Once again, Europe taking the lead in international security affairs
French President Sarkozy yesterday announced a plan for a EU-Russia-US security arrangement which would essentially put a halt to US posturing when it comes to missile deployment in Eastern Europe. The plan calls for formal agreement signing to be done in 2009 (once lame duck Bush is out of office; Paulson is ineffective).
Of note here is that once again the major movement in the international order (such as the previous economic bailout package) is being spearheaded by Europe, not the United States. It is going to be a very interest G-20 summit this weekend as we see what role Europe and China play in reconstituting a (new?) economic order.
With Russia’s backing for the G20 summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a new security and defence arrangement between the EU, Russia and the US to be agreed at a summit mid-2009, calling both on Moscow and Washington to refrain from deploying missiles until that date.
“As acting EU council president I propose that mid-2009 we gather for instance within the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe] to lay the basis of what might be a future EU security arrangement …which would of course involve the Russians and the Americans,” Mr Sarkozy said, backing an idea originally proposed by his Russian counterpart.
He also expressed his “preoccupation” with Mr Medvedev’s threat to deploy short-range missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, bordering Poland and Lithuania.
