The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor The ASEAN Regional Forum and the European Union as a Security System and a Security Actor Alfredo C. Robles, Jr.* East Asia poses specific – perhaps unique – challenges to the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In East Asia, the possibility of limited conflicts involving one or more major powers remains latent. As the German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs pointed out when presenting Germany’s most recent Policy on Asia,‘some of the most dangerous centres of conflict ( Konfliktherde ) are to be found in Asia’ (quoted in Hansen[2001:1]). In contrast, in Latin America, the guerrilla wars of the 1980s, in which one side was supported by the United States and the other (allegedly) by the USSR and its surrogates, have long since given way to more or less successful efforts at national reconstruction and reconciliation. Africa has not yet been delivered of the scourges of civil war, genocide and inter-state conflicts, but the Africans are more susceptible to pressure, both economic and military, from the European powers, particularly former colonial powers. Conceptualizing a European contribution to East Asian security is more difficult in the post-Cold War period than it was in the 1970s and the 1980s, when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Community (EC) were united by their condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea. ASEAN and the EC successfully led the anti-Soviet and anti-Vietnam coalitions at the United Nations. At the time, the Europeans’ interests in Southeast Asia, so Harris and Bridges assert, were to ensure that no hostile power controlled the region to the Europeans’ disadvantage or to exclude them from the region; to reduce great power friction that might lead to generalized war; and to guarantee the safety of strategic waterways(1983:45). Concrete European contribution to security took the form of acceptance of Indochinese refugees, of which about one-seventh settled in Europe(Chiang, 1988:116). Recent scholarly debates on the European Union(EU) as an actor(the EU’s ‘actorness’) may help us to think through the factors that have conditioned the EU’s modest participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum(ARF) in the first decade of the latter’s existence. Taking into account the need to solve the‘agent-structure problem’(Wendt, 1987), Bretherton and Vogler explain the development of the EU’s external role in terms of cyclical relationships between agency and structure. Agency is represented by innovative political actors that create internal EU capabilities, through policy instruments and decision-making processes(Bretherton and Vogler, 1999:31). However, their definition of structure, whether domestic or international, is less satisfactory. They do realize that structures offer opportunities and impose constraints on * Professor Dr. Alfredo C. Robles, Jr. is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, De La Salle University, the Philippines. 19

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 actors, a formulation that relies on Anthony preventive diplomacy and conflict Giddens’ famous definition of structure. Yet resolution as areas of dialogue with ASEAN at the same time they adopt Wendt’s(1992) (EU Doc. COM(96)314:11). Godemont et limited notion of structure, defined simply al. believed that dialogue could be carried as intersubjective systems of meaning out on global as well as regional issues. On (Bretherton and Vogler, 1999:31). global issues, Europe was said to have a role in creating an environment that would Understandings about the EU, its roles, make China more likely to accept the responsibilities and limitations allegedly Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; Europe form part of the intersubjective could share its experience with East Asian international structure, while the EU states that wished to increase their role in participates in the processes of peacekeeping; Europe and Asia could constructing these intersubjective discuss ways to advance conventional arms structures. There is very little sense of a control; they could share their experience structure consisting of more or less stable in dealing with Russia; they could consult social relations, rooted in material with each other about the United States conditions, that generate opportunities and and its global role, and lastly – just to make constraints for human agency; nor is there sure that nothing was left out – they could any notion of contradiction between discuss general concepts of security(see structures or between structures and also Mahncke, 1997). For Gerald Segal, intersubjective ideas(Robles, forthcoming). Europe could help Asia to define new international roles for Asia(Segal, The various ingenious and, at times, 1997:129). As regards regional issues, contradictory, attempts to define a Godemont et al. pointed out that the European role in East Asian security Europeans provided support for the Korean demonstrate the limitations of an approach Peninsula Energy Development that is situated solely at the level of ideas Organization(KEDO); could share their and understandings – in short, experience on the formulation and intersubjective knowledge – without paying operation of nuclear free zones, handling attention to underlying material conditions of ethnic conflict and ensuring maritime that determine the chances of translating security; and could cooperate with Asia in these ideas and understandings into finding ways of integrating China into the practice. At the beginning of the 1990s, international order(Godemont et al., several German scholars expressed the view 1995). The result resembles a‘laundry list’, that in the area of security, the Europeans a mass of ideas without any clear priorities, no longer had any regional interests in Asia, as one European expert on Asian security with the exception of France’s controversial admitted(Segal, 1997:134). The approach colonial and nuclear policies in the South fails to address the question of whether the Pacific(Eschborn, Gardill and Mols, EU, assuming that it does have an interest 1992:160). In the second half of the in East Asian security, has the capacity to decade, with the growing European pursue these interests, given the structural awareness of rapid economic growth in context of action in Europe as well as in East Asia that had begun in the mid-1980s, East Asia. Europeans writing on the subject, and even Asians, started to assert that Europe had a This is not to say that these scholars are ‘strong and increasing stake in East Asian unaware of the structural constraints that security’(Godemont et al., 1995:1). The can and do limit the EU’s margin of EU identified maritime security, manoeuvre in fashioning a security role for denuclearization, the fight against drugs, itself in East Asia. First, at the time of the 20

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor launch of the Asia-Europe Meeting(1996), the Europeans were preoccupied with the implementation of the CFSP; and second, particular features of East Asian security shaped the nature of possible cooperation with the EU(Godemont et al., 1995:2-3). This paper concentrates on the structure of relations within the EU that creates a particular type of security system and a particular type of security actor. It argues that the EU as a security system will, by its very nature, be likely to contribute little to East Asian security, except perhaps as a model. As a security actor, the EU has recognized that its primary interests outside Europe lie in the developing countries in its periphery. This priority has not prevented it, on at least two occasions, from acting in East Asia in ways that highlight the structural weakness of the ARF. Since September 11, the fight against terrorism has altered the structural context of the ARF, possibly opening up space for security cooperation between Europe and East Asia. I. The EU as a Security System and East Asia The EU is often judged and dismissed as a that could be considered‘civilized’ in the security actor on the basis of its failure to West and that allowed them to carry over create an army or to forge an alliance that their agreements with the EU. For similar could replace NATO. Notwithstanding reasons, the Hungarians downplay the issue these apparent failures, Ole Waever, one of ethnic minorities in their country of the leading European experts on (Waever, 2000:261-62). This peculiar European security, asserts that the EU is mechanism of generating security on the ‘the main pillar of stability in Europe’ continent demands that the EU reconcile (Waever, 2000). enlargement and deepening. Without the prospect of membership, the CEEC would The argument begins from the observation have no incentive to behave in ways that that the end of the Cold War did not lead ‘desecuritize’ conflicts. Without deepening, to the dissolution of the EU, nor did it the candidate states would not be able to trigger balancing behaviour on the part of conceive of the EU as the organizing factor the major European powers. In Waever’s in their national future(Waever, 2000:262). analysis, the EU, as an order marked by overlapping and unsettled authorities, This form of security provision cannot be generates mechanisms that pre-empt most equated with collective security in that it security problems in Europe. It is this does not organize state reaction to ability that justifies the analysis of the EU aggression; or with collective defence, as a security system. The primary role of because it is not directed against outsiders. the EU is to keep the core intact, Waever calls this security system‘regional specifically the potential rivals for power unipolarity’,‘quasi-empire’, or integration on the continent, France and Germany. in concentric circles. Whatever its name, Second, the EU exercises a‘silent it makes the EU the most important disciplining power’ on its‘Near Abroad’ – security organization on the Continent the Central and East European countries (Waever, 2000:265). This model of a (CEEC) that are candidates for security system, by definition, cannot membership. For example, in the early function vis-à-vis states that have no 1990s, both the Czechs and the Slovaks prospect of membership in the EU. Therein sought to ensure that the dissolution of lies the difference between the CEEC and Czechoslovakia was carried out in a way the states of North Africa, even if in reality 21

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 the latter pose for the EU many of the same problems and threats as the former (Waever, 2000:264). What are the implications of the existence of a European security system for East Asia? In the past, this question was often reformulated as follows: Can the European security system be a model for East Asia (e.g. Krause and Umbach, 1998). The nearunanimous response of Asians and European specialists of Asia has been negative(e.g. Dosch, 1998; cf. Möller, 1996:354). If this were the case, then there would be very little justification for European participation in the ARF, as European input would, by definition, be irrelevant. Challenging the dominant view, the German scholar, Kay Möller, has ventured the hypothesis that the differences between the European and Asian context can be traced to a time lag rather than to essential cultural differences between Europeans and Asians(Möller, 1996:367), but this argument has received little attention in East Asia. From a different angle, the existence of a European security system, though geographically confined, can be construed as having a beneficial effect on East Asian security. In the view of the late Gerald Segal, if the Europeans assumed a greater share of the burden of ensuring security in Europe, American resources would be freed, enabling the United States to bear more burdens in Asia(Segal, 1997:131). Even assuming that such a causal linkage exists between the European security system and East Asian security, one should beware of relying on it as the basis for a European security role in East Asia. This approach would force one to consider any setback in the evolution of a European security system and/or United States opposition to any such security system as threats to East Asian security. At any rate, the continued development of the European security system could hardly be motivated by the desire to enable the United States to divert resources from Europe to Asia. Finally, this conception seems to entail a contradiction: Europe can make a contribution to East Asian security by concentrating on European security. One is tempted to say that in this view, the European presence in the East Asian security sphere would manifest itself in the form of absence. The question that follows is whether the institutionalization of European Political Cooperation(EPC) in the form of the CFSP, introduced by the Treaty of the European Union(the TEU, or Maastricht Treaty), has conferred on the EU the capacity to become a security actor in East Asia. II. The EU as a Security Actor and the ARF, 1994-2000 The EU’s capacity as a security actor is conditioned by the CFSP’s goals, which are broad enough to cover East Asia, and its regional priorities and resources, which lead the EU to lay stress on other regions in the developing world. Nevertheless, the EU has been able to play a certain role in two security issues to whose resolution the ARF made only a marginal contribution, namely KEDO and East Timor. a. The CFSP’s Objectives, Regional and Security Priorities, and Instruments As is well known, the CFSP’s overall laid down in the Maastricht Treaty are quite objective is to assert a European identity ambitious: to safeguard the EU’s common on the international scene. The objectives values, fundamental interests and 22

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor independence; to strengthen the security of the EU and its member states; to preserve peace and strengthen international security; and to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms(TEU, Title V, Art. 6.1, para. 2). While no geographic restrictions are attached to the realization of these objectives, the Lisbon European Council 1 (1992) identified factors that would enable the EU to determine its common interest and that would be taken into account when defining issues and areas for joint action: geographic proximity, important political interests in political and economic stability, and threats to EU security interests. The Lisbon Council also identified several areas where joint action in relation to individual countries or groups of countries appeared to be particularly beneficial, at least initially: Central and Eastern Europe, especially the ex-USSR and the former Yugoslavia, the Maghreb(North Africa) and the Middle East. In the future, the areas of common interest requiring joint action would be North-South relations, relations with the United States, Japan and Canada, and the coordination of action in international organizations and conferences (McGoldrick, 1997:154-55). The TEU provisions on security envisage the eventual formulation of a common defence policy, which in turn might lead to a common defence(TEU, Art. J.4, para. 1). One of the main concerns of several EU member states was to preserve the transatlantic relationship, hence the provision that the EU’s policy would‘respect the obligations of certain member States under the North Atlantic Treaty’(Art. J.4, para. 4). Other European Councils have identified specific areas or issues in the security field suitable for joint action. A 1991 Maastricht‘Declaration on Areas which could be the subject of Joint Action’ specified four security areas in which the member states have important common interests: the OSCE(Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), disarmament and arms control in Europe, nuclear non-proliferation and the economic aspects of security. An Extraordinary European Council in 1992 envisaged joint action on the promotion of peace and stability in Europe, on election observation in Russia, and on the Middle East, South Africa and the former Yugoslavia. The 1993 European Council meeting in Brussels defined the general objectives of European security as the EU’s territorial integrity, political independence, democratic character and economic stability as well as the stability of neighbouring regions (McGoldrick, 1997:155-56). From this cursory survey, we may conclude that while certain issues, for example, nuclear non-proliferation, have Asian dimensions, East Asia as such was not a priority region for the CFSP. Apart from Central and Eastern Europe(including Russia), the regions of greatest concern to the EU are those that are geographically closest to it: the Maghreb(North Africa) and the Middle East. The main CFSP instruments provided for in the Maastricht Treaty are systematic cooperation that may lead to the definition of a common position(Art. J.1,para. 3 and J.2, para. 1), and joint action in areas where the member states have important interests in common(Art. J.3). As of 2003, most of the countries to which the EU applied negative measures, such as embargoes, the prohibition of flights and the freezing of funds and other financial resources, were in Africa(Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Liberia, 1. The European Council comprises the heads of state or government of the EU member states. It meets at least twice a year. 23

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zimbabwe). Other countries subject to negative measures were two European countries(Belarus and the former Yugoslavia) and four Asian countries (Afghanistan, Burma, Indonesia and Iraq) (Conseil de l’Union européenne, 2003). This is not the place to survey the CFSP’s record in the first decade of its existence, the criticisms of its failures in Yugoslavia and Kosovo being well-known already. Our focus here will be the institutional difficulties faced by the CFSP, difficulties that can be traced in part to the EU’s pillar structure. The EC is the first pillar, the CFSP the second, and Justice and Home Affairs(JHA) the third pillar. Since the first is supranational, while the other two are intergovernmental, this creates problems of coordination between economic policy (under the Commission) and foreign policy (under the CFSP) and between member states and the EU. Despite the differentiation into pillars, the CFSP is financed through the EC budget and must therefore comply with the EC’s financial rules. Financing by member states remains possible, but only in exceptional circumstances. Given these structural constraints, it is perhaps not so surprising that the challenge of identifying specific EU security interests in East Asia has proved to be so daunting. When such interests are identified, a laundry list tends to be the outcome. In the absence of adequate financing, the primary means of pursuing these interests is dialogue. The EU has been much more reluctant to use sanctions vis-à-vis Asia than other regions(Hansen, 2001). In at least two instances, though, the EU has played a not insignificant role in two issue areas within the ARF’s geographic scope. b. The EU in East Asia: KEDO and East Timor The process leading to the establishment States, South Korea and Japan. Under the of KEDO illustrates the potential as well agreement, the North Korean reactors as the limits of both the ARF and the EU’s would be replaced by two Light Water contributions to it. Reactors(LWR) for electricity, which would be safer from nuclear accidents and more In the first case, the immediate threat to difficult to use in the production of East Asian security came from North weapons-grade plutonium. They would be Korea’s possession of graphite-moderated under monitoring, supervision and control nuclear reactors capable of producing by the International Atomic Energy Agency weapons-grade plutonium suitable for (IAEA). In return, the United States nuclear weapons, which could threaten not undertook to supply 500,000 tons of heavy just South Korea but also Japan. North oil; provide formal assurances against the Korea used this threat as a bargaining chip threat or use of nuclear weapons by the in order to obtain economic and other United States; and reduce barriers to trade, assistance from the United States and the investment and communication(Lim, West. Its goal is to prop up its economy, 1999:22-23). which was hard hit by the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The United States and North The ARF followed the situation on the Korea signed a Framework Agreement on Korean Peninsula almost from the very 21 October 1994 and pursued negotiations start. However, as the ARF is a purely that culminated in the establishment of consultative forum, its‘action’ was limited KEDO on 9 March 1995 by the United to welcoming the talks between North 24

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor Korea and the United States to implement the Agreed Framework of 21 October 1994 (ARF, 1994:para. 5), urging the resumption of dialogue between North and South Korea, recognizing the importance of the KEDO(2nd ARF, 1995:para. 11) and urging other ARF participants to consider giving further financial and political support to KEDO(ARF, 1996:para. 7[v]). The EU’s decision to accede to the KEDO Agreement was not so much a result of the ARF’s urging as a response to Japan’s demand that the EU participate in KEDO. This would be the quid pro quo for Japanese support for reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia. By a Joint Action of 5 March 1996, the EU expressed its desire to co-finance the KEDO; and on 30 July 1997 the Accession Agreement was signed, under which the EU would contribute ECU 15 million a year for five years. As Paul Lim puts it,‘EU participation in KEDO has been hailed as[an expression of] EU concern for the peace and stability of East Asia, nuclear safety, and nuclear nonproliferation’(Lim, 1999:22). EU participation in KEDO is all the more significant because of the structural differences between the security situation in Northeast Asia and that in Southeast Asia. War is now not very likely to occur among the members states of ASEAN, whereas this danger looms large in Northeast Asia. Yet the institutional weakness of ASEAN, which launched the ARF and claims to be ARF’s driving force, has limited its financial contribution to the KEDO. On the other hand, the EU possesses its own financial resources and has a long tradition of active participation in its own right, i.e. separately from its member states, in international organizations, whether economic, technical or humanitarian. The following table illustrates the contrast between ASEAN and the EU. Total Financial Support by Country to KEDO, March 1995 to December 2001(US$) Country/Organization Total Percentage Total Republic of Korea United States Japan Europe: EAEA(EURATOM) Italy Germany United Kingdom Netherlands Finland France Greece Subtotal Europe ASEAN: Singapore Indonesia Brunei Malaysia Thailand Philippines Subtotal ASEAN 1,376,905,507 604,542,477 310,886,000 292,603,930 82,118,897 1,821,429 1,011,485 1,000,000 790,192 645,593 503,778 25,000 87,916,374 1,600,000 974,907 423,690 300,000 300,000 150,000 3,748,597 43.91 22.58 21.25 5.96 0.13 0.07 0.07 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.001 6.39 0.12 0.07 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.27 Source: KEDO Annual Report , Appendix I 25

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 It was to be expected that the Republic of approve the agreement on condition that Korea, the United States and Japan were the Council and the Commission sign an to be KEDO’s primary contributors. The Inter-institutional Agreement on all nuclear three accounted for 87.74% of total matters under EURATOM and consult with financial support to KEDO from 1995 to the European Parliament. The Commission 2001. Among the other contributors, which and the Council only consented to an included non-EU European countries(the exchange of letters giving the Parliament a Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Poland consultative role in all international nuclear and Switzerland), ASEAN members, Latin energy agreements, provided that these American countries(Argentina, Chile and agreements were‘of particular significance’. Mexico), Australia, Canada, New Zealand This last condition implied that the and Oman, the EU and its member states Commission could choose not to inform provided the largest share(over 6% of the the Parliament about any agreement that total for the period), most of which came did not meet this criterion. Consequently from the European Atomic Energy Agency the Parliament reserved the right to block (EURATOM). ASEAN’s six original KEDO contributions in the future(Lim, member states all made contributions, 1999:23-24). For the EU’s partners and representing roughly a quarter of 1% of outside observers it is not easy to grasp the total. ASEAN as an organization the import of these intra-EU disputes, which distinct from its members made no can only undermine EU credibility and contribution at all. It goes without saying effectiveness as a partner. that the extent of financial participation conditions the influence of each group in If the ARF’s role in KEDO did not go decision-making within KEDO, affording beyond that of encouragement, its role in the EU greater possibilities than those open the run-up to the independence of East to ASEAN. Timor was even more ineffectual. Within the EU, the appropriate policy to adopt That said, EU participation in KEDO also became a matter of controversy, but illustrates the obstacles to a more active whatever positive contribution the EU EU CFSP. In order to meet the EU’s made to East Timorese independence was financial obligations, the European achieved in spite of, and not because of, Commission took ECU 5 million from the the ARF. CFSP budget and an additional ECU 10 million from the budget for nonEast Timor, which Indonesia had invaded government organizations(NGOs), a in 1975 and occupied for more than two circumstance that prompts the suspicion decades, only became a thorn in ASEANthat the contingency had not been EU relations in the early 1990s, after adequately provided for. When the Portugal, the former colonial power, had European Parliament discovered this, it become an EU member and the EU itself sought to delay payments for 1997 and decided to place greater emphasis on 1998. The Parliament was unhappy at not human rights, democracy and the rule of having been consulted, but the law in its relations with third states(the Commission maintained that the following is summarized from Robles, contribution to KEDO was within the forthcoming). Despite Portugal’s veto on scope of the EURATOM Treaty Article the signing of a new ASEAN-EU 101, which did not require consultation agreement, European states which were with the Parliament. Faced with a fait supplying arms to Indonesia sought to accompli , i.e. EU accession to the KEDO placate the latter. It was not until the Agreement, the Parliament agreed to Suharto regime had fallen in 1998 that 26

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor Portugal and Indonesia were able to reach covered contracts entered into before the an agreement(5 May 1999) to organize a embargo, as well as a ban on the supply of referendum on autonomy or independence. equipment that might be used for internal The Commission then proposed assistance repression or terrorism. Bilateral military worth 1 million Euros for monitoring the cooperation between Indonesia and EU referendum, in addition to a long-term aid member states was also suspended. programme of 15-20 million Euros. The European Parliament requested that a UN Regardless of the way we assess the police force be deployed immediately in effectiveness of the EU’s actions, they East Timor, instead of entrusting to contrast sharply with the ARF’s inability Indonesia responsibility for maintaining to serve as a forum for discussion of the peace and order during the referendum. massacres in East Timor. Obviously Regrettably this call was not heeded. The between 1994 and 1998 no reference to it EU, for its part, sent an observer mission, appeared in the statements of the ARF which was impressed by the East Timorese Chairmen. It was only in the summary population’s determination to vote in the report of the November 1999 and April face of intimidation by pro-Indonesian 2000 meetings of the ARF’s Intersessional militias. The Observer Mission also called Support Group on Confidence Building for a rapid decision on the sending of a Measures that a first, timid reference to peace-keeping force. The massacres and East Timor was made. Even so, most forced resettlement that had compelled participants were still very cautious; as the 250,000 East Timorese to flee to the statement puts it,‘the participants noted mountains and 200,000 others to seek that some members mentioned in their refuge in West Timor prompted several statements the latest developments in East members of the European Parliament to Timor and welcomed the positive denounce the‘obvious and premeditated developments that have taken place’(ISG will of the Indonesian authorities to CBM:1999-2000, para. 7). At the seventh embark on ethnic cleansing’; they called ARF, participants were finally bold enough on the Commission and the Council to to welcome the positive trends that had freeze all forms of cooperation with taken place there, particularly the Indonesia, and on the EU and the UN to cooperation between Indonesia and the act to prevent East Timor from becoming UN, and‘underscored the need for the Kosovo of Asia. Finland, which at the continued international attention to and time held the EU Presidency, urged support for the reconstruction, Indonesia to end the violence and to request rehabilitation and nation building of East that the UN Security Council authorize an Timor’(ARF, 2000:§18). Curiously, the armed presence. NGOs and trade unions ARF participants deplored the death of a joined in the appeal to the EU to decide in UN Peace Keeper but not that of several favour of sending a peace-keeping force. hundred thousand East Timorese during The major powers, negotiating at the UN, two decades of Indonesian occupation. refused to do so in deference to Indonesia (Cahin, 2000:144-48). But the EU was The ARF participants’ caution can be unable to turn a deaf ear to demands for explained by the insistence of many of them action from European public opinion. In on the principle of non intervention and mid-September 1999, the Council of the by the desire to defer to the occupying EU imposed sanctions on Indonesia in the power, Indonesia, which sees itself as form of a ban, until 17 January 2000, on ASEAN’s de facto leader. Nevertheless, this the export of arms, munitions and military caution belies the claim made that the ARF equipment to Indonesia, which also participants‘have become more 27

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 comfortable with each other through frequent interactions in the various ARF fora. Such enhanced comfort levels have enabled ARF participants to exchange views frankly on issues of common concern, thereby encouraging greater transparency and mutual understanding’(ARF, 1999:para. 4). It is possible to argue that the ARF’s passiveness respected a tacit division of labour between the ARF and the UN, which had sponsored the IndonesianPortuguese agreement and had brokered international efforts to set up an Observer Mission. This argument of a division of labour cannot be pushed too far, as it would call into question ARF efforts to discuss ratification and implementation of multilateral arms control treaties of which the UN Secretary General is a depositary. Interestingly enough, individual Indonesian scholars are now willing to admit that domestic problems may also become regional problems and that non intervention as a principle is passé. Jusuf Wanandi concedes, with the benefit of hindsight, that ASEAN’s more active and immediate engagement could have prevented the bloodshed(Wanandi, 2001:30). In brief, while the EU’s contribution to the ARF may have been modest, KEDO and East Timor lead us to believe that the EU is also capable of playing a role in East Asian security without having to rely on the ARF. Is it possible that the further development of the CFSP, particularly in the form of the European Security and Defence Policy(ESDP), and the new prominence of the fight against terrorism will enhance cooperation between the EU and East Asia, if not the ARF? III. The EU as a Security Actor: The ESDP, the Fight against Terrorism and the ARF(2000/01-) Even with the ESDP it is quite likely that the EU will continue to concentrate on relations with the developing countries in its periphery. But the international fight against terrorism is compatible with changes in the conceptualization of security occurring in Europe, and may thus become an area for concrete security cooperation between Europe and East Asia. a. The ESDP as an Instrument of Crisis Management and Prevention The reform of the CFSP is an ongoing including peace making – into the EU process. The Amsterdam Treaty, which (Dehousse, 1998:534-37). The Cologne entered into force in 1998, introduced European Council(December 1999) several innovations, notably the declared the EU’s intention to provide itself appointment of a High Representative and with‘the capacity for autonomous action, special representatives for special issues; backed up by credible military forces and the introduction of potential qualified the means to decide to use them’. A Political majority voting, which can be blocked by and Security Committee(PSC) and the a potential veto; the shift towards a core of an EU military staff were set up to division of labour between NATO and the be operational in 2001. A Rapid Reaction Western European Union(WEU); and the Force(RRF) was to be in place by 2003. It integration of Petersberg Missions – would be capable of deployment within 60 humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacedays, sustainable in the field for one year 28 keeping tasks and crisis management, and able to carry out the Petersberg Missions.

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor The 2000 Nice Treaty seems to signal a legitimacy and transparency and allaying new phase in the CFSP’s evolution, through the neutral members’ suspicions regarding the endorsement of a European Security the CFSP’s‘militarization’(Biscop, and Defence Policy. The name, though, 2002a:4-5). The divisions among member may be misleading. To be sure, all but one states over NATO’s role in European of the references to the WEU were removed defence largely explain the somewhat from the TEU, implying that the EU would surprising absence of a strategic concept. henceforth be directly responsible for Rather than not make any progress at all, framing the CFSP’s defence aspects and the EU member states decided to focus their providing access to operational capabilities. attention on the issues on which agreement That said, the ESDP’s emphasis lies, for was possible, i.e. on institution building the moment, in conflict prevention and (Biscop, 2002a:3-4). crisis management(Duke, 2001:159-60). This orientation is confirmed by the It is not impossible to discern the contours adoption at Göteborg in June 2001 of the of a strategic concept, as Biscop argues EU Programme for the Prevention of convincingly. It should come as no surprise Violent Conflicts, which declared that that it is the European periphery – Central conflict prevention is one of the main and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the objectives of EU external relations. Within Mediterranean – that appears to be the this circumscribed security area, the EU ESDP priority. At the Seville European decided that it should be able to decide Council of June 2000, the EU expressed autonomously on crisis management its willingness to undertake the operation operations; that it should have the capacity following the NATO operation in the to implement them autonomously if Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, necessary, without the use of NATO assets; which protected international monitors but that the EU will only implement from the EU and the OSCE who were operations‘where NATO as a whole is not overseeing implementation of the peace engaged’. In application of the Nice Treaty, plan there. An EU Police Mission(EUPM) institution building has proceeded apace. was also launched in 2002 in BosniaThe new Political Committee meets more Herzegovina, as a follow-up to the UN regularly than its predecessor, the PSC. The International Police Task Force(IPTF) EU Military Committee and the EU (Biscop, 2002a:7). Military Staff provide the structure for situation assessments and military direction Outside Europe, it is the developing of United States crisis management countries on the southern shores of the directions. By the time of its meeting at Mediterranean that will probably be the Laeken in December 2001, the European EU’s main partners. Unlike the CEEC, Council was able to declare that the ESDP these countries have little prospect of was‘partly operational’. membership, yet because of the existence of numerous disputes, the high degree of The vital question is whether the EU’s ability militarization and the low level of economic to act as a security actor in East Asia has integration, one cannot exclude that they been greatly enhanced by the EDSP. The will pose security risks to the EU(Biscop, underlying weakness of the ESDP, as Sven 2002b:3-4). The EU already committed Biscop points out, is the lack of a strategic itself in 1995 to a Euro-Mediterranean concept that can guide the military staff in Partnership(EMP), which, like the CSCE, preparing a typology of operations and has three baskets: a political-security conducting day-to-day policies, while at the partnership, an economic and financial same time guaranteeing democratic partnership, with a free trade area between 29

Dialogue+ Cooperation 2/2003 these countries and the EU as a long-term goal; and a partnership in social, cultural and humanitarian affairs. So far the EMP has very few concrete achievements to its credit, apart from some very low-level confidence and security-building measures, such as training seminars for diplomats (Biscop, 2002b:4). This observation prompts us to ask the following question: if the EU has been able to make only very modest progress, in eight years, in a partnership with a region that is geographically close to Europe and where its political, strategic and economic interests seem to be fairly clear-cut, is it realistic to expect the EU to aspire to a more ambitious role in East Asia? In the past, the Europeans have answered this question by admitting that Europe could not make an immediate contribution to the solution of longstanding conflicts. Rather its contribution to East Asian security would be indirect. It could, for instance, send peace-keeping troops in the framework of a UN operation(Harris and Bridges, 1983:44; Stares and Regaud, 1997-8) or put a fixed number of troops permanently at the disposal of the UN (Biscop, 2002a:8). A possible precedent may be the EU’s decision in May 2002 to deploy 1500 troops as a peace-keeping force to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is not in one of the CFSP’s or the EDSP’s priority regions. For the moment, though, there is little evidence that East Asian states are willing to call on UN peacekeeping forces, with or without a European contingent, as a means of addressing any of the disputes among East Asian states. Significant changes in the nature of the security problematic in Europe in the postCold War period may combine with the fight against terrorism after September 11 to open a new area of security cooperation between Europe and East Asia. b. The Changing Nature of the Security Problematic in Europe The collapse of the Eastern bloc on the one assumption is that unemployment and hand, and the expansion of the security marginalization may drive these groups of agenda on the other, have triggered two people to crime. At the same time, internal separate structural changes that are slowly security agencies – national police forces, blurring, if not dissolving, the distinction the police with military status, border between internal and external security(this guards, and customs police – are looking follows largely Bigo, 2000). beyond their respective borders in the fight against their internal enemies, who are Now that the external enemy – the USSR assumed to be embedded in international – has disappeared, external security crime networks. The new enemies are agencies – defence ministries and armed hooligans, migrants, asylum seekers, drug forces in individual European countries – and human traffickers, terrorists and – why have been searching for new adversaries, not – also Muslims. The result is whose existence could justify the convergence towards the same enemy(or maintenance of defence and research and enemies). For this reason, external security development(R and D) budgets. agencies are intensifying their collaboration Increasingly these agencies have looked with internal security agencies within inside their own states for the new enemies countries, at the same time as the latter and perhaps predictably, have found them are also collaborating ever more closely among immigrants, the second generation with their counterparts abroad. population and even inhabitants of inner cities or the disadvantaged suburbs. The In this context, the fight against 30

The ARF and the EU as a Security System and a Security Actor international terrorism after September 11 cannot but appear to be a suitable area for security cooperation between Europe and East Asia. This does not at all prejudice the form that cooperation should take. In other words, the ARF will not necessarily be the ideal forum for this cooperation. For many years now, the EU has been holding separate dialogues with individual Asian states, particularly China, and with ASEAN. For instance, at an EU-China summit, held in 2000, discussion was pursued on joint action against trafficking in human beings and illegal immigration (Möller, 2002:26). The Fourteenth ASEANEU Ministerial Meeting, held in Brussels in January 2003, adopted a Joint Declaration on Cooperation to Combat Terrorism(EU 5811/03[Presse 19]). The ARF’s inability to facilitate agreements could increase the attractiveness of bilateral dialogues while at the same time highlighting the importance of universal fora. The reference to the ARF in the joint declaration(para. 4) cannot hide the fact that out of seven possible measures, three would be implemented through ASEANEU cooperation. These include exchange of information, strengthening of links between EU and ASEAN law enforcement agencies, and capacity building[para. 6]. The other four measures require cooperation within a universal framework – implementation of UN Security Council resolutions, implementation of UN conventions and protocols, conclusion and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, and early entry into force of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its protocols. For the Asian side, the growing prominence of these‘new’ security threats carries with it the risk that citizens from their countries are increasingly identified with these risks. Avoiding this risk should be one of the objectives of a security dialogue with the EU. Conclusion If definition of the EU’s security interests in East Asia and specification of the EU contribution to security in that region have proven to be arduous tasks for the EU and its member states, East Asian states have not been any more successful in articulating their vision of a European role. Kay Möller goes so far as to assert that China neither wants nor expects Europe to play a role in East Asia(Möller, 2002:30). Although East Asian visions are essential, it would be hazardous to conceptualize the EU’s role as a security actor by relying solely on expectations, ideas and intersubjective knowledge of the EU and East Asian states. Attention should be paid not only to the opportunities created by new structural contexts, but also to the constraints inherent in the international context, in the nature of the EU as an institution and in the nature of East Asian regionalism. Failure to do so creates the risk that discussions between the EU and East Asia will remain at the lofty level of ‘common’ or‘shared’ interests, which are potentially infinite, without making any progress in materializing these interests. 31

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