Forum Paper Title: "EU Coordination at the UN"
Commentators: Professor Joseph Weiler and Professor Philip Alston
Abstract of Forum Paper:
The European Union is a key player at the UN and seeks to speak with “one voice” in this multilateral context. The individual EU Member States have to ensure consistency to make the EU’s voice heard effectively. Its members make up one seventh of the UN’s total membership and a fully coherent EU could carry immense weight within the UN. Several studies have analysed the extent to which the EU acts cohesively and effectively at the UN.
What is not known is how the EU manages to reach a common position. Internal coordination itself is a kind of black box. EU statements are public, but the way Member States agree on them is kept hidden behind closed doors. EU coordination should be better understood.By virtue of my unique position as an EU Fellow at New York University and also as an official of the European Commission, I have access to these internal coordination meetings. I am allowed to give details of some of their characteristics without breaching my duty of confidentiality. To set the boundary, I excluded from this research the UN Security Council — the most prestigious UN body where EU coordination does not exist as such. I focused on EU coordination at the UN General Assembly, mainly the Second and Third Committees, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its subsidiary functional commissions.The first part of this paper considers the reasons why the EU has to speak with one voice in international fora. The EU Treaty specifies that the EU Member States have to coordinate their positions at the UN and build common statements and joint actions. This paper shows how, once it is ratified, the Treaty of Lisbon will only partly consolidate the common foreign and security policy. Relations between the EU and the United Nations have developed over time. The main areas in which the UN is active today — such as promoting international peace and security, promoting respect for human rights, protecting the environment and fostering development — are also priorities for the European Union.
The second part describes the main steps on the way to obtaining a common position shared by all EU players involved, on the one hand in Brussels, both at Member State level and in the EU institutions (European Commission, Council working groups, Council Secretariat and High Representative) and, on the other, in New York at the EU Delegation in close contact with the Member States’ capitals. EU coordination is a complex and laborious process. The EU’s experience of multilateralism is an excellent asset for establishing “an ever stronger partnership” with the UN.
The third part makes some recommendations for the future, based on the findings of the first two parts, in order to simplify and facilitate preparation of a common agreement and raise the profile of the EU within the UN:First, the EU Presidency could free up some time for EU negotiators to build cross-regional alliances in addition to continuing their efforts to speak with “one voice”. EU coherence is a necessary precondition but not sufficient on its own for effective influence. The EU Presidency could develop more active diplomacy to bridge positions between EU and other UN members.Second, the European Commission which, by nature, is the least intergovernmental and/or most European-centred EU institution could also be a pro-active partner at the UN in developing activities for advocacy of EU achievements by organising attractive side-events at the UN. By adding more charisma and disseminating selected good European outcomes, the European Commission could spread the EU’s ideas amongst some non-EU countries in the United Nations with a view to resolving shared problems (climate change, human rights, democracy and rule of law, social and sustainable development, etc.). By expressing vibrant and meaningful positions in debates on challenging issues, the EU will raise its profile and project a more positive image.
Let the EU become a more ambitious and louder player at the UN. It can be proud of many of its achievements within its own borders. The EU should dare to explain them loud and clear in UN fora for the sake of others.
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