In the face of the political and military deterioration in Afghanistan international ambitions have been radically scaled back. The initial intent was to turn Afghanistan swiftly into a replica of a Western democracy. The new objective is to settle for any government that blocks terrorism. State-building has been abandoned both because it is evidently difficult, and because the international community has little idea how best to promote it. The newly released European Development Report on European policies towards fragile states, of which Afghanistan is an extreme instance, is therefore timely.

The report, issued by the European Commission launches an annual series intended to match the World Development Report of the World Bank and the Human Development Report of UNDP, both of which have considerable impact. The World Bank brings economic expertise and the UNDP brings a social perspective, including the Human Development Index. On many topics in development there is unlikely to be an equivalently distinctive European perspective, however, on fragile states Europe should have a lot to say.

The European Union has already been successful in stabilising fragile states. The fall of the Soviet Empire turned a host of societies that were small, fractured and poor into states. In the ensuing two decades these states have had radically divergent experiences: some have prospered and democratised, whereas others are now fragile states. The best predictor of success among these countries has been whether their geographic location gave them credible prospects of accession to the European Union. This was indeed the second time that accession to the European Union had been stabilising.

In the mid-1970s Greece and Portugal were in severe economic and political trouble, precariously emerging from military dictatorships. Both in Eastern Europe and Southern Europe accession to the EU was, in effect, a contract. In return for large and sustained aid inflows, and guaranteed access to the European market, governments committed themselves irrevocably to democracy, the rule of law, and the acquis communautaires. As citizens in the accession countries recognised the advantages of this package, their governments had little choice but to make the commitments.

Of course, accession to the European Union is not an option for Afghanistan or the other fragile states. But the successes of the accession countries point to what is likely to work. Money, as provided by donor agencies, is necessary. International military security, as provided by the Security Council or NATO, is necessary. Trade preferences can enhance limited economic opportunities. But at the core of the recovery of fragile states is building governance: the proper conduct of elections, the proper management of budgets, and the rule of law. Money, security, market access and governance need to be linked as they were for the accession states. Instead, in fragile states the international community has addressed each issue piecemeal with no overall coordination. In Afghanistan the gap was belatedly recognised to the extent that Paddy Ashdown was proposed as High Representative, analogous to his previous role in Bosnia. Whether this would have been sufficient is doubtful, but it was vetoed by President Karzai who evidently preferred international policies to be fractured.

As the Report argues, in its efforts to promote the development of fragile states the European Union has two enormous advantages over the other multilateral development agencies such as the World Bank and UNDP. The first is that it is not constrained by a limited mandate. The agencies are mandated to the approach of providing governments with money and advice. In contrast, the European Union has at its disposal the full array of necessary approaches: money, rules of governance, security, and trade preferences. Only governments can command this array of instruments, and only the EU and the US have the scale to be effective. The second advantage is that the EU has the practical experience of stabilising the accession countries. Given the gloom that now hovers over international efforts to help fragile states, this record of success could be valuable.

Astonishingly, to date in its approach to fragile states the Commission has chosen to ignore its own experience; instead it merely imitates the development agencies. For example, although European observers routinely monitor elections in fragile states, assessing whether they are free and fair, these assessments are not linked to the provision of aid, to privileged market access, or to security guarantees. The new Commission will have the opportunity to end this disjunct between the approach to fragile states and its approach to the accession states. If it does so, it may find that the setbacks in Afghanistan have prepared the American Administration to listen.

See also Paul’s talk on TED on how to rebuild a broken nation: