EU Foreign Relations after Lisbon: Tackling the Security-Development Nexus? (original) (raw)
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Development Policy Review, 2016
One of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty's objectives was to enhance the coherence of EU-level foreign relations by improving collective action. Policy-level innovations included 'comprehensive' and 'joined-up' approaches linking EU instruments and actors, especially the Commission and the new European External Action Service. Have these reforms improved policy coherence? We focus on a key EU policy domain illustrating Europe's engagement with the changing global context: the security-development nexus. Although we find that collective action has improved somewhat since 2010, decision-making is affected by bureaucratic actors catering to specific constituencies. Accordingly, the coherence of security and development policies remains challenged. The EU institutions lack strategic direction, which is unavoidable in a system that lacks clear hierarchy.
""“There cannot be sustainable development without peace and security, and without development and poverty eradication there will be no sustainable peace”. The commitment to intertwine development and security policies of both the European Union and the Member States has increasingly been put forward in policy documents since the early 2000s. While the security-development nexus seems at first sight obvious and rather unremarkable, it has nonetheless become one of the main trouble spots of inter-institutional coherence in EU external action. The fuzzy boundaries between both policy domains and their impact on the distribution of competences turned the implementation of the nexus into a particularly complex and tense exercise. The rationale behind many of the Lisbon Treaty innovations is to address coherence issues by reducing the potential for conflict to a minimum. This paper focuses on the European External Action Service (EEAS) and analyses to what extent it could contribute to reconciling the distinct policies, strategies and institutional cultures of development cooperation and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The new diplomatic service constitutes a functionally autonomous body with considerable policy discretion regarding both CFSP and development cooperation. Moreover, it assembles staff and resources from the Council, the Commission and the Member States that previously stood in sharp competition. Yet, the author argues that this integration has only been partial and without the necessary political will, the EEAS might become a new battleground for continued inter-institutional turf wars and thus undermine the EU’s international credibility. ""
Ten years after Lisbon: Member States in EU foreign and security policy
Policy Brief, 2021
This policy brief reviews the effects of the institutional adjustments in EU foreign policy as instigated by the Lisbon Treaty. It scrutinises the implications of these reforms for the distribution of power between member states and EU actors involved. Our analysis identifies two conflicting trends: on the one hand, an increased influence for EU institutions, with the notable exception of the Political and Security Committee whose position as strategic foreign policy linchpin is no longer certain. On the other, a partial weakening of the commitment of at least some member states to EU foreign policy cooperation.
This paper is dedicated to the phenomenon of European foreign policy system – analysed in the processual context. Broadly defined processes of European integration affect the status of the main actors in the system. The point of reference in this study is provided by the European Union (EU) which is considered to be a source of systemic changes. However, the Member States are equally important, as well as their feedback in respect to the EU activity in the international environment of the European system. For the purpose of this study, the author has raised the question about the consequences the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty (LT) with regard to the position of sovereign states in the international system. Furthermore, it is important to look at the problem of coherence and effectiveness of the post-Lisbon solutions. The theoretical framework is provided by the synthesis of the Europeanisation concept with the realist paradigm of international relations. Such synthesis allows the author to analyse the nature and character of contemporary European states, still considered as the main actors of the European system. Therefore, it is worth to search for an answer as to why the EU member states are willing to limit the scope of their sovereignty and to what extent they are ready to share their competences in the field of foreign policy with EU supranational institutions
Cooperation and Conflict, 2012
This article argues that a holistic approach is important when studying the European Union’s (EU) role as an international security actor, but at the same time it identifies problems in adopting such a comprehensive research agenda. The holistic approach entails that the research must include ‘new’ security problems, such as climate change, but also relevant policies and instruments outside the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). However, due to conceptual, legal and political obstacles, this has been difficult to achieve; as a consequence, existing research on the EU as an international security actor tends to narrow down the focus to just one framework: the CSDP and its operations. This may lead to a distorted image, because the EU’s role in international security surpasses any single policy framework. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it sets the framework for the comprehensive research agenda concerning the EU as an international security actor. Second, it identifies key obstacles that are making this holistic approach methodologically and conceptually difficult. In this context, the Lisbon Treaty, formally abandoning the pillar structure of the EU, provides an opportunity to mitigate at least some of these roadblocks.
Journal of Common Market Studies, 2021
The Lisbon Treaty introduced far-reaching reforms for EU foreign policy cooperation. In the decade since, most scholarship has focused on the High Representative and EEAS. Far less consideration has been given to its consequences for member states' ownership of foreign policy. This article therefore examines how these institutional reforms have affected the Political and Security Committee (PSC), established to enable member states to better manage EU foreign policy cooperation. Drawing on new empirical data, it shows that the PSC has found its capacity to act as strategic agenda-setter increasingly constrained because of greater opportunities for activism by the HRVP and EEAS; and by the emergence of the European Council as the key arbiter in foreign policy decision-making. While this indicates the PSC today finds it harder to perform the role originally assigned to it, it is gaining alternative relevance through an emerging oversight role, which has implications for member states' EU foreign policy engagement.
Journal of European Public Policy, 2012
The European Union (EU) aspires to become a truly comprehensive international security actor, utilising coherently different kinds of instruments at its disposal. To this end, Lisbon Treaty reforms aim to equip EU policy with a stronger sense of strategic direction, by bringing external assistance instruments of the EU under the guidance of the High Representative. However, pursuing the norm of a more holistic, strategic international security policy, has arguably threatened a key norm contributing to the EU’s normative identity, namely the apolitical character of its aid. This article explores the friction between these two norms in the EU’s international policy, particularly in the context of the arrangements concerning the European External Action Service. Further, this article argues that the gradual move towards a more strategic deployment of the EU’s external assistance are inevitable, as it reflects the strategic principles defined by the EU in the last decade.
Rome, IAI, March 2022, 33 p. (JOINT Research Papers ; 8), 2022
Fractious domestic debates, the fragmentation of regional politics and growing interstate competition all affect the capacity of the EU to forge a joined-up and sustainable foreign and security policy (EUFSP) in crises and conflicts. The problem is amplified by EUFSP governance structures, which have evolved irregularly, with a multiplicity of actors resorting to an increasingly diverse array of policy instruments when engaging with external players on multilateral, regional and bilateral levels. The potential for improved action depends on the capacity of EU institutions and member states to work within the multi-dimensional perimeter of the EUFSP governance system to create the conditions to mitigate the effects of intra-EU contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition.