Colossal external problems are coming Europe's way. And yet, there are few signs that the 28 nations that form the European Union will start acting on their shared threats and interests in a more unified, forceful, and muscular way anytime soon.
Some blame austerity for this inaction. Others say the EU was never made to do foreign policy. And yet others maintain that Europeans are just naive and immature surrender monkeys who cling to wishful thinking and simplistic ideas about how the world works.
None of that is true. The underlying reasons why European foreign policy sleeps go much deeper. Four fundamental factors are at play: identities, institutions, external neglect, and internal disinterest.
Threatened Identities?
First, Europeans feel that the threat to their national identities is currently greater than the threat to their physical security. Take a good look at what people really discuss outside the op-ed pages of the larger newspapers, and the chances are you will get entangled in debates on illegal immigration, Islamization, crimes committed by foreigners, domestic culture changing beyond recognition, taxpayers' money being wasted on people far away, and so on.
These topics dominate the political discourse in the EU's three biggest countries-Germany, France, and Britain-and in a large number of other nations as well, including Austria, the Netherlands, and Hungary.
Identity-driven debates tend to affect citizens much more directly and emotionally than seemingly abstract issues such as Russia's menace to the European political order, the so-called Islamic State's threat to stability in the Middle East, China's challenge to the global balance of power, or Iran's quest for nuclear arms.
The security threats that analysts wring their hands over are mostly of secondary importance for ordinary folks. And if ordinary folks are not greatly concerned, politicians prefer not to open a can of worms. This is especially true if that can of worms means building a cohesive pan-European response to a challenge, or weighing up the prospect of increased military spending.
Inadequate Institutions
The second reason for Europe's torpor is that there is not a single EU institution that could credibly formulate a shared European interest. Pro-integrationists tend to believe that either the European Commission or the European Parliament is capable of such a task. But neither of them is.
Parts of the commission come closest to the ideal of being the advocate of a genuinely common EU interest. But these are the branches of the EU's executive that defend joint interests on questions of trade or the single market, neither of which really goes to the heart of classical foreign policy.
