Europe's south seas strategy

Graham Avery is the European in Residence at Canterbury University. Picture / University of Canterbury

In the eyes of some politicians congregating at the European Union's steel and glass headquarters in Brussels, the Pacific remains a distant South Seas paradise.

And many people in the EU's 25-member states hold an even less realistic, coconut palm-fringed view.

African poverty and under-development is a daily focus on European television screens and for some viewers carries a motivating subtext when it comes to aid delivery - increased migration towards Europe.

The vast bulk of the union's aid is channelled towards Africa, but there have been calls for the 3 per cent now invested by the European Commission - the union's executive and bureaucratic arm - in the Pacific to be downscaled in favour of Africa.

Exact figures on how much European funding goes into Pacific countries, many of which were formerly colonised by various European empires, are hard to come by.

But NZAid says 2004 figures show that when combined with the additional donations from member states, Europe was the second-biggest financial contributor after Australia which injects over $700 million a year.

European Commission funding alone is worth about $100 million a year, excluding sugar subsidies to Fiji, worth many millions more annually, and European Investment Bank loans.

There was therefore considerable relief in New Zealand - heavily involved in trying to soothe several renewed outbreaks of violence in the increasingly volatile region already this year - when the EU's first formal Pacific strategy was unveiled in Papua New Guinea this week.

Future budgetary commitments are still under negotiation and tipped to increase by about 20 per cent but, as one player involved in the strategy negotiations said, it provided the "theological" justification for continuing investment in the region, which both Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and his ministry staff had been intent on securing.

The metaphor is apt as the strategy is almost apocalyptic in its picture of the Pacific's potential problems - its fragility, poverty and weak governance - and the presentation of the "compelling reasons" for ongoing engagement in the region.

Highlighted in bold letters are reminders, designed to bring European sceptics on board, that despite the Pacific's small population of less than 10 million, its ocean covers one third of the Earth's surface.

Environmental developments will have a significant global impact on the world's fisheries and climate change.

Its "substantial natural resources" are linked not just to climate change, but to the fact that "many powerful international actors like China, Japan and the US are increasing their presence in the region".

It's a delicate subject within a Pacific wary of recolonisation and for New Zealand and the EU keen to avoid offending the heavyweights, although the strategy document notes "competition between China and Taiwan, through investments and development co-operation can be destabilising for the Pacific countries".

But the message is that - aside from altruism and the international implications of Pacific instability - it would be strategically foolish for Europe to relinquish its interests in the region.

As the EU works to establish itself as a major world player and to reshape and improve its international image as an honest broker in foreign affairs and a counterbalance to US dominance - another carefully trod path - its aid work is important.

And if development aid investment helps grow the EU's status outside Europe, the commission may - as in the Pacific strategy case - try to influence public opinion within the union to achieve that end.

While the achievement of peaceful relationships between states ravaged by wars last century is the union's flagship raison d'etre within Europe, this doesn't maintain the same resonance outside of its borders. Even among younger Europeans who don't remember the wars , some worry.

Like many former colonies, New Zealand's initial experience of the unionising of the European states was largely negative, as the common economic market severely curtailed favourable trade relationships with Britain.

A University of Canterbury study last year by the EU-funded National Centre for Research on Europe shows most New Zealanders still primarily view the EU in terms of trade, particularly agricultural exports.

The publicity around the floundering World Trade Organisation Doha negotiations, in which New Zealand is battling what it views as the EU's overly resistant stance on reducing trade barriers, further entrenches this.

New Zealanders rated the EU about sixth equal with Japan in terms of the significance of overseas economic/professional partnerships.

Our connections with Britain, interest in European culture and the ease of travel the EU and the euro has created, evoked warmer responses.

We viewed the EU positively as a counter-balance to US hegemony - but didn't rate this as a major issue.

Two-thirds of New Zealand respondents saw our relationship with the EU as steady and 14 per cent thought it was improving.

The study found little interest in the EU's internal politics - including the issue triggering its current crisis of confidence, the ratification of the constitution.

Yet we should care: the issue has big ramifications for the EU's future and a successful resolution of the row will be crucial in terms of both public relations and preventing further fractures within the aspiring powerhouse.

Last weekend EU foreign ministers failed to reach a consensus on a way forward for the draft constitution, which became a political nightmare last year after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected it.

Designed to streamline the EU's operations and improve its foreign policy presence by combining existing treaties, the "constitution" has been ratified by 15 of the 25 states, so it remains officially alive.

But as it requires the approval of all states and is unpalatable to at least two, it can't go forward in its current shape.

After a two-day meeting in an Austrian monastery, the foreign ministers of the members states effectively put the constitution on ice, extending last year's "period of reflection" for another year. EU opinion is split on whether it needs reworking or is even required - although there is consensus the issue was handled badly, should not have been referred to as a "constitution" and that any further steps risk more embarrassment.

Graham Avery is a former director for strategy, co-ordination and analysis in the European Commission's Directorate General for External Relations.

He spent 33 years working on European community issues in Brussels and is in New Zealand for six weeks as the inaugural EU-sponsored "European in residence".

An avid Europhile - "I'm Welsh, my passport is British and my citizenship is European" - he says "I don't think the treaty is even necessary to make the union work. It works!

"It was what I call a failure for the institutional engineers, the people who want to drive progress by adjusting the treaties, and it's a big chance for the pragmatists, people who think you can use the existing treaties in an intelligent way."

While other commentators have said it has scared voters, he argues the term "constitution" means little to the average person and fails to inspire them.

While the French vote was largely about internal politics, he believes the Dutch reaction was more complex, but probably tied to the "non-integration" of some of its immigrant communities.

"But there's something else in my opinion which is a problem and that's the democratic deficit.

"The problem that people don't feel they belong.

"It's sometimes expressed as an identity problem, but I think it's more that people haven't bought into the political system.

"They don't feel that what's done in Brussels is useful."

The issue has obviously renewed concerns about internal communication blocks and opinion differences in a supposedly unified Europe, a factor EU advocates regularly seek to remind New Zealand and similarly-minded trade negotiators of during the WTO talks.

German Christian Democrat MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Albert Dess, who owns a small farm in Bavaria, wants trade liberalisation - but says it can't move at the pace New Zealand wants.

He fears rural communities will disintegrate if the WTO forces rapid change and says the social cost of that must be calculated.

"The stability of society is based on the villages.

"I think the WTO needs to change its targets. They're too optimistic."

In Brussels late last year Prime Minister Helen Clark "bluntly" called for the EU to improve its market access to unlock the WTO round.

But she also stressed the wider relationship and New Zealand's desire to develop it. Both were "part of a common community of values".

"We are democratic and we promote human rights. And with most New Zealanders tracing their origins back to Europe, we share culture and heritage as well."

There had been co-operation: on Kyoto and general environmental issues, global and regional security dialogue and the appointment of science and education counsellors to the New Zealand Embassy in Brussels, she said.

She is said to have had near unprecedented access to key EU leaders, is admired and leads a country described regularly - despite its distance - as one of the "most like-minded" outside EU borders.

Australia, which has aligned itself more firmly with the US, does not carry much greater weight and is considered both a little bolshie and visionless in Brussels - particularly in its Pacific dealings.

The Pacific development work is seen as a key bridge-building activity with the Asia-Pacific region.

New Zealand was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relationships with the commission and it reciprocated by establishing an office in 2004, run by Charge d'Affaires Maurice Maxwell.

Ambassador Bruno Julien is Canberra-based and said this year European integration was a source of inspiration and "in this region the Pacific Island Forum may be a good illustration of that process".

Cypriot MEP Kyriacos Triantaphyllides is a member of the parliament's delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand and is a former New Zealand resident.

He believes Cyprus' membership of the EU has been been empowering, despite the country's comparatively tiny size.

Putting aside his interests in how the EU pressures Turkey to change its stance towards Cyprus, he believes its multi-layered (and highly complex) power structures ensure smaller states are not sidelined and could be useful models or experiences to consider in developing greater Pacific unity.

The Pacific document notes a long-term regional integration strategy in the Pacific is still under construction.

While there are Pacific concerns about the impact of that on diversity "Europe's experience based on combining competitiveness and social cohesion demonstrates that it is possible and even advantageous, even for small nations, to link up in a globalising world while protecting their national identities and structures."

Graham Avery points out that with the integration of West Balkan and other states "the EU is no longer a rich Western European club".

While it has ended inter-state wars "and that's profoundly important " like the Pacific it still has civil tensions to deal with. Now working on a continental scale "the next mission must be to make its voice and influence heard in a world-wide sense".

New Zealand was overly focused on the trade aspect of the relationship "but when I talk to people here who are a little bit forward-looking, I think they agree its necessary to continue a shift ... where the relationship is not just about goods and trade, but about politics, security and world affairs."

* Ruth Berry took part in the European Commission-funded European Union Visitor programme in Brussels this year.