Le nouveau rôle de l'UE dans la politique de non-prolifération nucléaire - Tendances et perspectives

L’Union européenne a entrepris de devenir un acteur plus efficace et cohérent dans le domaine stratégique de la non-prolifération et du désarmement nucléaires. Cette analyse dans la rubrique Foreign Policy in Dialogue de la revue en ligne Deutsche-Aussenpolitik.de examine les résultats européens dans ce domaine depuis différentes perspectives nationales. La dernière conférence sur le TNP en mai 2005 a certainement été un test crucial pour l’Union européenne. Cependant, la Conférence n’a donné aucun résultat probant. L’UE et ses Etats membres ont-ils agi en tant que force cohérente? Une approche européenne plus unifiée aurait-elle donné un autre résultat?

Abridged version of the editorial by Marco Overhaus: 

Review Conferences (RevCon) of the Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) have taken place every five years since the Treaty entered into force in 1970. Yet, these conferences have not become routine events in the calendar of international diplomacy. Rather, they have served as a focal point that has forced both governments and epistemic communities of experts and advocates to take stock of the NPT’s effectiveness in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to devise appropriate strategies to improve the system. Though the RevCon in May 2005 similarly functioned as a focal point for discussions, its outcome was judged a disappointment by most participating parties and outside observers alike. The conference barely made it over numerous procedural hurdles, and it then could not agree on substantive steps to promote nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. This poor outcome was even more regrettable as it took place against the background of unprecedented challenges to the international non-proliferation regime. 

This issue of “Foreign Policy in Dialogue” undertakes to assess the track record of the EU and its member states before and during the Review Conference in New York in May 2005. 

In his analysis of Europe’s non-proliferation strategy, Oliver Meier takes a rather kind look at the European Union’s overall performance before and during the RevCon. In his view, the Europeans largely managed to unify positions among its 25 member states, albeit with some qualification in the area of nuclear disarmament, where internal divisions between nuclear weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) are deepest. Meier argues that the EU could not have done anything to avert the Conference’s failure because “a few delegations including Egypt, Iran and the United States were using the meeting to pursue their own narrow agendas”. 

In the course of the 1990s, Germany has increasingly sought to profile itself as a vocal promoter of the NPT-regime. According to Harald Mueller, Germany not only pursued a discernible agenda of its own during the Conference (with an emphasis on dealing with non-compliance, withdrawal from the Treaty and improving export controls) but also demonstrated its willingness to implement the EU’s Common Position. In his contribution, he shows how Berlin consistently tried to play an important role as initiator of consensus among the EU states, which in turn was meant to move the so-called Western Group (which includes the United States) in its preferred direction. This “strategy” succeeded in unlocking the procedural stalemate, but it could not produce a more substantive outcome, however. 

Rebecca Johnson analyzes the British non-proliferation policy in the context of the RevCon 2005. As one of two NWS, and with its “special relationship” with the United States, the United Kingdom clearly holds a special position within the EU. In her contribution, Johnson stresses the fact that London had to play several (and contradictory) roles: as a trustworthy partner of the U.S., a leading member of the EU and as an influential nuclear weapon state. On balance, Johnson strikes a rather sceptical note on how well the UK government was able to reconcile these different roles. In her view, London had only low expectations for a substantive outcome of the Conference from the beginning: “Its principal objective was to avoid open and damaging conflict that would further weaken the regime or exacerbate U.S. isolation”. 

Annika Thunborg and Alexander Kmentt look at the NPT policies of Sweden  and Austria, respectively. Both countries belong to the group of non-aligned countries within the EU, and Austria is also a member of the New Agenda Coalition. Both countries share a strong preference for linking non-proliferation issues to nuclear disarmament. For Sweden, Thunborg identifies the insertion of a clear reference to previous calls for nuclear disarmament by the NWS into the final document as its principal policy goal during the RevCon 2005 (it did not happen). Similarly, Austrian policy stressed the need for a “carefully crafted balance of the NPT’s three pillars: Non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful use.” Not surprisingly, both authors see the rather modest ambitions of the EU on disarmament as one of the principal shortcomings of its common policy during the conference. 

Sebastian Harnisch and Ruth Linden describe the diplomatic efforts of the United Kingdom, France and Germany (the so-called EU-3) to solve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program. Though much of this took place before the Review Conference in May 2005, the conflict with Iran is critical for the future of the NPT and for the EU’s ability to speak with one voice and act coherently in the area of non-proliferation policy. For many observers, the hope was that the initiative of three influential EU countries, backed by the Community as a whole, could work as a model case for “effective multilateralism”. Harnisch and Linden acknowledge that these high expectations were only partly met. Negotiations broke down in September this year, following the election of a hardliner to the Iranian presidency. Still, the authors consider it to be a success that the EU-3 could confront Tehran with a common European consensus position in some crucial areas, “thereby giving a broadly recognized mediation mission a fair chance to resolve the conflict diplomatically.” The nuclear diplomacy of the UK, France and Germany towards Tehran may also be instructive for judging the prospects of European non-proliferation and disarmament policy in general. Harnisch’s and Linden’s key conclusion is that the “EU-3” failed to play the role of a mediator between the United States and Iran “because both parties viewed the European Union as a buffer and a potential coalition partner vis-à-vis the other”. In fact, this epitomizes the growing “consensus gap” between an American policy that has reacted to the threats of terrorism and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) with even less enthusiasm to reduce its own weapons stock piles, on the one hand, and a few NNWS radicals which insist on their “inalienable right” to acquire nuclear technology of all sorts. While some of them may well have purely peaceful intentions, others (such as Iran) are likely to gamble to reach the nuclear threshold, which then would allow them to shift gears sometimes in the future. 

Whether Europe will be able to bridge (if not to fill) this consensus gap or not will matter quite a bit for the future of the NPT. As the contributions to this volume demonstrate, the EU still has some way to go before it can play such a role. With its WMD-Strategy it has taken an important step, yet what matters is its ability to move forward with an ambitious and credible agenda in both nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. 

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