Baroness Ashton outlines her objectives in today’s Times. She makes a number of sensible points on Afghanistan, European aid efforts and energy security; but, despite this week’s revelations and ironically in view of the Peter Brookes cartoon above the article, Iranian nuclear proliferation receives a cursory sentence. This undermines the EU’s committment to enforcing sanctions on an obviously antagonistic and mad regime, and suggests that the notion of the EU taking pre-emptive military action with its allies is fanciful. The implication is that defence and security are secondary issues, or simply too divisive for member states to reach accord.
What, therefore, is the point of an EU foreign ministry? Ashton opines that the Lisbon treaty ‘gives us new possibilities to make Europe better and more relevant for its citizens. It can also help us find a stronger and more coherent voice on the world stage.
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