Anthony Manduca
New report reveals massive decline in EU power at the UN
The European Union's leverage to promote human rights values and its vision of a rules-based world order has dramatically declined over the last decade, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a European think tank.
After analysing over 10 years of UN voting statistics, a new report by the ECFR reveals that, since the late 1990s, the EU has lost the regular support of 41 former allies on human rights votes, joining the United States in the group of leading world powers whose influence through the UN is in decline.
In the later 1990s, EU positions on human rights were backed by over 70 per cent of votes cast at the UN General Assembly. Over the last two years, the level of support has fallen to about 50 per cent, the report says.
The trend in support for Chinese and Russian positions in the same votes has been almost the exact opposite, leaping from about 50 per cent 10 years ago to 74 per cent (China) and 76 per cent (Russia) in the last General Assembly session.
"This reflects not only their outspoken commitment to sovereignty but their diplomatic skill in playing the UN system," the report notes.
"This paradox has come to the fore in 2008 as the EU has tried to work through the UN on Burma and Zimbabwe, yet been unable to get Security Council resolutions for action.
"These defeats come on top of previous setbacks for the EU at the UN in cases from Kosovo to Darfur," the report's authors, Richard Gowan and Franziska Brantner, point out.
"This is partially due to geopolitical shifts. But the EU has also been the architect of its own misfortune," the report says.
"Europe has lost ground because of a reluctance to use its leverage and a tendency to look inwards - with 1,000 coordination meetings in New York alone each year - rather than talk to others. It is also weakened by a failure to address flaws in its reputation as a leader on human rights and multilateralism," it says.
The EU's decline at the UN is apparent in three key fora: the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the Security Council.
The ECFR was launched by 50 prominent Europeans in October 2007, including Marti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland; Giuliano Amato, former Prime Minister of Italy; Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Prime Minister of Belgium; Joschka Fischer, former German Foreign Minister; and former European Commissioner Emma Bonino.
Its goal is to provide strategic analysis on the European Union's foreign policy performance and to promote a more coherent and vigorous European foreign and security policy.
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l Galea
Sep 18th 2008, 22:33
@Alfred Farrugia
Support?
Such as the support we are receiving on illegal immigration?
No thanks.
I prefer to be out and decide my own destiny than being under the eu yoke led by its dermocrant petty dictators.
l Galea
Sep 18th 2008, 20:44
@Anne Palmer
As my late father used to say, literally translated, sometimes it is better to have a fistful of strength than a sack of rights.
In Maltese kulltant aħjar ponn saħħa milli xkora drittijiet.
The eu has been continuously and constantly eroding the human rights and freedoms since its inception and will continue to do so unless the people in every member country rise up against its petty dermocrant dictators and declare their independence and freedom from the eu and its diktat.
Alfred Farrugia
Sep 18th 2008, 19:55
The EU needs to not only speak with one voice – which it does not most of the time – but it also needs to be consistent. How can the EU explain its position concerning Kosovo and not expect the Russian Federation to act as it did in Georgia? Closer to home, how can the EU negotiate with a candidate country – Turkey – that is occupying a third of an EU member State - Cyprus, and as a result is occupying part of the EU itself?
I believe that the EU has a lot to offer, but reaching consensus among 27 members is not easy. One of the main advantages of the EU has been its flexibility, provided it is perceived to be used wisely. One of the major problems of the EU is how to harmonize widening and deepening. Most of the time one acts against the other, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The EU is far from perfect, but I still think that we are better within than outside. If we remained outside, we would still be facing the same problems, but with absolutely no support to try and solve some of them.
Anne Palmer
Sep 18th 2008, 16:53
Our Human Rights re Freedom of Speech took a big blow when we were denied a say on the Treaty of Lisbon here in the United Kingdom. What is the point of having RIGHTS when we are not allowed to use them? It is this that has damaged, perhaps beyond repair, the decline in EU power, even in the UN.
Denis Catania
Sep 18th 2008, 14:27
Human rights starts at home, and the Maltese are having their human rights broken. Freedom of speech is one of those, thats being altered.
l Galea
Sep 18th 2008, 12:11
The more the EU dictators try to impose their diktat on member countries the more it will lose power.
I look forward to the day when the EU shall collapse as did all empires before it and we again shall get our independence and freedom and be able to get rid of its diktat, the illegal immigrants and foreign workers.
Charles Sammut
Sep 18th 2008, 10:07
What else can be expected form an entity which supports the human rights of everybody else at the expense of its own citizens. The EU's poor handling of the illegal immigration problem is a case in point. We are being coerced into accepting thousands of African aliens in Malta to the great detriment of our society.
Some club we have joined.
Russia and China on the other hand are fiercely nationalistic and quite rightly defend their national integrity irrespective of what the UN or any such other useless organisation thinks.