The Brookings Institution hosted a panel with co-authors of the new book The Foreign Policy

of the European Union--Assessing Europe's Role in the World. Federiga Bindi, Brooking
Senior Fellow, who edited the book, moderated the panel. Joining her were Giuliano Amato,
former Prime Minister of Italy and Vice President of the European Constitutional Convention,
Daniel Hamilton, Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS,
Andrew Moravcsik, Director of the European Union Program at Princeton University, and
Pierre Vimont, French Ambassador to the United States.

Amato remarked on the difficulties Europe had in figuring out what role it wanted to play on
the world stage, and what the European Union ought to be. Europeans tended to be more
unsatisfied than their accomplishments might warrant, and observed that he often heard
more positive things about the EU when he came to the US than he did at home. One power
that the European Union definitely has is the transformative power of attraction. The
democracy and prosperity enjoyed by member countries had encouraged others in its
neighborhood, like the former communist bloc, to develop their own democracies in the
hope of joining, as many have done. But could that regional power translate into making the
EU a major global actor? In order to do so effectively, Amato said, Europe needed to
maintain strong transatlantic ties with the United States.

Dan Hamilton set out his view that the European Union does not have a traditional foreign
policy, and is not likely to have one anytime soon. In areas of "non-traditional foreign
policy," it did have an impact, even more so after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. Many of
the changes dealt with justice and home affairs, which, although domestic in nature, would
have impacts for foreign relations in terrorism-related cases and the like. Also significant is
the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which guaranteed a number of positive social rights to
EU citizens, and would create legal precedents that are likely to slip over borders. While an
increased EU foreign policy capability is not likely to be seen in Washington, in third
countries, especially in Europe's neighborhood, there could soon be EU ambassadors with
more resources than their counterparts from the individual member states.

Moravcsik presented himself as the most optimistic of the group, asserting that Europe is,
after the US, the second superpower of the 21st century and isn't going to lose that status.
Despite all the talk of rising India and China, Europe dwarfs all of Asia in military spending
and deployment capability. In civilian power, such as humanitarian and development work,
Europe is even more dominant than the U.S. And per capita income--which Moravcsik said is
more important than aggregate income for projecting power--Europe is far ahead of
potential challengers. Projecting power did not require Europe to always be unified, he said.
Informal coalitions of like-minded countries could be effective without the federal structure
that many used to think the EU would move toward. In the last generation, the centralized
federal institutions, like the European Commission, had been curtailed, and more power
absorbed by the European Council and the Council of Ministers, which are run by the
national governments. This, in Moravcsik's words, is "coordination, not centralization," and it
works well. Those who think the European project is losing ground need to adjust to this new
narrative.

Ambassador Vimont counted himself as cautiously optimistic. Having expanded to 27

members, the EU had difficulty in day-to-day management, trying to get everyone to agree.
Debates that leaders had left aside in the past when they couldn't agree are coming back to
bite them now; the weight on the euro from the Greek financial crisis was a good example.
But he remained optimistic, he said, because most Europeans understood that they had to
seize the opportunity to stay relevant in the world now.