Iraq – European Union (EU) relations are the international relations between Iraq and the EU. Relations have been strained from the early 1990s but are now gradually progressing. From Brussels, Iraq has mostly been considered as falling under the U.S. area of responsibilities, independently from the close economic ties between certain European states and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq prior to the international sanctions regime, or the participation of five European countries in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country. Should Turkey's accession to the EU take place, Iraq will border the European Union.
Background
Differences in the European and U.S. approaches to the issue of Iraq began to emerge in the 1990s. This period, following the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, was characterized by a policy of containment. Alongside this policy, however, the United States became progressively more involved in advocating democracy for Arab states, a process which had no parallel in Europe. The slow movement in Washington from a policy of containment to one of regime change reached a significant milestone in 1998, with the Clinton Administration passing the Iraq Liberation Act. No parallel movement took place in Europe.
European opposition to a policy of regime change in Iraq meant that little deliberation had taken place in Europe as to what a post-Saddam Iraq may look like. There was also a pronounced wariness in continental Europe regarding the Iraqi opposition. Even a December 2002 conference on the subject of democracy in Iraq had to be moved from Brussels to London because of the sensitivity of the subject for continental Europeans. In Britain, the country closest to the United States on Iraq, relations between Iraqi oppositionists and official circles were few.
Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) came into being following the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. In 1999, the CFSP was solidified through the creation of the position of its high representative. The Iraq crisis was the most significant test with which the CFSP had yet been required to contend. Iraq, however, saw the EU failing to act as one. Rather, the approach of real crisis resulted in the major powers of the EU splitting; with France and Germany opposing the U.S.-led plans for invasion of Iraq; and the UK aligning itself firmly alongside America and committing troops to the invasion. Other European countries sided with either position, many contributing to the multinational force in Iraq.
Divisions in the approach to 2003 Iraq war
Concern at the ambitions of the Saddam Hussein regime and at the possibility that Iraq was concealing aspects of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program from United Nations inspection teams was common to the United States and all member states of the European Union. On the basis of this shared concern, Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed on November 9, 2002, with the appearance of unity within the EU. Evidence of a differing orientation toward the use of force among EU countries, however, was already discernible.
France and Germany
In France and Germany, the willingness to break openly with Washington on this issue was particularly noticeable from the outset. The U.S. Administration noted and was angered by the use of populist anti-war rhetoric made by then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in his bid for re-election in September 2002. It was the first sign of a new atmosphere of mutual impatience and exasperation between the United States and certain countries in Western Europe. United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's much-quoted comments made at this time differentiating between "Old Europe", (France and Germany) and "New Europe", (countries of Central Europe), who were more sympathetic to America's stance on Iraq, confirmed the attitude of mutual suspicion emerging between the U.S. Administration and the French and German governments.
As military action began to look more and more inevitable in the first months of 2003, French President Jacques Chirac became the main spokesman for the view that UN weapons inspectors needed more time to search Iraq for banned arms. He backed a request by the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, for an extension of "several months." The French president noted that his country was coordinating its positions closely with Germany. Germany indeed voiced its opposition to a UN Security Council vote on military action and, unlike France, indicated that it would oppose any request for UN support for military action.