums in which it was involved – and it could – it
would be well placed to balance the hard power of the USA effectively. The
discussion challenges some of the assumptions made about the quality of
hard and soft power. It is, as will be seen, also a challenge to the assertion
of American neoconservative Robert Kagan that Europe was from Venus and the USA from Mars.
