EU: The disagreement among member-states on the Iraq war was "the worst shambles" of the past five years for the EU in the area of foreign policy, Mr Chris Patten told the European Parliament yesterday in what was perhaps his final address as External Relations Commissioner.
He reminded parliament that a common foreign policy would not be possible if larger member-states were deeply divided.
Mr Patten asked a series of questions about the Iraq war. Was the world now safer? Was terrorism now in retreat? Had bridge-building between Islam and the West been advanced? Was the world's only superpower better respected around the world? Would citizens give their governments the benefit of the doubt next time it was argued that a pre-emptive war was essential? Whatever the answers, he said: "We are all up to our ears in Iraq, and we will all suffer if it goes badly, so we must work together." He continued: "Some allies did, indeed, accompany America to Baghdad, a venture not yet blessed with the easy and benign consequences that were famously predicted and promised.
"Liberation rapidly turned into a brutally resisted occupation. Democracy failed to roll out like an oriental carpet across the thankless deserts of the Middle East. Above all, peace in Jerusalem and Palestine was not accomplished by victory in Baghdad." Though recognising that campaign rhetoric in the US presidential election was not the same as real policymaking, he was concerned that bashing the UN or France and mocking the idea that allies have the right to an opinion seemed to be a certain way to raise a cheer from some US audiences.
On the other hand, he said Europe needed to answer the difficult question of how force could be used to back up international law, a question that was too often ducked. EU and US citizens, who faced the same problems and dangers, deserved better than "a confrontation between testosterone on one side of the Atlantic and superciliousness on the other".
Turning to Russia, he urged President Putin to fight terrorism with solutions to the Chechnya conflict rather than a hardline approach that could hit human rights. "I hope they (the solutions) are forthcoming and that the government of the Russian Federation will not conclude that the only answer to terrorism is to increase the power of the Kremlin," Mr Patten said.
Speaking later on the Growth and Stability Pact, Mr Liam Aylward, Fianna Fail MEP for Leinster, said some states were breaching the rules with impunity.
"There is a question of economic credibility at play. We all either comply with the rules or we do not. There cannot be some rules for the larger countries and other rules for smaller countries." Noting that the European Commission reprimanded the Irish Government for its economic governance "at a time when our economy was growing at nearly 10 per cent per annum", Mr Aylward said "everyone playing on the same pitch must play according to the same economic rules".
