Informal Differentiated Integration in EU Foreign and Security Policy: Perspectives of a Small Member State (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
Since the creation of the EU, there have been instances in which a restricted number of member states have handled an issue of international security on behalf of the Union. While controversial, these "lead groups" have been a valuable practice. They can enable a European response in the context of urgent conflict management and complex international negotiations. While they do not drive further EU integration, lead groups have been effective in generating intra-EU consensus on specific issues and spurring the EU into action. The paper assesses the conditions and performance of this foreign policy practice through an analysis of EU lead groups in the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and the Normandy mediation format between Ukraine and Russia. Lead groups are sub-optimal arrangements compensating for the in-built institutional shortcomings of unanimity-based decision-making in EU foreign policy. They have nonetheless shown significant potential in giving initiative and content to EU foreign policy, in that they either operationalise positions agreed at the EU level or create a policy where there had been none. Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of the Global Actors Programme of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Marco Siddi is Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). 4 | Differentiation in EU Foreign and Security Policy: EU Lead Groups in the Iranian Nuclear Dispute and the Ukraine Crisis and driven by the unanimity-voting Foreign Affairs Council have been realistic. Therefore, lead groups have been a viable, albeit sub-optimal, arrangement to spur the EU into foreign policy action.
Differentiation and the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy
EU IDEA Research Paper, 2021
Differentiation is a frequent modus operandi in European foreign, security and defence policy. EU treaties have introduced legal frameworks for various types of formal differentiated integration in this policy area. However, they have rarely been used in the field of foreign policy and were only recently launched in the field of defence policy. On the other hand, empirical analyses show that EU member states have engaged in a range of informal practices of differentiation, such as regional groupings, contact and lead groups, and various defence initiatives. This article reviews the scholarly literature and recent empirical analyses of differentiation in EU foreign, security and defence policy. In doing so, it assesses their legitimacy and accountability, and calls for a more explicit focus on effectiveness. Drawing on case studies of differentiated cooperation with non-member states, the article argues that effectiveness depends on shared interests rather than on the level of institutionalisation of the partnership. In a second step, the paper focuses on EU foreign policy in the Western Balkans, the Middle East and the Eastern neighbourhood. It contends that differentiated cooperation has had largely positive outcomes when it has adhered to common EU values and positions. Conversely, when this has not been the case, differentiation has undermined EU foreign and security policy.
EU IDEA Policy Paper No: 14, 2021
The EU extensively practices differentiation in its foreign, security and defence policy, both internally and externally towards its neighbours. Neighbouring countries are plugged into the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and its Common Security and Defence Policy to different degrees, and also cooperate with groups of member states informally outside of the EU framework. The paper focuses on external differentiation in foreign and security policy, undertaking an in-depth assessment of the ways in which Albania, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and the UK cooperate with the EU in foreign and security policy. The paper focuses on the effectiveness, sustainability and legitimacy of the EU’s external differentiation with its partners. Finally, it makes recommendations for how the EU and its partners might deepen foreign and security policy cooperation.
European Union (EU) treaties have introduced legal frameworks for differentiated integration in European foreign and security policy, but they have rarely been used. Instead, member states have engaged in informal practices of differentiated cooperation. Based on an analysis of effectiveness, accountability and legitimacy of differentiated cooperation in the Western Balkans, the Middle East Peace Process, negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and the Ukraine crisis, we argue that differentiated cooperation has had positive outcomes when it has adhered to common EU values and positions. When this has not been the case, differentiation has undermined EU foreign and security policy.
The Participation of Members and Non-members in EU Foreign, Security and Defence Policy
2021
From the outset the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) – including the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – has been struggling with the ambition to create and uphold a common policy and the often diverging views of the Member States. The – at least initial – requirement of unanimity for each and every (implementing) decision was necessary to convince certain Member States that Union foreign policies would never conflict – let alone set aside – national foreign policies. The creation of CFSP was a compromise born out of the development of the European Political Cooperation in the 1970s and 80s and the wish to create something of a ‘European Political Union’ alongside the Economic and Monetary Union. The idea was to unite Member States on foreign policy issues to allow the Union to act as a cohesive force in external relations. While CFSP started out as ‘the odd one out’, over the more than 25 years of its existence we have slowly witnessed a ‘normalisation’ of thi...
Lead Groups in EU Foreign Policy: The Cases of Iran and Ukraine
European Review of International Studies, 2021
Since the creation of the EU, there have been instances in which a restricted number of member states has handled an issue of international security on behalf of the Union. This article argues that, while controversial, these 'lead groups' have been a valuable practice. They have been effective in generating intra-EU consensus on specific issues and spurring the EU into action, thereby enabling a European response in the context of conflict management and complex international negotiations. Lead groups are sub-optimal arrangements compensating for the in-built institutional shortcomings of unanimity-based decision-making in EU foreign policy. As such, they do not bring integration further. They have nonetheless shown significant potential in giving initiative and content to EU foreign policy. This is shown through the analysis of two case studies, the Anglo-Franco-German trio involved in Iran's nuclear issue and the Franco-German duo brokering a truce between Russia and Ukraine.
Conceptualising the Multi-Actor Character of EU(rope)'s Foreign Policy
Rome, IAI, October 2021, 34 p. (JOINT Research Papers ; 2), 2021
While there exists a plethora of theories aiming to make sense of the European Union and its foreign policy, no single existing theory has yet managed to capture the multi-actorness of what can be referred to as “the broader area of EU and European foreign and security policy”. A conceptual framework building on the current literature of differentiated integration, which has become a permanent feature of European integration, may fill that gap. Based on a holistic approach to EU foreign and security policy, looking at both formal and informal processes, such a framework explains the multi-actor character of the EU, while introducing five roles – leaders, followers, laggards, disruptors or leavers – that actors can play in the integration process, either to bring it forward or halt it.
United clubs of Europe: Informal differentiation and the social ordering of intra-EU diplomacy
Cooperation and Conflict, 2022
This article makes the case for integrating informal, social and minilateral dynamics in analyses of 'differentiated integration' in the European Union (EU) context. In EU studies, differentiated integration has mainly served as an analytical lens for studying variation in states' degree of formalized commitment to the European integration project or in organizational decision-making procedures across policy areas. While this focus has generated important analytical and empirical insights, three dimensions tend to be lost when limiting the study of differentiated integration to negotiated outcomes manifest in legal documents and decision-making procedures. First, informal processes of integration precede and concur with formal ones. Second, European integration is an inherently social process, and member states integrate with the EU identity-building project in different ways and to different degrees. Third, member states enjoy heterogeneous social ties with one another, routinely forming informal bi-and minilateral coalitions in everyday decisionshaping processes. More knowledge about these informal and social dynamics can give us a better understanding of how differentiated integration manifests itself in practice and where the European integration process is heading. The theoretical argument is buttressed by data from the 2020 European Council of Foreign Relations' 'Coalition Explorer' survey, showing how partner preferences within the EU continue to reflect stable social sub-orders.
The study of EU foreign policy
Manchester University Press eBooks, 2018
The European Union's foreign policy is an ongoing puzzle. The membership of the enlarging European Union has set itself ever more ambitious goals in the field of foreign policy-making, yet at the same time each member state continues to guard its ability to conduct an independent foreign policy. As far as the EU's ambitions are concerned, foreign policy cooperation led to coordination, and coordination in turn gave way to the aspiration of developing a common foreign policy. Concern over foreign policy was the precursor to endeavours to cooperate in matters of security and eventually defence policy. And the desire to maintain the national veto over decision-making within the 'second pillar' of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) gave way to the acceptance that, at least in some agreed areas, detailed policies-joint actions and common positions-would be determined by qualified majority vote. Yet, despite these advances the reluctance of member states to submit their diplomacy to the strait-jacket of EU decision-making has remained. Individual states have maintained distinct national foreign policies, whether this is about specific regional interests, specific global issues or special relationships with other powers. This has been reflected in the institutional arrangements based on the principle of unanimity. Indeed, the very pillar structure of the EU treaties-separating the 'Community pillar' from the special regime that governs CFSP and parts of Justice and Home Affairs-is a hallmark of an arrangement in which member states have sought to minimise the role of supranational institutions and preserve national autonomy. And yet, despite the sensitivity of member states in the area of foreign policy, and their caution to move beyond intergovernmental decision-making mechanisms in this field, foreign policy has been one of the areas in which European integration has made the most dynamic advances. This includes institutional innovations such as the establishment of the post of High Representative for the CFSP and the creation of an EU Military Staff, both based within the
The Treaty of Lisbon brought about principal changes in the decision-making process of the European Union by forcing to abjure the intergovernmental approach and increasing the competencies of supranational institutions. Every member state in the EU has its national goals and preferences. Due to limited resources, the small Member States need to develop their strategies in certain ways for successful navigation between the institutions and regulatory frames, domestic factors and interests of other actors. The paper discusses on the bases of explanatory case studies that small states' efficiency in the process of EU internal security integration is mainly influenced by (i) coherent domestic political consensus, (ii) clear setting of strategic priorities and their multi-level use, (iii) professionalism and expertise of civil servants involved, (iv) appropriate timing and flexible negotiation skills to represent its interests.