The European Policy Quartet: From “normative power Europe” to “neo-idealism” – what’s the role of values in EU foreign policy today?

Deutsch

With:

• Minna Ålander, Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki
• Carmen Descamps, German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), Brussels
• Manuel Müller, Finnish Institute of International Affairs / Der (europäische) Föderalist, Helsinki
• Julian Plottka, University of Passau / University of Bonn

This conversation was conducted as an online chat in German. The transcript below has been edited and translated.

In global politics, the EU is happy to rely on the appeal of its values. But it is also increasingly prepared to defend them by military power.

Manuel
Welcome back after a long break to the first European Policy Quartet 2023! Today we want to talk about the EU as a “normative power”. This term, coined by Ian Manners twenty years ago, refers to the idea that the EU is a very special actor on the world stage: It has hardly any classical instruments of power, especially military ones, but at the same time it is very successful in spreading its own norms and values – such as peace, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human rights. For some years now, however, the motto in Brussels has been that the EU must “learn the language of power” (as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it shortly after her election in 2019). What is meant by this is first and foremost hard power in security policy, all the more so after the Russian attack on Ukraine.

So what is the state of “normative power Europe” today? Is the term still appropriate for an EU that supplies arms to Ukraine? Or is it all the more appropriate now, given that the war in Ukraine is also a fight for our values?

Normative power

Minna
The way the EU’s role in supporting Ukraine has changed has been a positive surprise for me: for example, the use of the European Peace Facility for military assistance, or now the recent decisions on joint ammunition procurement. Moreover, all the presidents of the EU institutions have been to Ukraine, some of them several times, and have shown very clear support from day one – often with stronger words than some member states.

Sure, the EU is challenged by the return of hard power to international politics. But it immediately understood that Ukraine was fighting for European values, for belonging to Europe and for the prospect of EU membership.

Julian
Much depends on how you use the term: If you stick strictly to Manners’ academic definition, then the answer is a resounding no. As Minna has just said, the EU today is more than only a “normative power”. But even if the EU is engaged in parallel military activities, the mechanisms Manners describes are of course still at work today. So I would say that the term is still valid for the EU – If you don’t use it so strictly that it only applies to actors that are exclusively normative powers.

Carmen
I also don’t see “normative power” and “hard power” as opposites, but rather as complementary. The fact that the EU is now using hard power in the sense of military assistance is ultimately the result of its soft power – and of Ukraine’s growing desire to move closer to the EU.

Neo-idealism

Manuel
Have values perhaps even become more important in European foreign policy? In recent months, the term “neo-idealism” (coined mainly by Ben Tallis) has gained currency: It refers to the notion that in European geopolitics “values” and “interests” are increasingly becoming one and the same – or, in other words, that the EU’s central interest is to defend and promote its values in an increasingly problematic global environment.

Minna
In any case, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has shown in a brutal way what belonging to the EU is worth and what it can mean: Ukraine is literally fighting for its membership perspective. In fact, Russia’s first attack on Ukraine came precisely after the Euromaidan, which in turn was triggered by Ukraine’s then-president Yanukovych backpedalling on the EU-Ukraine association agreement after Russian blackmail. In the end, it was precisely Ukraine’s EU perspective that was unacceptable to Russia. That it was about NATO has always been a pretext; the bigger problem for Russia is the EU integration of the countries it considers to belong to its sphere of influence.

On the other hand, Russia is also an example of where the EU’s normative power has reached its limits. In Russia itself, the power of attraction has not worked at all. On the contrary, Russia has rather perceived the EU as a malicious competitor.

Julian
This is exactly the point that Daniel Göler is making: Vis-à-vis Russia, “normative power” may not have worked in the way the EU always wanted, but it did work after all. The Russian government has seen the EU as such a powerful normative power that it has become a geostrategic challenge for Russia.

So I would say that Europe’s normative power has also had an effect on Russia. Unfortunately, the response has been different from what we all would have liked. But I would be careful to say that normative power has reached its limits here – unless we see the EU on the way to becoming a world federation and therefore expect that its model of values should really be accepted universally.

Conversely, with regard to Russia, I also find it interesting to see how a state can largely destroy its normative power through military intervention. My impression is that since February 2022, Russia no longer represents an alternative development model that is attractive to any other states in the post-Soviet space. With the exception of Belarus, I see all these countries turning away from Russia.

The Russian attack as a reaction to the success of EU values?

Manuel
So the Russian attack on Ukraine is ultimately an indicator of the EU’s strength as a normative power, because it shows that the spread of the European model of values (which has been achieved primarily by means of soft power) can only be slowed down by military force?

Julian
Yes. Perhaps we can even observe here what Joseph H. H. Weiler described years ago for the interior of the EU: that the EU is the only legal order in the world that is successful without a central power and can implement its law without force. Externally, the EU is now also a power that, without hard power, caused Russia to start a war.

Manuel
... to which the EU is however now reacting by expanding its hard power, too.

Carmen
Julian sums it up pretty well. The question of whether the EU was really such a “non-power” in the past could be the starting point of another debate, though.

Minna
Even if the EU has not perceived itself in this way, it has always been a geopolitical actor, at least from the Russian perspective. The Eastern Partnership is a prime example of this. The EU may only have been interested in improving its cooperation with the countries involved; but Russia felt geopolitically challenged by it.

In the end, however, by attacking Ukraine Russia has not only destroyed its own attractiveness as an (in any case very questionable) alternative model in Europe, but has also nudged the EU in an unforeseen way. For example, it was only the war that made giving Ukraine the EU accession perspective inevitable.

Not indefinitely stretchable

Carmen
Metaphorically speaking, the normative power of the EU can perhaps be compared to a piece of chewing gum that can be stretched, but not indefinitely. At some point it becomes thin, almost transparent, and eventually tears.

What I mean by this: With Russia’s aggression, the prospect of Ukraine’s accession to the EU became obvious and was quickly initiated, but now both sides must walk the talk. The promise of accession must not remain mere lip service, no matter how long the negotiations ultimately take. Otherwise, the EU’s normative power will lose its appeal and may even break down in the end.

Minna
“Normative power as chewing gum”: Now that would also be a nice title for this article. 😅

Manuel
🍬 (Unfortunately, there is no chewing gum emoji …)

The value of values

Carmen
But to come back to the question of whether values have become more important for the EU: I believe the answer to this is also influenced by the (perceived) geographical concern, i.e. where I am located inside or outside Europe. Especially in the Baltic and Nordic countries (greetings to Manuel and Minna in Helsinki!), many actors in governments and civil society refer to precisely these values. The normative power of the EU is thus effective both externally and internally.

Julian
What do you mean by normative power working internally?

Minna
I think that the normative power of the EU has had a pull effect on Ukraine, which has led Russia to attack Ukraine in order to prevent closer integration. Russia’s attack, in turn, has triggered a kind of renaissance of the “value of values”, for example in the north-eastern EU member states. The extremely high price that Ukraine is now paying for its EU perspective is a strong reminder for these countries of what the EU means.

“Normative power” or “European identity formation”?

Julian
Here I disagree. Not because I think the causal chain you present is wrong – I’m all with you there. But I don’t see the conceptual added value of “normative power Europe” in that context. Because in the end it doesn’t matter what the war in Ukraine is a reaction to, whether it’s the EU’s normative power or its hard power. The effects are the same in both cases. For the EU, the war is an external crisis.

To argue with “normative power” here is, in my opinion, overstretching the concept. Concepts also have the function of reducing and focusing complexity, and this value is lost in this long causal chain. Instead of “internal normative power” I would rather speak of community, identity or even nation building. It’s more about social cohesion and the relationship of EU citizens to the EU, not about the transformation of states. I would say that we are closer to Ben Anderson here than to Ian Manners.

Carmen
Well then, conceptually the term “internal normative power” was a bit incorrect. What I wanted to express is how politicians like the Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas or the still acting Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin are responding to the Russian aggression by emphasising the normative values of the EU. Minna talked about this earlier. I don’t necessarily see this as identity formation in the sense of building a European community. Also because, after all, Europe is dealt with very much as foreign policy in these countries.

Manuel
What I find interesting is that this reappraisal of the importance of values in the EU also comes at a time when European values are actually being contested internally. And I don’t just mean the conflict over Viktor Orbán's “illiberal democracy” and his supposed “Christian values”, but also the more latent tensions between supranationalism and national sovereignty. Some neo-idealists would also include national sovereignty among the values that the EU must protect – which is uncontroversial as far as it concerns the protection against imperial encroachments, but can become a problem when we are talking about ceding competences to supranational institutions.

But let’s go back to foreign and global policy: With its open attack, Russia has largely given up on acting as a normative power – the ostensible values with which the Russian government dresses up its power politics (as the defence of the traditional family, etc.) are all too flimsy. Still, Ukraine and the EU recently had to work hard to get broad support for a resolution against Russia’s war of aggression in the UN General Assembly. How do you see the EU in the global competition of value discourses?

The global values struggle

Minna
At the moment, Europe is not doing very well in the global struggle over values: In Africa and Latin America, Russia is currently more successful with its narratives. Also countries like India tend to see Europeans as hypocritical and accuse the EU of double standards because it is now demanding solidarity with Ukraine from the rest of the world, while not caring as much about conflicts elsewhere.

Even in the Balkans, Russia’s influence has not completely disappeared: In Serbia, for example, we can still clearly see its effect. But this is also due to the fact that the EU’s enlargement policy has held these countries at arm’s length for so long.

Julian
I’m not an expert on the Balkans, so I’ll put this as a question: Is it really Russia’s normative pull that is at work here? Or is the real explanation precisely this long delaying tactic on the part of the EU combined with some economic offers from Russia? If that were the case, Russia would be acting as an economic civil power here rather than a normative power. But that is more of a hypothesis than an explanation.

And as for the rest of the world: A few weeks ago I read an interesting commentary by Ivan Krastev in the Financial Times, in which he explained the current behaviour of non-Western states towards Russia by saying that they no longer see Russia as a global power, but as a regional power. The war in Ukraine is a purely European problem that does not concern them, so they can continue to trade and even cooperate militarily with Russia as a regional power. Russia is no longer feared; it is (according to Krastev) “no longer important enough to hate”.

The Chinese counter-model

Manuel
Beyond the war in Ukraine, there is also China as another competitor in the global values debate. The Chinese government is much more explicit than Russia in its claim to offer a normative alternative to the European (or Western) model.

Minna
China has shown that you do not need to democratise to succeed in the global market economy, and its normative imperative in international politics is non-interference. With this approach, it tries to build its global influence by offering other states infrastructure projects that, unlike EU projects, do not come with arduous reform requirements and political conditions.

Manuel
And this economic cooperation with absolute political non-interference is of course an attractive principle for authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world, because it helps them to secure their power.

Influence through infrastructure projects

Carmen
Yes, compared to China, the EU is often perceived by third parties as too complicated, bureaucratic and value-focused, especially in development aid programmes. Financial support from the EU can only be obtained in exchange for reforms in the areas of democracy promotion, protection of minorities, rule of law and so on. Third countries also often feel that they are not perceived as equal partners in the sense of a dialogue on a level playing field involving state and non-state actors.

I don’t want to launch into a litany of criticisms of EU development policy, but China’s approach in this regard is much more direct. A concrete example in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood is the construction of the motorway in Montenegro. The fact that such infrastructure projects sometimes turn out to be “debt bondage” is often realised too late by those affected, including the EU.

Minna
China also poses a particular challenge to the EU in that, unlike Russia, it has learnt to use the economic win-win cooperation structures preferred by the EU to its own advantage – and conversely, to undermine European values and interests, for example by gaining access to critical infrastructure.

On the other hand, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has reached some limits in recent years: There has been a growing push-back against Chinese investments in Europe, and also other regions of the world have found the quality of Chinese infrastructure to be less than stellar.

Julian
Does the quality of the infrastructure play such a big role? Europe has never carried out really meaningful and sustainable projects in Africa either.

Manuel
I think there was a myth for a while that Chinese development policy was automatically more economically efficient than Western development policy because it didn’t involve political conditions. This myth is now crumbling somewhat – which doesn’t make Western development policy look any better, but it does scratch the image of China.

Non-interference as a value?

Julian
What is certainly true is that the principle of non-interference is an important advantage of China: The aim is not that other countries should necessarily want to copy the Chinese model, but that internal sovereignty should be absolutely respected. That’s a difference to both the EU and Russia.

Manuel
I agree. The normative power of the EU is to induce peaceful internal change in other societies – to make them more democratic and more free. That is why the EU is committed to a liberal world order in which this kind of spread of ideas and values is possible and legitimate.

China, on the other hand, presents itself to other societies as a model of economic growth, but does not have a particularly attractive model to offer in terms of political values. Instead, it advocates a world order in which non-interference is the highest value – in order to bind other non-democratic governments to itself and, ultimately, to prevent the spread of liberal ideas to China.

Minna
Still, although China talks a lot about the principle of non-interference, in practice it doesn’t necessarily adhere to it. There are enough cases in which China, not so unlike Russia, has tried to exert influence in other countries through various channels, such as economic dependency or even election-meddling.

Julian
In any case, there are two aspects that, by definition, are crucial for normative power:

1. Values, norms or even the political model of the normative power are adopted by others.
2. The recipients do so voluntarily and without pressure.

Now, you have argued above that China does not meet the first condition, and if it tries to exert influence through its economic position, it does not meet the second condition either. Therefore, I argue that China should be classified as a civilian power rather than a normative power.

Manuel
(Julian is making sure that we keep our terminology clean here today. ☝)

Minna
China has also become a significant military power, though. So civilian power alone is no longer quite the right word either.

What should the EU do?

Manuel
Final question: What can and should the EU do (internally and externally) to strengthen its normative power?

Minna
The EU must get better at standing up for itself! It must be more aware of the fact that in its external relations many actors

1. see it as a competitor and
2. do not share its values and interests.

Russia is an example of how normative power has been perceived (unintentionally on the part of the EU) as geopolitical competition. And China shows how an actor that doesn’t share the EU’s values and interests exploits economic structures to its advantage, and Europe’s disadvantage. In short, the EU can’t just do its own thing in a vacuum, it has to take the outside world’s perceptions  into account. And it is already well on the way to recognising that when values and interests are attacked violently, they may also need to be protected by force.

Manuel
I agree in principle, but I also think that the EU should pay more attention to those countries and actors with which it already shares common values. It would make sense for the EU to bind these countries more closely to itself, also by sharing political power with them.

A few months ago, in this context, I wrote about the possibility of a “global union of democracies” – with supranational institutions, its own budget and its own competences, for example in the area of climate protection. In my view, this would be a good way not only to stabilise democratic values where they already exist, but also to provide a democratisation incentive for countries that want to join this union.

Unfortunately, I see little movement in that direction at the moment. The US has just held its second Summit for Democracy, but supranationalism was no more on the agenda there than it was at the first summit in late 2021.

Combining hard and soft power

Julian
As a first step, the EU should make concrete offers to those states, especially in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, that have a growing interest in cooperating with the EU, instead of focusing only on Eastern Europe. The same goes for the Balkans.

In a second step, we need a reform of European foreign, security and defence policy that breaks down the silos of policy-specific decision-making procedures and enables a modern, integrated approach.

Carmen
I would say that the EU has already made a lot of progress in this respect, especially during the last year. In the debate on defending our values, we have come to realise that this includes both soft and hard power. Perhaps this is a positive lesson learnt from the current crisis.

Minna
Two sides of one medal.🥇

Minna Ålander is a Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki.

Carmen Descamps works as Manager for EU Energy and Digital policies for the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) in Brussels.

Manuel Müller is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki and runs the blog „Der (europäische) Föderalist“.

Julian Plottka is a research associate at the Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics at the University of Passau and at the Institute of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Bonn.

The contributions reflect solely the personal opinion of the respective authors.

Previous issues of the European Policy Quartet can be found here.

Translation: Manuel Müller
Pictures: Ukrainian tank: Christoph Koppers [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons; portrait Carmen Descamps: Life Studio [all rights reserved]; portrait Manuel Müller: Eeva Anundi / Finnish Institute of International Affairs [all rights reserved]; portraits Minna Ålander, Julian Plottka: private [all rights reserved].