Transatlantic voices

Franziska Brantner is the foreign policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the European Parliament.

The EU's relations with Libya are nothing to be proud of. Up to mid-February 2011 the EU cooperated with Moammar Gadhafi on migration control and business interests. Once the opposition to Gadhafi took to the streets, the responses of the 27 member states were reluctant and divided. It proved once more: If the 27 are split, there is no such thing as a common foreign policy, let alone a common security policy. Compared to that, the European Parliament, however, has been more critical in the past and more forthcoming in the present.

Last summer, EU Commissioners Stefan Fuele and Cecilia Malmstroem went to Tripolis to sign a so called cooperation agenda on migration control with the Libyan authorities, just after Gadhafi had decided to kick the United Nations Refugee Program (UNHCR) out of the country, as it had become too critical and difficult to work with. The EU still pledged 50 million euro for this cooperation, to be spent on border surveillance equipment and training as well as other things.

I had vehemently protested this cooperation from the beginning as Libya is not a signatory to the Geneva conventions and did and does not even have any established asylum procedure, nor does it respect basic human rights standards in its treatment of refugees. In addition, I strongly opposed the provision of surveillance equipment, which can not only be used to spot refugees along the border, but can easily be misused for other purposes.

Negotiating with Libya

But the Commission/External Action Service approved the deal - under heavy pressure from member states. Picture this: The then Libyan minister for European affairs (now Foreign minister) was in Brussels from February 14 to 16 to fine tune the cooperation deal. Eventually, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called this deal off a week later, when the situation in Libya had deteriorated to a degree that the agreement was really no longer tenable.

What's more, the EU commission since 2008 had also been negotiating a new framework agreement with Libya that would include a readmission agreement for refugees on behalf of the member states. The European Parliament lead by Ana Gomes also took a more critical stance on these negotiations, arguing that such an agreement could only be contemplated after the ratification of the Geneva conventions and an improvement of the human rights situation in Libya.

Even once it was apparent that calls on Gadhafi to refrain from violence against his own people would not suffice, the UN Security Council was quicker to slap sanctions against the regime than the European Union. After all, there is no Italian or Maltese veto in the UN Security Council. Unfortunately, the EU did not manage to develop a common agenda on Libya at the UN.

Divided we fail

As a result, the EU members on the Security Council did not act jointly. Blaming one single country for this failure would be too easy: Certainly Nicholas Sarkozy's forceful and uncoordinated approach resulted more in offending his colleagues than in helping to develop a common position. However, Guido Westerwelle's stance - being skeptical on the use of military force without helping to find alternative solutions or define a mandate that would take address his concerns was equally unproductive.

These are just some of the many - domestically motivated - actions leading to a divided EU and a difficult situation for the High Representative and Vice President Ashton. Meanwhile, Ashton played her usual role as a moderator of member state positions, rather than that of agenda setter or initiator.

To be sure, her position as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy calls for moderating among member states. But her position as Vice President of the Commission would also allow her to be more proactive. This is the delicacy of the double-hatting as foreseen in the Lisbon treaty: How daring do we want Ashton to be? I have been among those calling for her to be more proactive, defining agendas and actions as well as proposing them to member states so as to have them work on her proposals rather than only introducing their own.

In addition, the European Parliament tried to set the agenda early on with a rather forceful resolution on Libya by calling for a UN mandated no fly zone. Also, upon invitation by the Liberal group in the Parliament, the representatives of Libya's Interim Council travelled first to the European Parliament before visiting the capitals of member states'.

End of ESDP

Then after the UN Security Council resolution 1973 passed a debate ensued about who should do what: NATO or the EU. While it was clear that it would be militarily unfeasible for the EU to implement the no-fly zone, the main question for some time was a role for the EU in enforcing the arms embargo, which some argued the EU could carry out.

For a few days, the debate about EU or NATO, with France favoring the EU and others NATO, sort of led to a planning being put on hold in both institutions. With the decision taken in favor of NATO, the million dollar question in the room was: Is this the end of European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP)?

Therefore at least one reason for establishing a humanitarian ESDP mission - possibly with a military component - was to show that ESDP is still alive. However, even now it remains unclear if the UN office for humanitarian affairs even wants military interventions for Misrata or other parts of Libya or to what extent this would lead to the so called EU battle groups getting involved in combat on the ground.

By the way, if it seems odd that Germany which refused to participate in the enforcement of the arms embargo enforcement is now ready to send ground troops, perhaps it is useful to know that the German part of the current Dutch led EU battle group consists of mainly logistical and headquarter elements and no actual fighting forces.

So my answer to the question where the European Union stands on Libya is this: In post-crisis management it is missing in action. In pre-crisis planning it was on the wrong track.

Editor: Michael Knigge