Europeans Finding Diplomatic Unity an Elusive Goal : Politics: The EC missed an opportunity to forge a plan for peace in the Middle East. The diversity of member nations is a major stumbling block.

The war with Iraq has already claimed one casualty far from the Persian Gulf: the notion that Europe is ready to play a major role as a cohesive force on the world diplomatic stage.

It is not for want of trying. Immediately before the war started, the 12 nations of the European Community met repeatedly in search of a formula for peace. But they could not overcome their own diversity, from hawkish Britain to a Germany that is still agonizing over projecting its might around the world.

“In the Gulf, Europe was absent,” lamented Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the French Institute for International Relations. “For those of us who believe in Europe, these have been very disappointing weeks.”

A great deal is at stake, not only for Europe but for the United States and the rest of the world.

For Europe, there is the tantalizing prospect of once again playing a lead role on the world diplomatic stage. “Europe as a whole is strong, but the countries by themselves are weak,” said Michaela Geiger, Germany’s secretary of state for economic development.

And for the United States, a strong and united Europe holds out the possibility of a powerful ally, more potent than the sum of its parts. In the Gulf crisis, for example, that could have translated into substantially more military support than the 12 European Community nations have been willing to provide individually.

“If Europe is to measure up to its new responsibilities--and it has no choice, it must--then it will have to pull itself together rapidly and free itself of outmoded notions of sovereignty,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Manfred Woerner said in a recent speech.

Hopes had been raised by the EC’s extraordinary rush to economic union. The community is well on its way toward breaking down most barriers to trade between the 12 nations by the end of 1992, and it is even moving toward a common currency.

Diplomatic unity is proving much more difficult.

“The community functions so well as a trading bloc because of a sense that the national interest is served when each nation acts jointly rather than singly,” said a senior U.S. diplomat who asked not to be named. “That sense of shared interest is not yet there on matters of diplomacy and national security.”

Yet when measured on a longer historical framework, Europe’s march to diplomatic union has been no less remarkable than its sprint toward economic integration. These are 12 nations that, for centuries, had been at war with each other more often than not. Now they are at least issuing joint declarations on issues of foreign policy and national security.

“There is no historical precedent for major political units that fought so many terrible wars, most recently 50 years ago, to try to come together voluntarily, willing to give up some of their sovereignty for the common good,” the senior U.S. diplomat said.

Before Europe can be a diplomatic superpower on a level with the United States, Moisi said, it needs leaders with a European vision. “You have to create a European identity,” he said, “a realization that we can be effective only on a European scale because, as nations, we are too small.”

Among the 12 nations, Germany seems the most desperate for a diplomatically united Europe. It is a stance that reflects the last 100 years of Germany’s history.

“The object is to keep the rest of Europe from fearing German domination,” said Hermann Buenz, head of the Brussels office of the foundation run by Germany’s Social Democratic Party. “All German parties find it in their interest to go European on foreign policy.”

At the other end of the political spectrum is Great Britain. Even without Margaret Thatcher as prime minister, Britain remains an island nation that inherently distrusts its continental neighbors and will not easily abandon any sovereign authority.

“Political union and a common foreign and security policy in Europe would have to go beyond statements and extend to action,” John Major, Thatcher’s more soft-spoken successor, told the House of Commons recently. “Clearly, Europe is not ready for that.”

In the abstract, public sentiment leans toward union. A poll published in December by the European Commission, the EC’s executive branch, found that nearly seven of 10 EC citizens favored a common European policy on security and defense matters.

Specifics are a different matter. Issues of war and peace have proved as divisive as ever, none more so than the Persian Gulf crisis.

At a meeting of EC foreign ministers here in Brussels Monday, Roland Dumas of France and Hans-Dietrich Genscher of Germany proposed that the European Community play a significant role not only in the conduct of a European foreign policy but also in the military defense of Europe.

British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd immediately came down hard on the other side.

“The basis of collective defense is NATO and not the EC,” he said. If Europe has been ineffectual in formulating policy on the Gulf crisis, he added, it was “not a case of a breakdown in machinery but in substance.”

France and Germany favor a decision-making system similar to that already in place for economic issues--majority rule by heads of government or their representatives, with the larger countries’ votes counting more than those of the smaller ones.

Again, Britain dissents. It wants policy to be made by consensus, so that it can veto decisions that veer off in directions it considers wrong.

Despite the divisions, many Europeans are trying to find common ground.