Struck by how rarely European Union foreign ministers focus on strategy during their monthly meetings, the Finnish foreign minister Alex Stubb asked officials to check how often he and his counterparts had discussed the role of China as a foreign policy power.The answer was just once in the past four years....
On Thursday, Ms. Ashton, who recently returned from a visit to China, is expected to urge the Union to integrate its contacts with big powers â?? which range from the environment to trade â?? to gain more leverage.
This could help shift the focus from short-term problems. Mr. Stubbâ??s research shows how foreign ministers tend to devote their discussions to crises, and to issues where Europe has limited influence.
For example, in 2009 and 2010, European foreign ministers discussed the Middle East peace process 12 times. - Stephen Castle, New York Times
That's via Evelyn Gordon, who contends that this "obsession" with Israel has led the EU to rapidly lose its global power. I'm not sure that's completely correct not least because it's clear from the Castle piece that the EU never had all that much global power to begin with.
