POLITICS-EU: Spain’s Suffering Strengthens Europe

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Stefania Bianchi and Sanjay Suri

BRUSSELS, Mar 12 2004 (IPS) - The bomb attack in Madrid Thursday highlights weaknesses in the European Union’s troubled foreign policy, but it has also bred determination to strenghten it.

The Spanish government originally pointed the finger of blame at the Basque separatist group ETA, but evidence emerged later to suggest that it could have been the work of the terrorist network al-Qaeda.

Those fresh indications turned this from what might have been seen as a domestic problem for Spain into an international issue. And to that extent it immediately raised questions about a broad response that would never have come up in the same way over a domestic issue.

“It is still not proved that it is an authentic claim of responsibility,” a senior Spanish official said in response to a purported letter faxed from al-Qaeda to a London newspaper claiming responsibility for the attack. “We think there are more possibilities that it is ETA than any other organisation.”

To the extent that those responsible are determined to be ETA – or believed to be ETA – the Spanish government would reduce its responsibility in provoking an attack because it backed the United States strongly ahead of the invasion of Iraq last year.. But until conclusive evidence emerges, al-Qaeda will be considered by many as the likely culprit.

Response from the European Union (EU) may not await ‘smoking gun’ evidence, or an eventual court conviction. Response is likely to be guided by the principle that it is safe in the meanwhile to err on the side of caution in strengthening common security and defence.

The bombings inevitably raise questions about the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) proposed in 1999. This policy seeks to strengthen security within the EU, promote international cooperation, and safeguard fundamental interests and the independence and integrity of the Union.

But moves towards a working CFSP have been fraught with trouble. Problems have included divisions between member states, and transatlantic relations.

At the height of the Iraq crisis last year which divided the EU’s member states into two camps for and against war, there was much speculation that the EU could forget about its ambitions to develop a real CFSP. After the Madrid bombings these will not be forgotten that easily.

Questions about EU relations with the United States come to the fore again. European media reflected Friday just how important this question has now become.

“Europe is faced with greater dilemmas than America after 11 September,” the Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag wrote. If the attack was the work of Basque separatists, “then it highlights the failure of most European states to find a working compromise with their national minorities. If, however, the bombers were Islamic extremists, then current European reservations to America’s response are untenable.”

And if they are untenable, they would also be unworkable. The prime political fallout of the attacks could well be a more cohesively European strengthening of security relations with the United States.

The bombing links Spain with the United States even more firmly than did its support of the invasion of Iraq. “Did al-Qaeda want to punish Spain for its alliance with the United States and its part in the Iraq war?” the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza wrote. It was the question on everyone’s minds.

It is a question that may need a European, and not a Spanish response. And it will have a huge bearing on the future of the CFSP.

Popular perceptions suggest on the one hand that Spain was picked, rather than France or Germany, because of its support to the United States. By one argument this could further divide European nations over relations with the United States. But the French and German governments have strongly – and inevitably – condemned the attacks.

The overwhelming view is expected to be a unifying rather than divisive: that whatever the political differences, a massacre of the innocent can never be accepted.

The ‘punishment for Spain’ theory could also come too soon. Britain has not been hit yet, and if any country in Europe would be prime target for the al-Qaeda, it would be Britain. And no one can guarantee that France and Germany are for ever safe from terrorist attacks.

The indications from the array of responses are that European leaders will now move towards a policy of holding together in the face of terrorist threats, rather than figuring which country could be targeted, and which one not.

How this translates into common policy is another matter. As is the question what bearing it will have on recent proposals for a European defence apparatus that could be set up outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

That move led by France and Britain, and supported by Britain too, aimed to put European defence responses into operation only when it was agreed that NATO would not play a role. It would therefore seek to supplement NATO rather than replace it. But after March 11 in Madrid, NATO too could emerge stronger.

Dr Fraser Cameron, an expert on EU-U.S. relations at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, told the Australian television news channel ABC that cracks in the EU’s CFSP could be repaired.

The war in Iraq had showed the disarray in the EU, but he said “the common foreign and security policies have only been going a short period of time, and the trend is towards converging on most policy issues.”

Cameron said he doubted that the enlargement of the EU in May with ten new members, mostly former Soviet states of Eastern Europe, would make it difficult to advance a common foreign policy

“There’s a great deal of convergence already in the policies of most of these 10 countries joining in May and the present 15 member states,” he said. “It would be occasionally more difficult to take decisions. But by and large I think they will go with the overall consensus that has already emerged.”

There are far too many ‘ifs’ at present. But perceptions will make their own differences. And if it is perceived to be al-Qaeda, then al-Qaeda could well have strengthened, and even united, those it sees as the enemy. It could have damaged itself far more than it could damage Spain.