However, addressing complex security challenges in fragile partner countries also requires substantial civilian support and the EU has indeed currently ten.
Table of contents
- Common Foreign and Security Policy - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
- Common Foreign and Security Policy
- In This Article
- Diplomacy & partnership
If necessary, 2 operations can be launched almost simultaneously. Deployment decisions are taken by national ministers from EU countries meeting in the Council of the EU. Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine this designation does not entail any recognition of Palestine as a state and is without prejudice to positions on the recognition of Palestine as a state , Syria and Tunisia. As the EU has grown, the countries of eastern Europe and the southern Caucasus have become our closer neighbours. Increasingly, their security, stability and prosperity affect ours.
A joint policy initiative — the Eastern Partnership — was launched in to deepen relations between the EU and its 6 eastern neighbours. In the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings , the EU relaunched its European Neighbourhood Policy to provide better support for partners instituting reforms that favour democracy, the rule of law and human rights. It seeks to encourage inclusive economic development in these countries and to promote partnership with a variety of groups and organisations, in parallel to EU relations with governments. The EU also supports neighbouring countries facing conflict and crisis.
The EU is also seeking to assist Libya in the current difficult political and security situation. The EU continues to support international efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. It supports a 2-state solution with a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. They are also working closely with regional partners on a peaceful solution to the conflict. The Iranian nuclear programme has been one of the most pressing sources of tension internationally. The landmark agreement reached in November with the international community was a first step towards resolving the issue.
This was a tribute to the EU's role in leading peace talks on behalf of the international community. It is also a firm supporter of regional integration in both regions. Though Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in , its international status remains undecided. Thanks to the EU's commitment to brokering talks, the 2 parties reached a landmark agreement in April This was a testament to the dedication of their prime ministers and the former High Representative, Catherine Ashton, to normalising relations. It also demonstrates the EU's firm commitment to reconciliation in the western Balkans.
The EU's ultimate decision-making body is the European Council , which comprises heads of state and government from the bloc's 28 countries. It meets 4 times a year to define policy principles and general guidelines. The High Representative 's role is to make EU foreign and security policy more consistent. She also attends the European Council and reports on foreign affairs issues.
Common Foreign and Security Policy - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
While sanctions are part of foreign policy, they must be implemented through trade policy, where the Commission traditionally has a strong role. Similarly, the European Parliament has increased its profile. Using some of its powers, such as its say over the budget, its right to elect EU commissioners, or its job to ask questions, it has forced the member states to take it more seriously. Finally, while it does not have a formal role in the CFSP, the European Court of Justice has made rulings on several issues that touch upon foreign policy.
He was also given a policy staff, which grew during his year tenure.
With the Lisbon Treaty of , the post of High Representative was significantly upgraded. It incorporated all the foreign policy functions of the rotating presidency. In addition, the High Representative became part of the European Commission and serves as a vice president in the College of Commissioners. This gives the High Representative the possibility to work more closely together with the commissioners responsible for the other external relations policies.
The member states furthermore created the EEAS in by merging all the EU offices dealing with foreign policy and complementing them with national diplomats. Even more than the institutionalization and Brusselization of coordination, the delegation of foreign policy tasks to the EU institutions raises questions about the erosion of sovereignty.
Do the member states still control EU foreign policy? The academic answer is a qualified yes Dijkstra, They play a role in the formulation and implementation of EU foreign policy, but the final decisions are still taken by the member states. The member states have also gone out of their way to establish control over the EEAS. Indeed, the whole point of de novo bodies, such as the EEAS, is to keep foreign policy out of the powerful European Commission.
In addition, it is also worth pointing out that while the EEAS resources are impressive, the total staff is similar only to that of a medium-sized national diplomatic service. Although she had more powers and resources, former High Representative Catherine Ashton has been less entrepreneurial than her predecessor Solana. When she did get personally involved, it was often not controversial.
Ashton did useful work rather than challenging the member states. It appears that current High Representative Federica Mogherini, who assumed office in November , exerts more leadership than Ashton. She has higher visibility and has been praised for concluding the negotiations with Iran concerning nuclear non-proliferation.
She has furthermore been the driving force behind the EU Global Strategy. Yet Mogherini has also been careful to complement the member states rather than to undermine them. The governance of EU foreign policy has been extensively researched. While the parallel processes of institutionalization, Brusselization and delegation have given EU foreign policy some autonomy from its member states, it is not fully autonomous. Rather, EU foreign policy is uniquely organized as a machinery in which the member states and the EU institutions jointly make policy.
It is no longer an ad hoc circus that travels across Europe every six-months as a result of the changing presidency. It is continuous and permanent—and transgovernmental rather than intergovernmental. The strength of EU foreign policy, nevertheless, still depends largely on the input of the member states. This policy area has been further developed by the member states ever since. The CFSP has also received widespread attention from the scholarly community.
It has sparked a range of new questions and puzzles for students of European integration. It has encouraged academics to experiment with different approaches ranging from international relations to comparative politics, foreign policy analysis, and public administration. In addition, it is debatable whether the EU pursues similar ends and means as sovereign states.
An influential conceptualization has been that of the EU as a normative power Manners, —the argument goes that the EU is seeking to transform the norms and standards of world politics. While the concept has been criticized, it nicely illustrates how scholars struggle to make sense of an active unconventional international player. A second key debate concerns the relations between EU and national foreign policy.
If the EU has indeed some actorness, it is important to know where it stands in comparison to the foreign policies of the member states.
Common Foreign and Security Policy
The Europeanization debate, which started in the early s, has been most helpful. It has clarified the interaction between EU and national foreign policy.
It has also resulted in many country studies exploring the impact of Europeanization. Although it is clear that member states continue to jealously guard their control over foreign policy, all of them, including the larger member states, accept the EU as a frame of reference. EU foreign policy constrains national foreign policy choices.
Equally important is that EU foreign policy increasingly not only complements national foreign policy but also sometimes replaces and competes with it. The third debate is about the governance of the CFSP. With the emergence of multiple Brussels-based actors, the increasingly relevant question is whether centralization and delegation affect the outcomes of EU foreign policy. Decisions remain in the hand of the member states, but their continuous interactions affect the attitudes and identities of national diplomats.
The EU institutions also increasingly have some autonomy in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This article is far from exhaustive, but it raises a couple of reflections on the state of the art of CFSP research. First, it is impossible to analyze the CFSP through one overall concept or approach.
The three themes identified in this article all have their own subquestions and research agendas. CFSP research is very rich, and the pluralism in the research agenda should be seen mostly as a strength rather than as a weakness. The drawback is that for students of EU foreign policy, it is becoming nearly impossible to follow all the debates in their entirety.
This has resulted in a certain degree of fragmentation.
In This Article
Second, CFSP scholars make extensive use of concepts and perspectives originating outside their discipline: The fact that scholars are open to insights from not only EU studies and international relations but also comparative politics, public administration, economics, and sociology is a healthy sign. Having said that, it remains difficult to find the right balance between uniqueness of EU foreign policy, on the one hand, and using concepts and insights of other disciplines, on the other hand.
When it works out, it undeniably adds to our understanding of the CFSP. But in some cases, transferring concepts across disciplines causes more problems than it solves. Third, we see a scholarly debate that has been very responsive to developments triggered by the changing European and international context.
The historiography of the CFSP is almost a function of world politics. This trend continues to date. As a result of the prominence of the emerging powers, various scholars are now interested in EU—Asia relations. The three research topics identified in this article—actorness, the relation with national foreign policy, and governance—are, however, likely anchors for CFSP research in the years to come. Symbolic power in European diplomacy: Review of International Studies , 40 4 , — International Affairs , 84 1. Alecu de Flers, N.
Dimensions and mechanisms of the Europeanization of member state foreign policy: State of the art and new research avenues. Journal of European Integration , 34 1 , 19— The search for an effective and coherent external policy.
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Diplomacy & partnership
Journal of European Public Policy , 19 5 , — EU external representation in conflict resolution: When does the presidency or the High Representative speak for Europe? European Integration Online Papers , 15 1 , 1— Policy-making in EU security and defense: Approaches to delegation in EU Foreign Policy: The case of the commission. The European Community and the uncertainties of interdependence.
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Many actors, one path? The meaning of Europeanization in the context of foreign policy. The study of the European Community: The challenge to comparative politics. West European Politics , 17 1 , 1— The fate of the nation-state and the case of Western Europe. Daedalus , 95 3 , — Journal of European Public Policy , 13 2 , — SAGE handbook on European foreign policy. Journal of European Public Policy , 18 8 , — States, agency and rules: The European Union in global environmental politics. The struggle for recognition of normative powers: In November he assisted the United Kingdom, France and Germany in negotiating a nuclear material enrichment freeze with Iran.
In the same month he was involved in mediating between the two presidential candidates in the post-election developments in Ukraine, and on 21 January he invited Ukraine's new President Viktor Yushchenko to discuss future EU membership. Although Javier Solana was originally selected to be the first Foreign Minister the delays in introducing the post meant after 10 years of service he stood aside for a new candidate.
Ashton was previously the European Commissioner for Trade and otherwise had no foreign affairs experience. Ashton unexpectedly came to the top of the shortlist when she was nominated unanimously by the centre-left leaders who claimed the post. Slowly other staff and ambassadors were appointed in cycles. Following the Haiti earthquake Ashton chaired a meeting of the foreign relations, development and environment DGs and experts from the Council and the Situation Centre the EU intelligence-gathering agency. Ashton then chaired a meeting of member states' ambassadors and acted as a general co-ordinator; for example contacts from the UN went via Ashton.
Although she refused to describe it as the first act of the external action service, Ashton did emphasise that it was the first time that such a co-ordination between all the various EU foreign policy actors had been accomplished before. Spain, which held the rotating Council presidency that would have taken charge before the Lisbon Treaty, took a back seat though assisted, for example by offering use of the Spanish base in Panama. However, the majority of aid relief was dealt with bilaterally between Haiti and individual member states [21] and Ashton was criticised afterward for being one of the few foreign representatives not to travel to Haiti personally.
Ashton replied stating that "There's been a recognition from the people of Haiti, the US, the UN and others of the extremely important role the EU has played. On the main issue, we should ask, have we tried to save lives, to support the people of Haiti? Criticism continued to mount, including complaints that she skipped a defence meeting to attend the inauguration of Ukraine's Prime Minister [24] alleged bias towards British officials, lack of language skills and risking a UK-French feud over creating an EU military planning headquarters.
He also supported her over Syria and has asked her to stand for a second term. At the end of her time in office, people will be more positive about what she has done. She will leave a real legacy. However, Former European Commission adviser Dr Fraser Cameron argued that "the criticism one hears of Ashton is pretty strong and it will be difficult to overcome the bad press she has.
It represents a problem for the EEAS, when it comes to public diplomacy, and reflects the system we have for choosing leaders. Too often, the EEAS is waiting until the last member state signs up to the position; they could set out a view much earlier. When you look at places like Egypt — Cathy has been five times, but people are still not quite sure what the EEAS does or who speaks for Europe.
The glass is less than half full. I think the criticism of Ashton is down to style and morale in the EEAS is not as good as it should be. The tone of public comment on Aston's performance in office was subsequently to be influenced especially by her contributions to negotiations over Kosovo and the normalization of its relationship with Serbia, and over Iran over its nuclear program.
In October , Der Spiegel wrote of her:. But now the year-old baroness is suddenly at the center of world diplomacy. And whenever she is mentioned, she earns praise for her hard-nosed negotiating skills, her stamina and her diplomatic talents. It is said that U.
Secretary of State John Kerry has much faith in her. After the November negotiation of an interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear program,. A senior French diplomat was quoted as saying, "I tip my hat to her She truly played a decisive role". The report continued that, after initially insisting on negotiating only with other foreign ministers, by the latter stages of the negotiations the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif "now Said a western diplomat, "That the others agreed to this was significant.
For China and Russia to be outside while she was in the room negotiating details was quite remarkable". On 13 July , the Financial Times among other European newspapers reported that her nomination proposal had been opposed by some eastern European countries, including Latvia , Estonia , Lithuania and Poland, where her stance towards Russia concerning the Ukrainian crisis was considered to be too soft. On 30 August, Europe's socialist Prime Ministers met prior to the convening of the European Council , at which she received the approval of the Party of European Socialists.
At her first press conference she declared her efforts will be devoted to establishing discussions between Russia and Ukraine to solve the crisis between the two countries. In , Mogherini won praise for her role in negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action , an international agreement on the nuclear program of Iran , and along with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was the one to announce the accord to the world. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see High Representative disambiguation.
Visoka predstavnica Unije za vanjske poslove i sigurnosnu politiku Czech: Hoge vertegenwoordiger van de Unie voor buitenlandse zaken en veiligheidsbeleid Estonian: Unionin ulkoasioiden ja turvallisuuspolitiikan korkea edustaja French: Alto rappresentante dell'Unione per gli affari esteri e la politica di sicurezza Latvian: Visoka predstavnica Unije za zunanje zadeve in varnostno politiko Spanish: Emblem of the EEAS.