EU's Ashton calls for smart European power at security conference

Munich - The European Union must combine its hard and soft power and take responsibility for affairs both on its own doorstep and in the world's furthest flashpoints, the bloc's diplomatic director said Saturday - in her first major security policy speech. Catherine Ashton's task is to give the EU more influence in global diplomacy, and her speech to the annual Munich Security Conference set out her vision of bringing together the bloc's military, diplomatic and civilian tools.

"We must mobilize all our levers of influence - political, economic, plus civil and military crisis-management tools - in support of a single political strategy," Ashton said.

Ashton's post was created by the EU's Lisbon Treaty. It was meant to give the bloc more global clout by combining in one person the representative of all 27 member states and the vice-president of the EU's executive, which controls key policy areas such as trade and development and humanitarian aid.

However, despite such high-profile names as former British prime minister Tony Blair being floated for the job, the post finally went to the barely-known Ashton.

Her tasks range from acting as the EU's "foreign minister" in international meetings to setting up a common diplomatic service for the bloc.

The latter task is a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to build something new ... that adds real value to what our EU member states are already doing," she said.

But her key task is to pull the EU's member states together in a more coherent response to threats such as terrorism, organized crime, energy shortages and illegal migration.

"Many of these threats are inter-linked. We have to identify the linkages and then frame and implement comprehensive strategies," she said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307839,eus-ashton-calls-for-smart-european-power-at-security-conference.html.