The EU has a number of external roles that have developed in different phases with separate decision-making procedures. As the European Commissioner for External Relations has explained, ‘in Brussels jargon, external relations or “external action” as it is called … is a much wider concept than CFSP. It encompasses the so-called “fi rst pillar” policies such as development cooperation and technical assistance, trade, environmental, visa and asylum policy and other areas, plus “classical” foreign policy or CFSP’ (Patten, 2003).
The policy areas within the fi rst pillar of the Maastricht Treaty have a lineage dating from the foundations of the European Community in 1957. Decisions in this sphere are taken in the Council by Qualifi ed Majority Voting (QMV) following Commission initiatives and under the auspices of the European Parliament. CFSP provisions are placed within Maastricht’s second pillar and were developed from the member state system of intergovernmental consultation set ‘outside’ the Community method known as European Political Cooperation (EPC). CFSP, like EPC, is intergovernmental in character and requires the unanimous consent of all member states for action. CFSP provisions have been developed in the Union since Maastricht in 1992 and enhanced in Treaty revisions in Amsterdam in 1997, and Nice in 2001. The proposed European Constitution agreed at member state level in 2004 would, if ratifi ed, take CFSP coordination a stage further.
The Treaty of Rome to Maastricht
The fi rst-pillar provisions have their precedents in the commercial and trade roles of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) and the European Economic Community (EEC) (1957). The establishment of the Common Market led its six member states to coordinate external economic relations.
Articles 18 to 29 of the EEC Treaty established a Common Customs Tariff and Articles 110 to 116 provided for the Common Commercial Policy. The Commission was entrusted with negotiations with third countries and ‘was almost immediately involved in developing its role as a trade actor, as its trading partners sought to negotiate on the effects of the Customs Union’
(Brotherton and Vogler, 1999, p. 49). The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Articles 38–47) had similar external consequences for third parties.
The Community’s development role was based upon the colonial interests of the six, in particular France. The Treaty provisions for Association offered preferential trade relations and fi nancial assistance.
Enlargement and consolidation of the Community widened the signifi cance of its external role. British membership in 1973 led to the inclusion of additional third-world partners. The Lomé Convention in 1975 linked the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacifi c countries (ACP). The Community’s reach became global:
By 1978 the Union had concluded Association Agreements or Cooperation Agreements with all the states of the Mediterranean basin not covered by earlier Association Agreements (excluding Libya and Warsaw Pact member states);
concluded the third Lomé Convention with 75 states in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacifi c; had established Cooperation Agreements under Article 113 and 235 with the States of the Andean Pact and the states of Central America, the ASEAN states and the Gulf Cooperation Council; and created framework bilateral agreements with other Asian and Latin American countries. (Whitman, 1998, p. 47)
The Single European Act (SEA) in 1986 set the end of 1992 for completion of the internal single market and made Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) an objective of the Community. The SEA had a number of political implications for member states as a ‘Europe without frontiers’ was created.
Externally the dynamics of the new market led fi rst to European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members seeking access via the creation of the European Economic Area (which linked the EC and EFTA markets) and then membership for Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995.
The collapse of communism in Europe and the reunifi cation of Germany set the seal on the commitment to a new Union. Two Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) were launched, one on EMU and one on Political Union. The outcome was the Treaty on European Union agreed at the Maastricht European Council Summit in December 1991. The Treaty was seen to mark ‘a new stage in the process of European integration …’
and tasked the Union with a number of objectives, including ‘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 turn lead to a common defence’
(TEU, 1992, Title I, Article B).
The record of EPC was an extensive policy network between member states, declarations and common positions (Nuttall, 1992). In terms of output the results were mixed and at times modest (White, 2001, pp. 71–
93). The Community’s response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 encapsulated the diffi culties inherent in EPC. While the Community took sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime, as the prospect of military action increased, divergence and discord among member states grew.
Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission, saw the crisis as
an ‘object lesson – if one were needed – on the limitations of the European Community’ which ‘had neither the institutional machinery nor the military force which would have allowed it to act as a community’ (Delors, 1991).
Reform became imperative but at the IGC a key issue was whether CFSP should be subsumed under Community procedures. Although the strictly governmental nature of EPC had been eroded in practice and by the provisions of the SEA (White, 2001, p. 77), France, the UK, Denmark, Greece and Portugal opposed EPC integration into the Community (Nuttall, 2000, p. 10). The result was the separate-pillar approach adopted at Maastricht and the retention of intergovernmentalism.
The objectives of the new CFSP were:
to safeguard the common values, fundamental interests and independence of the union; to strengthen the security of the Union and its member states in all ways;
to promote peace and strengthen international security, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter as well as the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the objectives of the Paris Charter; to promote international cooperation; [and] to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. (TEU, Article J.1) The European Council was to ‘defi ne the principles of and general guidelines for common foreign and security policy’ (TEU, Article J.8.1). CFSP was to be taken forward on the basis of ‘common positions’ and ‘joint actions’.
When the Council defi ned a ‘common position’ member states were to ensure that their national policies conformed (TEU, Article J.2.2) and to
‘coordinate their action in international organizations and at international conferences’ (TEU, Article J.2.3). When the Council decided to take a ‘joint action’ it was to ‘lay down the specifi c scope, the Union’s general and specifi c objectives in carrying out such action, if necessary its duration, and the means, procedures and conditions for its implementation’ (TEU, Article J.3.1). Decision making for the CFSP was to be on the basis of unanimity (TEU, Article J.8.2); except when a ‘joint action’ has been adopted the Council ‘shall, when adopting the joint actions and at any state during its development, defi ne those matters on which decisions are to be taken by a qualifi ed majority’ (TEU, Article J.3.2).
Following Maastricht, the development of the European security identity followed two avenues: that concerning defence (which is the subject of Chapter 6); and the enhancement of political coordination. The European Council in 1993 asked the Council of Ministers to defi ne the conditions and procedures for joint action in the following fi ve areas: the promotion of stability and peace in Europe; the use of the Union’s fi nancial, political and economic resources in support of the Middle East peace process;
support for the transition towards multiracial democracy in South Africa
through a programme of assistance including preparation and monitoring of elections; contribution to the implementation of a peace plan for the former Yugoslavia and support for humanitarian action; and support for the democratic process in Russia by providing observers for parliamentary elections (European Council, 1993a). These initiatives focused Union action and practice. The fi rst area for joint action, for example, was taken forward by a ‘Stability Pact’ for Eastern Europe to ‘consolidate their borders and to resolve the problem of national minorities …’ (European Council, 1993b).
The Pact was developed by conferences with participating states, regional
‘round tables’, Commission involvement, and ultimately the prospect of enlargement (Ueta, 1997).
Association Agreements known as ‘Europe Agreements’ were concluded with the Central and East European Countries (CEECs) in the wake of the Cold War. The agreements consisted of preferential, asymmetrical tariff reductions for CEEC access to the EU, a commitment on the part of the CEECs to make their competition policy and state aid compatible with the EU, and recognition that accession was the fi nal objective of the country concerned (Nuttall, 2000, pp. 91–2). Conditionality was central to EU strategy and enlargement became a powerful means to create a stable and institutionalized wider European space. The Copenhagen EU Council in June 1993 accepted the principle of admission for the Europe Agreement countries and adopted three key principles for membership. Each candidate country had to achieve
stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidate’s ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. (European Council, 1993c, p. 13)
The European Council in Essen in 1994 agreed to adopt a pre-accession strategy to set out the requirements for accession. In July 1997, the Commission recommended in its ‘Agenda 2000’ paper that accession negotiations should begin with Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. The Commission believed negotiations could start with Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia when they were deemed to have met the Copenhagen criteria.
The success of the Union in exporting its norms to Eastern and Central Europe was not matched by its intervention in the crises resulting from the break-up of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. The dissolution of Yugoslavia transcended the IGC that led to CFSP but soon became its fi rst major test and failure. The EU in theory sought to uphold the integrity of
the former Yugoslavia in line with the Helsinki Final Act, but in practice, member states moved towards recognition of its constituent parts. As the inevitable confl ict progressed to war, the EU offered ‘good offi ces’, and tried to broker a peace among the factions but did not take preventive action on the ground. It fell to the United Nations and NATO to mount an intervention (see Chapter 6). The EU failure needs to be set against the record of the international community, which wrestled with the problem of intra-state confl ict until the Dayton Agreement of 1995. None the less, the Union’s ‘limited competence in security and defence matters and, more importantly, its member states’ disparate foreign policy objectives together ensured that the EU’s ambition to assert its presence as an international actor was impaired by its inability to maintain common positions’ (Kintis, 1997, p. 164).
In 1995 Jacques Santer, President of the Commission, questioned the will of member states to work together in CFSP, the adequacy of the intergovernmental pillar and the unanimity rule for decision making (Santer, 1995). The Commission proposed an extension of QMV to foreign policy areas excluding defence and the integration of the Western European Union (WEU), the pre-NATO European defence alliance, into the EU. France sustained its position on the need for a second intergovernmental pillar, while Britain led the opposition to an extension of QMV and opposed France and Germany over the integration of the WEU. The resulting Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 did not, consequently, fundamentally alter arrangements for CFSP.
From Amsterdam to the European Constitution
The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty restated the signifi cance of the European Council in CFSP and the principle of unanimity in decision making, although it did allow for ‘constructive abstention’ whereby a member state will ‘not be obliged to apply the decision, but shall accept that the decision commits the Union’ (Article 23.1). The instruments of CFSP were refi ned with the adoption of Common Strategies in addition to Common Positions and Joint Actions.
The key innovations of Amsterdam were, however, in terms of representation. A new high representative for CFSP was instituted as a secretary-general within the Council Secretariat. The high representative, or ‘Mr CFSP’, was to work with the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and a senior member of the Commission. This ‘troika’ replaced the former system of representing CFSP by past, present and future presidencies. The high representative was to be supported by a new policy planning and early warning unit to be established in the General Secretariat of the Council
consisting of staff drawn from the General Secretariat, member states, the Commission and the WEU.
Union development policy changed after the Amsterdam Summit. It had been built upon preferential trade relationships and fi nancial assistance either delivered bilaterally, or multilateral in geographical and thematic approaches.
The Community budget had provided aid and the European Development Fund (EDF), funded by member states, as well as grants, risk capital and loans to the private sector. The impact of EU policy was signifi cant. In 2000 the Union was the third largest donor of Official Development Aid (ODA) and its member states were the developing countries’ largest trading partners (Matthews, 2004, pp. 471–92). The Union’s preferential trade regime for ACP countries was, however, in contravention of World Trade Organization (WTO) non-discrimination norms. The EU could not indefi nitely seek WTO exemptions and in any case there were perceived failings in the Lomé model. Its inability to ‘produce visible progress in standards of living had seriously undermined the credibility of the EU as a leading actor on development issues’ (Babarinde and Faber, 2004, p. 45).
The result was the Cotonou Agreement of June 2000, which ended non- reciprocal trade preferences. Cotonou embodies fi nancial assistance, priority for poverty reduction, a political dimension and liberalized trade between the two parties. Negotiations on new regional economic partnerships began in 2003 and are to be completed by 2008. The new trading arrangements were seen as ‘crucial to improving the ACP countries’ capacity to trade and to attract international private investment’ (Nielson, 2000). The balance of responsibility in the Agreement was clear: ‘each country must own and be accountable for its policies’ (Cotonou Agreement, 2000). The political dimension of Cotonou encompasses: dialogue, respect for human rights, peace-building and good governance. The parties reaffi rmed ‘that democratization, development and the protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights are interrelated and mutually reinforcing’ (ibid.). Cotonou integrates conditionality and provides for review and termination subject to the political pillar.
The EU’s development policy was also reformed in light of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit in September 2000. The UN General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration setting eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be realized by 2015 (United Nations Millennium Declaration, 2000). The European Community’s Development Policy Statement by the Council and the Commission in November 2000 identifi ed six areas for action:
The link between trade and development; regional integration and cooperation;
support for macro-economic policies and the promotion of equitable access
to social services; transport; food security and sustainable rural development;
and institutional capacity-building. (The European Community’s Development Policy, 2000)
The policy made clear, like Cotonou, that ‘attention will consistently be given to human rights, to the environmental dimension, to equality between men and women and to good governance’ (ibid.). The objective was to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty and provide support for ‘sustainable economic and social and environmental development, promotion of the gradual integration of the developing countries into the world economy and a determination to combat inequality’ (ibid.). For the world’s 48 poorest countries (LDCs) the EU adopted the ‘Everything but Arms’ (EBA) proposal in February 2001. The EBA provides for duty-free access into EU markets for all goods except arms (bananas, rice and sugar were subject to a progressive scale of tariff reduction) (Council of Ministers, 2001). The EU has called on other developed sectors of the world economy to adopt EBA strategies and looked to reform its own policies to realize the MDGs. In 2005, following the Council’s request, the Commission prepared proposals on three aspects: fi nance for development, policy coherence and focus on Africa. The Commission’s proposals aim to
set new intermediate targets for growth in offi cial aid budgets by 2010 for both the EU as a whole and the individual member states with a view to achieving the overall target of 0.7% of the gross national income (GNI) by 2015; speed up reforms that will improve the quality of aid; re-think the way that the EU, through its own model of sustainable development and its internal and external policies, infl uence the conditions for development; ensure that Africa is the number one benefi ciary of these new approaches and seize new opportunities for partner- ship between the two continents. (Commission of the European Communities, 2005a, p. 5)
The Commission’s analysis was comprehensive in scope and identifi ed sectors for reform. In terms of policy coherence the Commission identifi ed a number of priority areas including: trade, environment, security, agriculture, fi sheries and migration, where the challenge of attaining synergies with development policy objectives is considered particularly relevant (Commission of the European Communities, 2005b, p. 5). The link to security strategy refl ects the European integrated approach to conflict prevention and crisis management. The breadth of security conceptualization embodied in the European Security Strategy adopted in 2003 (see below) meant that the EU was committed to ‘security and development as complementary agendas, with the common aim of creating a security environment and of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, war, environmental degradation and failing economic, social and political structures’ (ibid., p. 10). The Commission
saw the need to increase the amount of international aid, enhance the quality of aid (Commission of the European Community, 2005a, pp. 5–8) and pursue Coherence for Development Commitments in the context of MDGs (Commission of the European Communities, 2005b, p. 6). The challenges to the Commission agenda include: sustaining reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); and enlargement. Enlargement in the case of the CEECs means a transition from aid recipients to donors, limited resources for ODA and the need to identify poverty reduction as an aid strategy (Migliorsi, 2003).
The Nice Treaty of 2001 was designed to reform the EU in anticipation of enlargement. With regard to CFSP the major work was in respect of ESDP (discussed in Chapter 6) to enable the EU to assume responsibility for crisis management. The Nice European Council recognized that if ‘it is to play fully its role on the International stage, the EU must be in a position to have at its disposal the whole range of instruments required for a global approach to crisis management, and in particular: – develop a coherent European approach to crisis management and confl ict prevention; ensure synergy between the civilian and military aspects of crisis management; and cover the full range of Petersberg tasks’ (European Council, 2000a, p. 41).
To manage this process Nice formalized a committee structure initiated at Helsinki in 1999. The new Political and Security Committee (PSC) consisting of ambassadors from member states is seen as the ‘linchpin of the European security and defence policy (ESDP) and of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP)’ (European Council, 2000a, p. 63). The PSC was to
keep track of the international situation in the areas falling within the common foreign policy and security policy, help defi ne policies by drawing up “opinions”
for the Council, either at the request of the Council or on its own initiative, and monitor implementation of agreed policies … (Ibid., p. 64)
In a crisis situation the PSC is the body which ‘examines all the options that might be considered as the Union’s response …’ and ‘exercises “political control and strategic direction” of the EU’s military response to the crisis’
(ibid., pp. 64–5). The PSC was complemented by the creation of the EU Military Committee (EUMC) comprising Chiefs of Defence and the European Union Military Staff Organization (EUMS) which was to provide early warning and strategic planning for the ‘Petersberg tasks’.
As the Union moved to make its CFSP more proactive and cohesive, it also adopted an overall strategy for foreign and security policy. The
‘European Security Strategy’, published in December 2003, envisaged a multi-level and multi-issue agenda for the Union. The security environment