THE EUROPEAN UNION is at heart an economic and trade project built on its foundation as a customs union. The 1980s saw the addition of the single market, the world’s most deeply integrated economic union, followed a decade later by the launch of the single currency. But beyond finance and economics, the EU has traditionally had few pretensions. In 1991 Mark Eyskens, then Belgium’s foreign minister, summed it up as an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm.

The focus on economics worked fine so long as European countries could rely for their security on NATO and the protection of the United States. This arrangement continued to function through the break-up of the Soviet empire and the expansion of both NATO and, later, the EU itself. But with Russia led by a newly belligerent Vladimir Putin, Turkey under an increasingly distant Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Middle East a more violent mess than ever, Britain preparing to leave the EU and an apparently more isolationist America, it is no longer enough. The union clearly needs to focus more on strengthening its common foreign and security policy (CFSP).

It is easy to overlook the CFSP’s achievements in recent years. Thanks in good part to the need for unanimity among EU member countries, the Brussels machinery can be cumbersome or even paralysed by irreconcilable differences, as became evident during the second Gulf war in 2003. The European External Action Service (EEAS), in effect the EU’s diplomatic service, has taken a while to establish itself. As for the “high representative for foreign and security policy” established with the EEAS under the Lisbon treaty of 2009, the very title has a ring of Gilbert and Sullivan about it.

Unsung heroines

Yet the first two incumbents, Britain’s Catherine Ashton and Italy’s Federica Mogherini, have chalked up many unsung successes. These range from clearing pirates from the waters off Somalia to establishing a relationship of sorts between Kosovo and Serbia in the western Balkans. And despite Mr Putin’s best efforts, all 28 EU countries have stayed remarkably united behind the sanctions imposed on Russia after its annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in early 2014. Above all, the EU helped secure a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. According to Sir Robert Cooper, a former counsellor to the EEAS, this would not have happened without it, working through an alliance of Britain, France and Germany.

Perhaps the EU’s most successful foreign policy of all is its own enlargement. Over the two decades since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989-91, the European club has taken in no fewer than 11 former communist countries from central and eastern Europe, helping to establish not just market economies but also liberal democracy, sometimes in places that had next to no experience of the concept. The result has been good for both the European economy and the entire continent’s security. It has helped make the club more pro-American and pro-NATO and less pro-Russian.

Now, however, many of these achievements are under threat. It is not just that Mr Putin sees the EU as an enemy and actively seeks to undermine it. The problems of the Middle East and north Africa also seem to be getting worse. More worryingly, further EU enlargement has more or less stopped. That creates a conundrum: what to do about the countries of the western Balkans and Turkey, which will clearly not become full members in the foreseeable future? Enrico Letta, a former prime minister of Italy who two decades ago wrote a book supporting variable geometry, suggests the EU should have been less dogmatic in the 1990s in insisting on full membership or nothing: an intermediate form of associate membership might have been better. There is now a real danger that some places could slip away from Western influence. Mr Putin is interfering in the western Balkans, as is Mr Erdogan, who is also taking Turkey in an ever more autocratic direction.

The biggest challenge, though, is the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House. Many Europeans, like many Americans, had hoped that he and his advisers would soon ditch the more intemperate language that he used during his campaign. But his early statements in office have confirmed his protectionist instincts, his criticisms of Europe for free-riding on the back of American defence, his apparent eagerness to talk to Mr Putin, his serious doubts about the value of the Iran deal and his backing for hardliners in Israel. During his campaign he also made scornful remarks about both NATO and the EU and showed strong support for Brexit.

So what should the EU do? Unity seems more important than ever. The Europeans may have to fight hard to defend the Iranian nuclear deal. They will want to stick to a common line over Russia, the Middle East and Israel. They may also need to find new ways to engage the western Balkans and Turkey. And in all this, the EU countries should recognise that there is a strong argument for closely involving non-members, notably post-Brexit Britain but also Norway and others. A CFSP without Britain would be weaker and less effective. Hence the need for some institutional innovation—observer status, partial or associate membership—that brings Britain into the picture and helps to secure its solidarity with its European partners.

The same applies to the debate on defence. Even before Mr Trump’s complaints that America’s partners are not doing enough, the case for more, and more effective, defence spending was already strong. All EU countries that are also NATO members are in principle committed to its defence-spending target of 2% of GDP, but few achieve it (see chart). Since Britain’s Brexit vote there has been much debate in national capitals on a new defence initiative, perhaps even setting up an operational military headquarters, which will be easier to do without a carping Britain. A Franco-German push could help. France’s and Britain’s defence policies are increasingly linked, whereas Germany remains a reluctant partner. In this area, more than any other, keeping Britain involved makes obvious sense.

Security begins at home

Justice and home affairs and domestic security raise similar issues. International co-operation in the fight against terrorism and organised crime is vital. As a former home secretary, Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, has repeatedly stressed the advantages to Britain of working with other EU countries on such matters. When she chose to exercise the British right to opt out of a string of justice and home-affairs directives in mid-2014, she promptly opted back into the most important ones, including Europol, the European Arrest Warrant and the system of passenger-name recognition. She has said that, after Brexit, she would like to stick as closely as she can to these arrangements.

Denmark has an even more extensive opt-out from justice and home-affairs policies than Britain (which carefully retained the right to opt back in to those that it liked). This has caused many headaches in Copenhagen. Even though Denmark is a member of the Schengen border-free zone, for instance, its access to the vital Schengen information system is at best indirect. To get around such problems, Denmark held a referendum in December 2015 on whether to end their Europol opt-out, only for Danish voters to say no once more.

Yet it would surely be wrong to allow politics or institutional inertia to interfere with essential co-operation in justice and home affairs, international policing or counter-terrorism. The United States and Australia have association agreements that allow them to place liaison officers at Europol. But as Camino Mortera-Marinez of the Centre for European Reform points out, non-EU countries cannot participate in the European Arrest Warrant. The European Court of Justice has also in the past stopped data-sharing agreements with third countries that do not adhere to EU privacy rules.

There is good reason not to allow non-members full participation in the single market, since that could undermine the principle that the economic and trade privileges it confers are contingent on accepting its rules and obligations. But such quid pro quos do not apply to security policy, judicial matters or foreign and defence policy. In these areas the more countries that can join, the better. That certainly applies to Britain and Denmark.

This, indeed, was the thinking behind the “pillar structure” set up by the 1992 Maastricht treaty, which was an attempt to create common foreign and security policies and an area of freedom and justice on an inter-governmental basis, without supervision or interference by the EU’s institutions. Later treaties folded these subjects back into normal EU rules and practice, although most policymaking still retains the unanimity requirement. Yet the flexibility of Maastricht could now be reclaimed in a different way, by engaging non-members more closely than before, without necessarily involving EU institutions or courts. One reason for steering clear of them is that there remain plenty of qualms about their legitimacy and democratic credentials.