ABSTRACT
The European Security Strategy (ESS) often manages to be simultaneously resonant and opaque, but rarely more so than in its call for ‘an international order based on effective multilateralism’ (European Council 2003a: 10). The formula was in vogue as A Secure Europe in a Better World was in preparation in 2003, and it was not the monopoly of any one party in the debates following the Iraq war. In an August communication on the ‘choice of multilateralism’, the European Commission cautioned that ‘an active commitment to an effective multilateralism means more than rhetorical professions of faith’ (European Commission 2003c). In October, George Bush and Tony Blair made a joint declaration that their policies were driven by just such a commitment: ‘effective multilateralism, and neither unilateralism nor international paralysis, will guide our approach’ (Blair and Bush 2003).
