Fernando Valenzuela: "Europe is a great power, what it lacks is political will"

The second day of the course 'Strengthening the international role of the European Union at the Conference on the Future of Europe', as part of the summer courses at El Escorial, hosted a seminar aimed at clarifying the consequences for European political action in the framework of the implementation of strategic autonomy. In this first part, the Spanish Ambassador and former Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Fernando Valenzuela, declared that, at present, "the EU is going through a truly defining moment because we are facing a situation that is going to force the EU to take measures that it has not taken before (...) These last two decades have been difficult, it has found itself in an increasingly complex and difficult international framework".

In this situation, the ambassador remarked that "the EU has played a leading role in the tremendous challenge of migration and asylum, and it continues to be a problem that has not been resolved". The EU has made a unique transition in the world from the pursuit of peace to a common monetary policy, but in terms of cooperation, the member states are more diverse and have had recent experiences that have been different, so that internal cohesion has been diminishing. Europe is in a period of dispersion. 

All this, combined with international relations with China and the United States, together with their growing international influence, makes the situation "complicated and dangerous for the EU", he adds. In view of this European crisis, Valenzuela explains that "the multilateral international system that characterises Europe is at a critical moment and is an indispensable feature for the future of the EU. Alongside this, there is a failure in the neighbourhood policy that places a material limit on the EU's normative power". However, Valenzuela points out that "we have been able to shape multilateral solutions and advances in the multilateral system".

For this reason, the concept of strategic autonomy takes on special relevance not only as a means of recovering political space vis-à-vis the United States, which is the initial debate through which strategic autonomy became known, but, as Borrell expressed, "strategic autonomy has been extended to new areas of an economic and technological nature, as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown".

From a more hopeful perspective, Valenzuela explains that "member states are committed to what they are doing and create the right institutions to do what they need to do. In this respect, there is a broad generosity with the Commission's competences on the part of the member states". 

Still, the former Secretary of State regrets that "in recent years the commitment of the Member States is not as conscious and the institutions are not now up to the same standard. The issue of unanimity needs to be resolved, the treaties need to be reformed, there is still a conviction to maintain the principle of unanimity", in addition to "transferring more decision-making power to the EU". 

In view of the new challenges related to technological development and care for the environment, Valenzuela affirms that "Europe is taking increasingly rapid steps towards green energy and has maintained decisive leadership". On the other hand, "technological advances are of great magnitude and are changing the way we live and relate to each other", he points out.

On the energy front, he stressed that there is a "dependence on fossil fuels that is going to be important for some time to come, and the US and Russia play an important role in some of our decisions in this area, so we need to establish a common ground with them". He added that "Europe is a great power, what it lacks is political will". In this sense, the European Union also faces the challenge of the "great competition that exists in the world in technological companies in which Europe finds itself in a difficult situation to compete".

As for NATO's influence on the development of the European Union, the former Secretary emphasises that "NATO has played a much more important role in the EU's possibilities for development and depth". He stresses that without NATO and without the US, "I do not know if the EU and its economic policies would have developed as they have, which would have been very different and conditioned".

Along these lines, "NATO and the United States have ensured that the EU has maintained a positive influence in the world, through peacekeepers and by becoming the leading donor to the multilateral system in the world. Deep and territorial security continues to be provided by NATO and the US, and the continued disengagement of the US brings us face to face with our reality, which we will have to analyse whether we will be able to cope with".

In this regard, Valenzuela regrets that "there are many initiatives to which the EU has not paid attention, for example, the Indo-Pacific initiative".

Looking to the future, the ambassador stresses that "if there is one place where Europe's future is truly at stake, it is in Africa, a continent that will determine Europe's development in this century". In addition, he affirmed that multilateralism is the EU's DNA, where "the EU's normative power flourishes there, in providing solutions to issues, an area in which Europe has the capacity to inspire".

In the second presentation, Carmela Pérez Bernández, Professor of International Law at the University of Granada, gave a lecture on 'Human rights in European external action: Sanctions and other means of promotion', in which she presented the new action plan and the EU's human rights roadmap for the coming years, which are characterised by "dealing with external action, monitoring the weakening of the rule of law, fighting against disinformation campaigns and emphasising the vulnerability of human rights defenders", in which "unanimity is key".

"In the current context of human rights challenges in an environment eroded by the pandemic, the Union is in a more propitious moment to show its strength as a political and legal actor", he adds.

Finally, he concludes by affirming that "this aspect must now be made more visible, and to do so it cannot use a single instrument; it must make use of the instruments of positive conditionality, safeguarding article 2 of the EU, which is basic", and concludes that "the maturity of the EU through this reinforcement of political will must lead it to maintain a balance in matters of sanctions".