The purpose of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is to enable the European Union to speak with one voice on foreign policy and security issues while preserving EU state sovereignty. Due to this untenable mandate, the CFSP will fail despite a few small-scale successes achieved on minor issues. Barring a major European upheaval, CFSP will function as little more than a forum for EU member states to discuss foreign policy-making and defense cooperation. Among the problems hindering CFSP effectiveness are the short term of the EU Presidency, the involvement of too many institutions and representatives, excessively lengthy discussion periods and, most importantly, the adversarial nature of European state politics.
Although improbable, a fully supported CFSP could become a counterbalance to United States foreign policy and might limit American policy options both within and outside Europe. On the other hand, given the significant dissent within EU ranks, there are no guarantees that CFSP’s evolution will not experience even greater setbacks than the 2005 Constitutional Treaty fiasco. Strategically, Europe will remain the place where America draws the bulk of its closest and most potent allies. This is unlikely to change anytime soon. For the moment, the CFSP provides more opportunities than threats to United States interests. CFSP will consolidate European positions streamlining consensus building for the United States. Moreover, this consolidation process will moderate European policies.
Is the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) an opportunity or a threat? There is no short or unambiguous answer to that question. Significant changes might be introduced in the future with the deepening of the integration of the European Union (EU) member states that might make bilateral dealings between the United States and individual EU member states more difficult. At present, meeting under the auspices of the CFSP allows EU members to iron out some differences and act more coherently, but it is far from being a coherent foreign policy. Therefore, for the moment, the CFSP provides more opportunities than threats for the United States interests.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy was introduced for a number of reasons including the desire of the former colonial powers to regain their status in world politics. The European nations, which for centuries dominated international affairs, saw their status greatly diminished after the Second World War. France, the United Kingdom (UK), Germany and other states realized that unless unified they would not be able to exert much influence abroad. The CFSP was to serve as the political arm of the European economic integration. In effect, the EU was no longer complacent with being an “economic giant” and “political dwarf”. Speaking with a single voice, however, becomes difficult, if not impossible with the competing foreign policy interests among nation states. The latest expansion of the European Union included countries whose history gives them a world perspective that is often at odds with the more established EU member states further complicates the matters.
From European Political Cooperation to Common Foreign and Security Policy
Attempts to introduce political cooperation among the members of the three European Communities (European Economic Community, European Community for Coal and Steel, and Euratom) dates back to 1970. Foreign policy cooperation for a long time existed outside the mechanisms of these Communities. Initially starting on an ad hoc basis, foreign policy cooperation gradually evolved in parallel with the mechanisms of economic cooperation. The President of France, Francois Mitterrand, and the Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl, achieved a breakthrough in their talks in the late 1980s to deepen the process of European integration. In 1986, the Single European Act for the first time formally incorporated European Political Cooperation within a common treaty. The drive for deepening the integration in the early 1990s has been influenced by the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Close interactions between France and Germany cleared the way for the signing in 1992 in Maastricht of the Treaty on the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty brought into existence the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Since it has become one of the three main pillars of the European Union architecture, together with the European communities and the Cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs and is further elaborated in the Treaties of Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2000).
How CFSP Works
Unlike economic cooperation within the EU, the European Parliament and the Commission do not have much influence over CFSP although they provide considerable input in the foreign policy making process. The European Commission participates in meetings, submits proposals and allocates funds to implement CFSP decisions. National governments and their representatives through the European Council (EU heads of state) and the Council of the European Union (EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs) are those who, ultimately, make the decisions. The main decision-making body is the Council of the European Union in its General Affairs and External Relations format. The Committee of Permanent Representatives to the EU (COREPER) and Political and Security Committee (PSC) prepare the meetings of the General Affairs Council (GAC). COREPER consists of member states’ ambassadors to the EU, which form working groups that set the agenda for the GAC meetings. A key component of the mechanism is PSC. Besides delivering opinions and defining policies to the GAC, the PSC monitors the implementation of the agreed upon policies. It meets in the mornings before GAC meetings to make final updates in the texts of GAC declarations and decisions. The PSC has an important crisis management role in the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).
Coordination and primary responsibility for implementation of CFSP decisions fall to the EU Presidency – a post that rotates to a different EU head of state every six months. The President of the EU, currently Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, updates the European Parliament on CFSP issues. The Presidency is assisted by the General Secretariat of the GAC, headed by the Secretary General of the Council, who doubles as the CFSP High Representative. The Secretariat is described as the “institutional memory” of the CFSP and the High Representative can represent the EU and conduct dialogues with third parties. That is why the High Representative often participates in summits together with representative of the country holding the rotational Presidency.
The European correspondents are responsible for acting as a point of contact between the CFSP department and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the EU member states. Finally, the bulk of the research and the discussions on CFSP issues take place within the nearly thirty CFSP Working Groups. They have either a geographic or a thematic brief and consist of experts from the member states’ administrations. The working groups make recommendations to the PSC on CFSP issues.
Whenever possible, agreement is forged at the lowest level and if there are unresolved issues they are referred to COREPER and PSC. If there is still disagreement, then these are included on the agenda of GAC meetings.
There are five major instruments, specified in Article 12 of the Consolidated Treaty for the EU. These are a definition of common principles, common strategies, adoption of joint actions, common positions and cooperation among member states. The European Council defines the common principles and guidelines and decides on common strategies. These are further elaborated and implemented by the GAC. In line with the approved principles and strategies, it adopts joint actions to address specific situations and common positions on thematic or geographical issues of interest. In meetings and conferences of international organizations, EU member states adhere to the adopted position or coordinate their positions if one does not exist. Other CFSP tools are statements and declarations, demarches and political dialogue with third countries. The latter are conducted by the Presidency, or by the Troika composed of the former, the present and the incoming Presidents of the EU.
The Constitutional Treaty envisaged considerable centralization of the CFSP. Although it failed, it is important to note where CFSP could have been today. The negative vote in the referenda in France and Holland effectively ended the process of ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. Particularly important was the shift toward stronger federalization by consolidating the policy-making efforts under the auspices of a single diplomatic service called the European External Service headed by EU Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Constitutional Treaty also attempted to codify the recent developments of the European Security and Defense Policy. After the current change in the leadership of France and the UK and the end of the fifth EU enlargement round, including the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, the European nations will probably attempt to continue the dialogue for the future of the EU. It is unlikely, however, that changes of the magnitude of the ones proposed by the Constitutional Treaty will be approved.
CFSP Today
Compared with the state of affairs prior to launching the CFSP, the latter can be considered a success. Presently, more than 70 percent of the positions of the EU member states are coordinated through the mechanisms of the CFSP. Particularly successful is the application of EU common positions and coordination in international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Within these forums, the EU countries act and vote as a bloc, thus promoting their interests much more effectively.
Furthermore, the EU members managed to overcome their differences and appropriated the CFSP budget as part of the EU budget. That resolved the problem of funding joint actions and allowed the CFSP not only to serve as a forum for coordination, but action as well. Although in absolute terms the amount of 250 million euro is not much compared to the State Department’s $9 billion budget, it is still a significant sum given that the CFSP maintains no embassies and has a relatively small staff. Moreover, this represents a 148 percent increase over the 2006 budget, which stood at 102 million euro.
The CFSP is still plagued by problems, the most significant among them that the EU cannot speak with one voice. There are too many stakeholders and too much sharing of authority, and often it is not clear who is representing the EU. The Commission President, the EU President, the Commissioner for External Relations, the High Representative for the CFSP are all involved in maintaining relations with third parties. During the latest EU summits with the United States and Russia, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel represented the EU, in her capacity as EU President and the head of the EU Commission Jose Manuel Barroso. It gets even more complicated when they start sending envoys and representatives abroad. Although most of the time their positions are coherent, the way they are presented often is not. When you add to that the confusion of dealing with several institutions and President(s) whose term(s) last only six months, the criticism is understandable. It is almost impossible to build up good working relationships within six months and even more impossible to follow roughly 1,600 work-level meetings covering large numbers of domestic and international issues.
Member states find it extremely difficult to reach agreement on CFSP issues. Under the best of circumstances, discussions can be lengthy and the increased number of participants further prolongs negotiations effectively blocking the decision-making mechanism and crippling response to emergencies. Moreover, additional discussions impose an undue burden on nation-state officials, who have to travel for meetings and hold talks with 26 counterparts.
The very nature of European politics poses another problem for the CFSP. Each representative is trying to promote his or her country’s national interests, sometimes at the expense of the others. There are also lines of divisions depending on the issue dividing members on “small” and “large”, “old” and “new”, “net contributors” and “net beneficiaries”, “federalists” and “confederalists”. The result is that there are fluid issue-based coalitions of states constantly forming and disbanding during discussions and decision-making. Representatives of EU countries often speak and think of each other in terms of “us” and “them”, which is an indicator of the highly adversarial nature of policy-making and lack of sense of community, let alone of common identity.
The CFSP will transform into real foreign policy only if EU members undergo relevant changes in three key areas. First, they will need common security and foreign policy interests. Ideally that can be achieved by the identification of a common existential threat. Given the differing foreign policy cultures, historic lessons and threat perceptions, that will not happen anytime soon. Second, unless changes in decision-making mechanisms are introduced by shortening the lines of communication and limiting the number of issues that require consensus, contentious CFSP decisions can be delayed indefinitely. Third, only a “centralized” CFSP, not paralyzed by representation from multiple institutions and individuals with varying points of view, can be taken seriously as a foreign policy-making body.
Nation-state bureaucracies have the potential to undermine CFSP from within. Expansion and survival drive every bureaucracy. Further transfer of foreign policy authority to supranational level might render the functions of national bureaucracies as futile and therefore is perceived as existential threat that should be countered. On the other hand the mere existence of bureaucracy which supports CFSP means it would not only continue to exist, but to push for closer integration in the field.
Currently, there are considerable tensions in relations between Brussels and the member states’ bureaucracies. Those tensions are not restricted to the CFSP. Brussels officials are often accused of elitist and arrogant behavior, while they in turn blame officials of national ministries for being unproductive and Europhobic. The problem is further aggravated by the lack of common interests to maximize benefits, as it is with the cooperation within the first pillar. As a result, overly complex procedures were devised to suit the diverging views and objectives of the EU member states allowing them to continue to exercise their sovereign foreign policy functions.
Implications for the United States
Europe is a region of significant interest for the United States. The two sides of the Atlantic are bound by history, a set of values and mutual interdependence. Ultimately, the European states are America’s closest and most consequential allies, but they can also be formidable impediments to United States foreign policy objectives. That is why any political developments in Europe inevitably have considerable implications for the United States. The U.S. welcomed greater foreign policy and security cooperation among European allies with the hope it would lead to greater defense spending and burden sharing.
On many issues the positions and policies of the United States and EU are in parallel. Afghanistan, Iran, Southeast Europe, and the Doha round of negotiations are only a few examples. In such cases when the two sides agree they set the global agenda. There are also significant areas of disagreement, however, such as the International Criminal Court and the level of support Israel receives from the United States.
Theoretically, when completed, the CFSP might serve as a counterbalance to United States foreign policy and might limit American policy options both within and outside Europe. That view is supported by European leaders calling for a “multipolar” world as contrasted to the “unipolar” one dominated by the United States. There are no indicators suggesting that the CFSP will evolve to the point of balancing the American foreign policy anytime soon, however. Besides the features that would shape CFSP, i.e. what it would look like, are far from defined. That is why the United States is following closely all developments in the area, but avoids expressing unambiguous positions. And the latter do not need to, because the CFSP is still work in progress and failure of the European Constitution dooms introduction of any significant changes in the near term.
Particularly troublesome for the United States is the scenario where CFSP is appropriated by a small group of countries, which try to penalize noncompliance of other member states. An example of such an attempt was the reaction of French President Jacques Chirac to the support the 10 Eastern European nations had given to the United States campaign in Iraq. In a speech in February 2003 he blamed them for irresponsible behavior and stressed, “they missed a good opportunity to keep quiet.” While not nearly so contentious as the lead up to the involvement in Iraq, United States’ plans to deploy components of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, offer another example of established EU member states trying to bring new entrants into line.
CFSP, if fully realized, will inevitably hamper EU members’ interaction with NATO and the United States. It lays another policy-making layer that will complicate communication and, as a consequence, delay decision-making. If an initiative is to be approved it should not only go through the national foreign policy-making mechanism, but also through consultations with other EU members before reaching the negotiation table with NATO or the United States. And the process will get even more protracted if changes in the initial negotiating positions are to be approved. That, of course, is more of a theoretical example, because in practice United States or NATO officials will usually contact EU member states’ officials early in the process, if the issue is to go through the CFSP. Once agreed upon at the EU level, policies are not overturned. That requires engagement when proposals are drafted in the national capitals or discussions within working groups and PSC. Furthermore, diversion of policy through CFSP mechanisms rather than through NATO will provide an additional challenge to European-American cooperation. This could ultimately weaken the transatlantic alliance and decrease United States influence over decisions related to security issues in Europe.
There are some positive elements of the European drift toward CFSP. First, when CFSP drafts positions similar to the United States’ ones the need for EU member states to adopt similar positions is obviated. There is a record of successful interaction between the United States and EU members, following common positions, within international organizations. That applies both to the Doha round of WTO negotiations and the UN Security Council interactions on issues like the Iran nuclear program. Second, due to involvement of multiple actors in CFSP decision-making, its positions and declarations tend to lack extremes. This means proposals, made by one member will be moderated by other EU members until reaching a compromise. Ultimately, CFSP would likely serve to moderate attempts to drive EU states away from cooperation with the United States, as those states seeking such action will be countered by counter arguments.
During the discussion thus far it was tacitly assumed the final point of evolution of CFSP is to become a monolithic policy. But what if that never happens? Presently, there are many indicators that this might be the most likely outcome. Some of the EU members with long histories of foreign policy making such as France, the UK, Germany and Italy are uncomfortable with allowing other foreign policy establishments, such as that of the Czech Republic, for example, to set their agenda. On the other hand smaller and/or “new” member states will resist monopolization of CFSP by larger countries. Furthermore, these fears come in the midst of a campaign, led by France, to establish a “mini EU” which would exclude most of the “new members”. New criteria, specifically designed to keep the EU members outside the process of integration are likely to introduce new divisions in the “European family.” The question, which still remains unaddressed, is what if those left outside opt for closer integration among themselves by creating their own, second, “mini EU”? That would lead to at least two, CFSPs. No matter what the outcome of the discussions for a “mini EU” treaty, one thing is certain - there will be a lot of frustration for those left behind. That would create a situation where the United States can build up ties with its European allies who in turn will be much more favorable and receptive of American initiatives.
Conclusion
The question of whether the CFSP should be perceived as an opportunity or threat by the United States has no short answers. It might prove helpful in areas of common interests, such as pressuring Iran, or negotiating global trade agreements. Moreover, the uncertain prospects for integration can also create opportunities to promote United States interests. On the other hand, a centralized CFSP dominated by a small group of powerful countries might limit the options for United States actions. No matter what the outcome, the United States should build up both multilateral and bilateral relations with the European countries. The EU and its member states are among the most potent allies United States can have in meeting the new threats facing us today. That perception is shared on the both sides of the Atlantic.
© Stoyan Stoyanov & Jinsa, 2007
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