With the US election just around the corner, is the EU prepared for what might be coming? And what does “being prepared” mean, exactly, when it comes to Europe’s defence capabilities? These are some of the questions we put to veteran French diplomat Pierre Vimont, who was ambassador to Washington during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Vimont argues that the EU needs to develop much longer-term strategic thinking, whether on Ukraine and Russia, or China, or the Middle East, or the EU’s own near neighbourhood.
Vimont maintains that, on defence issues, Europe has been lagging behind for a long time. “When Donald Trump was first elected and started with his way of doing foreign policy, which was very difficult for Europeans, the then German chancellor, Mrs. Merkel, said, ‘We Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands’. That was 2017. Seven years later, where are we? We’re still struggling with that,” Vimont avers. “President Macron is talking about the need for strategic autonomy and many others are saying we need to have a European defence or even a European Defence Union. But we are still very far away from this. Because it’s a huge challenge. Remember President Obama’s defence secretary telling the Europeans that they have to step up their act on defence? That was in 2008! So we need to discuss among ourselves where we want to go, and how we can be a stronger geopolitical actor.”
Vimont wonders whether the EU has a clear idea of what its own long-term interests in Ukraine are.
“Europeans reacted rather efficiently after the Russian military intervention,” he says. “We were able to come up with the kind of military assistance that was required, as well as humanitarian and financial assistance. And we have been doing that since then. Maybe not exactly to the kind of level that the Ukrainians would like, but still, we’re trying to do our best. But we also need to look further down the road. How do we get out of the current conflict? We’ve been stating time and again that it is up to the Ukrainians to decide, and that is true. But we could have a conversation with the Ukrainian leadership and try to put forward what our interests are in this very difficult confrontation with Russia that Europe is facing.”
Does that imply negotiating with Russia and tacitly accepting its control over some Ukrainian territories?
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Vimont answers. “But I’m saying that something has been missing in the EU’s foreign policy for many years, which is a Russia strategy. For the last 15 to 20 years we’ve been trying to come up with such a strategy, but we’re pretty much divided among the 27 of us. And because we know this is a divisive topic, we prefer not to talk about it and to just brush it under the carpet. I think we cannot go on like that, sidelining debates and conversations that are difficult for us.”
In essence, Vimont believes the EU is not playing enough of a strategic long-term game, even when it comes to the recent decision to impose tariffs on Chinese electric cars. “You have to broaden the scope of your strategic thinking. In other words, it’s not only about tariffs; it’s about how do we behave in the Indo-Pacific region, what kind of diplomatic conversation we want to have with China, or with African countries, or with the BRICs – it’s about the kind of new world order we want to set up.”
Vimont insists that the EU has lost diplomatic influence in the Middle East over the last 10 years.
“Ten years ago we faced the Arab Spring revolution, and we were faced with a totally new situation compared to the kind of Mediterranean policy we had pursued before. And as we haven’t really managed to deal with this Arab Spring and its fallout, we slowly became silent and we slowly disappeared from the screen. And I think we have to regain a stronger position in that region because, after all, it’s it’s part of the neighbourhood of the European Union,” he concludes.
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero, Oihana Almandoz and Luke Brown.