European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy development since Maastricht Treaty

¶ … European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and later European Security and Defence Policy since the Maastricht Treaty

Today, Europe is being transformed in some profound ways as the European Union (EU) continues to consolidate its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pursues engagement with the countries of Eastern Europe in the framework of the Membership Action Plan. Indeed, the very basis of European security is being fundamentally modified in the process. As these changes are taking place, new institutional synergies between nations and multinational organizations are being created and new dynamics in regional security are becoming increasingly evident (Dunn & Zaborowski, 2003). To help identify how these processes are affecting the respective members of the EU and NATO, this paper provides a critical analysis of the recent scholarly literature to examine the development of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and later European Security and Defence Policy since the Maastricht Treaty to determine how successful these institutional developments have been in addressing current security challenges. A summary of the research and salient findings are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview great deal of change has taken place in Europe over the last two decades that have affected its current organization and defence posture. For example, in their book, Europe's New Security Challenges, Gartner, Hyde-Price and Reiter (2001) report that, "One of the central controversies among academics and policymakers is the nature and significance of security in the post-Cold War world. For much of the Cold War the concept of security was largely defined in military terms. Thus the main focus of investigation for academics and policymakers tended to be the military capabilities required by states to address perceived outside threats" (p. 1). In recent years, though, the concept of security has been expanded to include the environment, politics, economics, society, as well as aspects of the military (Gartner et al., 2001). While these changes did not take place overnight, there are some significant milestones involved that serve to illustrate the general trends involved. For example, according to Smith and Timmons (2001), "In the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, there was little substantive progress in developing the defence dimension of the EU and, more specifically, drawing the Western European Union (WEU) closer to the Union" (p. 99).

Because there are so many diverse interests involved among the various members of the EU, it is not surprising that there has been some disagreement among its members concerning the best approach to achieving their mutual goals. In this regard, Smith and Timmons (2001) report that, "Although in the lead up to the intergovernmental conference which produced the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, nine WEU members favoured its eventual integration into the EU, the tenth, the UK, was opposed. The result was that the WEU retained its autonomy and the European Council was denied the right to instruct the organization" (p. 99). At any rate, these early negotiations represented some important indications that there was progress being made at reaching a consensus, including the following:

The treaty referred to the objective of 'fostering closer relations' between the two organisations and joint presidencies were called for when a WEU member was in line for the presidency of the Union;

The WEU's 'Petersberg Tasks,' of humanitarian operations, peacekeeping and the employment of combat forces in crisis management, were formally integrated into the EU's Second Pillar.

The WEU was to be fully involved in the establishment of an EU Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit, which was to work on plans on behalf of the CFSP.

Indeed, Hill (2000) suggests that the Treaty of Amsterdam was far from a disappointment in terms of how it helped establish the mechanisms whereby the Europeanization process could proceed, particularly as it applied to defense issues. While at first blush, the Treaty's foreign policy provisions did not appear to represent substantive progress, they did in fact go beyond what many observers expected. For example, Title V of the Treaty of European Union (TEU), agreed at Maastricht in December 1991 and signed in February 1992, remains in effect but many of the 'J' articles it contained have subsequently been amended, with the most important changes including the following:

An enlarged space for majority voting, once a 'common strategy' has been agreed and/or joint actions and common positions agreed (J.13); the onus is now on the states to stop a qualified majority voting on routine foreign policy matters, representing a major shift from the immovable double-lock imposed by Maastricht in its own J.3.

The possibility of 'constructive abstention', to allow one or more Member States to opt out of a common position without preventing the whole policy going ahead (J.13).

The incorporation of the 'Petersberg tasks' (qv, Section 3) into the Treaty and thereby further specifying the link between the WEU and CFSP (J.7.2).

The Secretary-General of the Council adds to his responsibilities the new function of 'High Representative' for the CFSP, with the aim of working towards a new working troika, consisting of the Presidency foreign minister, the High Representative, and a senior representative of the Commission (J.8).

Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit is set up under the High Representative, with personnel drawn from EU institutions, the Member States and the WEU.

The financing of CFSP is clarified, with the EC budget becoming the default setting, apart from military and defence operations and where the Council decides unanimously otherwise; as with QMV, the onus is reversed, to the disadvantage of intergovernmentalism.

The Presidency is given the power to negotiate international agreements in pursuit of the CFSP, 'assisted by the Commission as appropriate' (J.14); the agreements will be concluded unanimously by the Council and the EU still does not have 'legal personality' (Hill, 2000, p. 169).

Furthermore, subsequent events reflected an increased willingness on the part of many of the members of the EU to recognize the importance of providing a viable framework for their mutual defense that would take into account their important and sometimes mutually exclusive interests. In this regard, Smith and Timmons (2001) report that, "The disappointing outcome of the Amsterdam Treaty was subsequently overtaken by a succession of important developments on the European defence scene" (p. 99). For example, "At the Cologne and Helsinki European Councils, of June and December 1999, respectively, it was agreed that the WEU would be integrated into the EU and that for an interim period Javier Solana (a former Secretary-General of NATO) would serve as both the High Representative of the CFSP and as the Secretary-General of the WEU. The aim would be for the EU to enjoy 'the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces" (Presidency Conclusions, Cologne, 4-5 June 1999, cited in Smith & Timmons, 2001 at p. 100).

There was also provision made for a framework in which decisions could be reached concerning the commitment of military forces; to this end, this responsibility would be placed within the EU's Ministerial Council in order that the CFSP would enjoy access to the full range of instruments, including military force (Smith & Timmons, 20010. Likewise, the Helsinki communique clearly articulated the EU's intention to strengthen its Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) by creating a Rapid Reaction Force of corps size that was to be made available for deployment by 2003. According to these authors, "This force will be capable of being dispatched within sixty days and will be sustainable for a year. It is also intended that appropriate civilian resources for crisis management and post-conflict reconstruction will support the EU's military formation" (Smith & Timmons, 2001, p. 100).

During the last decade of the 20th century, a number of other important developments took place within the emerging European Union as well as NATO that continue to play out today. For example, in February 1992 at Maastricht, the EU began to forge the framework for its future development, with a concomitant of that process being renewed discussions concerning the possibilities of European integration, including the creation of the ability to conduct foreign policy and, at some point, include within it a defense dimension unique to the EU (Hunter, 2002). Unfortunately, as Hill (2000) points out, "The track record, with the difficult problems of Iraq, Bosnia, Algeria and the Middle East, seemed to many disastrous, although reactions then differed as to whether success was inherently impossible or dependent on extending integration to the sphere of foreign policy" (p. 169). Nevertheless, the wheels had been set in motion and the Treaty on European Union, Maastricht, February 7, 1992, Title 1: Common Provisions, Article B, stipulates that, "The Union shall set itself the following objectives:... -- to assert its identity on the international scene, in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence" (cited in Hunter, 2002 at p. 3).

According to Hunter, in the case of NATO, it was already becoming clear that retaining the NATO alliance and its framework were absolutely required in order to fulfill some important post-Cold War purposes, including:

Ensuring that the United States would remain engaged strategically on the European continent;

Preserving the best of the alliance's past, including its integrated military command structure; reaching out to the newly sovereign states of Central Europe; and,

Helping to shape Russia's future, potentially the most consequential, long-term unknown on the continent (Hunter, 2003).

To achieve these various purposes, NATO embarked on a series of interlocking efforts during the 1990s that were intended to provide some aspect of an overall concept of security. A series of initiatives resulted in NATO accepting new members with the possibility of still further additions in the future, crafted the Partnership for Peace and created the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council; entered into a Founding Act with Russia and a Charter with Ukraine; revised its command arrangements; and, simultaneously, became increasingly aware that developing a new relationship with the Western European Union was clearly in its best interests (Hunter, 2003).

In this regard, Dannreuther (2004) maintains that the EU's engagement with its immediate periphery represents a highly important, and potentially the most important, post-Cold War geopolitical challenge for its foreign and security policy; the nature of these obstacles can be considered to have three major dimensions, as follows:

There has been the challenge of the enlargement of the European Union, to take on new members and to define the new borders of the Union. To some degree, this has been a joint project loosely coordinated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which culminated in the NATO summit in Prague and the EU summit in Copenhagen in late 2002 broadly welcoming the same group of candidates from East-Central Europe.

The impact of the EU's ambition to provide a political union to complement its economic union; the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) represent the most visible aspects of this political ambition.

The security challenges emanating from Europe's periphery and the demands for an effective crisis management capability (Dannreuther, 2004, pp. 2-3).

Recent Trends and Events.

In recent years, the United States, Canada, their European allies, and other countries belonging to the European Union (EU) have continued their long-standing debate concerning the appropriate relationship between the NATO in its historical context as well as a European defense "pillar" of the Western alliance (Hunter, 2002). According to a former ambassador to NATO, this debate has always had several components that continue to influence the various powers involved, including the following issues:

Paramount has been the characteristics and pace of the development of European integration, chiefly enshrined in the European Union;

The management of security within the West -- until 1991 focusing on the Soviet Union and now oriented more broadly;

The sharing of common transatlantic defense burdens among the various countries of Western Europe and North America; and,

The distribution of political influence, both within the two key institutions -- NATO and the EU -- and in general between the United States and its partner (Hunter, 2002, p. 1)

In 1993, yet another series of debates over these and other timely issues took place, with two important developments:

Widespread recognition that NATO still retained a purpose following the end of the Cold War; and,

European Union's embarking on a new round of institutional creativity (Hunter, 2002).

In reality, it would seem natural that the same processes that were taking place within NATO and the EU would have some degree of influence on each other, particularly considering that both of these organizations involved the essence of some fundamental questions. These questions included:

The nature of security in 21st-century Europe;

The long-term relationships among European and transatlantic politics, economics, society, and military affairs;

The role to be played by the United States in European security -- both writ large (the corpus of relations) and small (military engagement); and,

The precise purposes to be developed in the new era for the two great institutions, entailing both the respective bounds that separate them and the processes and practices that can and do link them together (Hunter, 2002, p. 3).

The defense minister from France argued that, "The prime objective of the common European security and defence policy is to strengthen our military capabilities so that Europeans can make a greater contribution to the security of their continent, within the Alliance framework, or within the EU" (quoted in Hunter, 2002 at p. 35).

Current and Future Trends.

According to Gartner and his colleagues, "For much of the Cold War and before, security was primarily defined in military terms and concerned primarily with the national security of the territorial state. In the absence of a legitimate international authority -- in other words, in an anarchical international system -- states were seen as responsible for their own security. The only reliable means perceived to guarantee security was military power" (p. 1). Smaller nations in particular sought out alliances with or security guarantees from larger nations or groups of states, but the key concept involved remained the need for some mechanism to provide for their mutual defence. "For the great powers," Gartner et al. state, "the balance of power was seen as a key mechanism for providing security in a multipolar international system, with power being defined in terms of military capabilities. In this context, security was defined as the absence of threat or the capability to deter threat" (p. 2). In this regard, Danreuther (2004) suggests that, "The geostrategic consequences of the end of the Cold War have required the EU to prioritize and sharpen the focus of its foreign and security policy towards the countries and regions in its immediate neighbourhood. Concentrating on this dynamic area of EU foreign and security policy should contribute to the ongoing debate about the EU as an international actor and Europe's prospects for translating its economic might into political and strategic influence" (p. 3).

There are some significant challenges involved in achieving this level of integration within a union that remains highly disparate in terms of many important cultural, social and political spheres. In this regard, Knodt and Princen (2003) report that, "Even in a favourable setting of regional stability, EU governments tend to get bogged down by treaty bickering that provides for, at best, incremental solutions. In the current setting, stability is far from given" (p. 22). This is especially relevant when two external developments in particular are taken into account:

The EU continues to enlarge its membership to include as many as 27 countries, although 24 is the likely number in the short run;

The U.S. is waging a global security campaign against sources of terrorism (Knodt & Princen, 2003).

While the situation remains highly dynamic and there are a number of unknowns involved, there are some useful techniques available to help predict how these events may play out in coming years in terms of mutual security provisions within the EU. According to Knodt and Princen (2003), realist theory suggests that external threats generate internal cohesion and states will therefore join together to provide for their mutual security and well-being; however, enlargement is not commonly recognized as a 'threat' in the European Union. Some countries, such as France and Spain, that have vested interests in the smaller Union and have historically fought to secure 'deepening' before 'widening."

Nevertheless, a significant number of EU countries remain strongly supportive of European enlargement and maintain that larger is better in terms of how the EU can advance their respective ambitions for European. There are other ways of considering these trends as well. For instance, "If game theory has taught us that institutionalization is more likely when group membership is held constant over time, then game theory also tells us that the EU's current 'opening'-in terms of membership and practical policy-will weaken political cohesion. Enlargement may therefore be a cause of political division rather than a factor of internal unity" (Knodt & Princen, 2003, p. 22).

Another way of looking at how these processes will likely play out in the future relates to the so-called "security dilemma":

Along with the balance of power, a key concept of traditional security thinking has been the security dilemma. [This is a] situation in which the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others. The existence of a security dilemma, it is argued, means that when states arm themselves (even for self-defense) they weaken the security of neighbors by shifting the military balance in their favor. Neighbors will therefore feel compelled to increase their military capabilities to restore equilibrium. (Gartner et al., 2001, p. 2)