EU’s Foreign Policy Making Process in the field of Nuclear Disarmament: Conditioning Factors and Criteria Indicators at Internal Level (original) (raw)
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European Foreign Affairs Review, 2011
For many years, the EU’s policy on non-proliferation of WMDs has been a victim of institutional fragmentation, imbedded in the post-Maastricht formal separation of the European Community from the CFSP. On the one hand, since the beginning of the 1990s, the European Commission was developing capacity-building projects on non-proliferation and nuclear safety, utilising its geographical and thematic financial instruments. On the other hand, more recently, permanent bureaucratic structures entrusted with implementing the EU’s WMD Strategy were established in the Council General Secretariat. This posed a challenge to consistency of the EU’s non-proliferation efforts and even triggered inter-institutional competition over limited resources. The European External Action Service offers an opportunity to solve these problems by bringing selected bureaucracies from the Commission and Council General Secretariat together. Will it be sufficient to develop a consistent policy on the non-proliferation of WMDs for the EU? This article analyses structural problems which have been negatively affecting the EU’s profile as an actor in non-proliferation policy. Further, it evaluates prospects for enhancing this profile following the institutional reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.
The role of the EU in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons
PRIF/HSFK, 2003
The EU is not an unitary actor in the nuclear non-proliferation domain, being mainly constrained by the diversity of positions of its members as regards nuclear weapons on the one hand and the transatlantic link on the other. The EU notably includes eleven NATO members comprising two NWS and four countries that host Alliance's nuclear weapons, along with four highly disarmament-minded countries.
The EU's evolving responses to nuclear proliferation crises
The EU has evolved a role in the management of crises provoked by states perceived to be in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. At the outset of these non-proliferation efforts, the EU was criticized for the timidity of its reactions. More than 11 years after the adoption in 2003 of its Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, has the EU managed to improve its performance in responding to nuclear proliferation crises? This policy brief examines how the EU has used the tools in its foreign policy toolbox to address nuclear proliferation crises and discovers that a steady evolution has taken place. The analysis shows that the EU has evolved from a marginal into a key actor over the course of different crises and that it has called upon a variety of tools in a range of crisis situations, from Ukraine to India and Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea and Iran. This policy brief specifically explores the nature of the instruments selected by the EU in the face of each of the challenges to the non-proliferation regime. It discusses the key factors accounting for the activation of the EU’s foreign policy toolbox following the adoption of its 2003 strategy, highlighting pressure by the United States and the legitimization of a United Nations Security Council mandate as determinants.
The need for a new approach to European non-proliferation policy?
EU Non-Proliferation Consortium , 2020
Since the publication of Ian Manners' article "Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?", it is assumed that the EU is a power that seeks to expand its norms to make the rest of the actors in the international system similar to it. The notion of normative power does not escape the scope of non-proliferation and European policy in this area: Since the publication of the Non-Proliferation Strategy in 2003, the EU has sought to expand its non-proliferation norms to all members of the international community (e.g. the will to universalize the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the incorporation of the non-proliferation clause in agreements with third States) by maximising the use the instruments at its disposal. Despite the fact that this has led to think about the EU as an emerging defender of the fundamental sense of non-proliferation and disarmament, EU member States have diverging views altogether on these matters, particularly on the second one. Reality is that the field of non-proliferation is not one where the EU has acted to its full potential. The question therefore that arises is if third parties consider the European Union as a fully-fledged actor in non-proliferation and if it can do more and be more effective in this field. In this sense, we formulate the following hypothesis: The acceptance of the norms that the EU intends to expand in this policy field by third party actors entails a positive performance in terms of its non-proliferation policy, and therefore its acceptance as a valid actor in this regime. To verify this hypothesis, we will proceed to carry out two case studies that provide practical evidence of the EU's normative power in action, these being the negotiation of a non-proliferation clause with India, and the implementation of sanctions against Iran as a result of its nuclear programme. Ultimately, this will allow us to have a clear idea of the real capacity of the EU for disseminating its non-proliferation norms, whether the EU non-proliferation norms have been adopted (accepted) or not, to know to what extent the EU is conceived by other States as a valid actor in this policy area, and whether conditionality instruments are really fulfilling their function or whether the principle of EU political conditionality needs to be revised.
The EU Normative Foreign Policy and Iran's Nuclear Program
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Some scholars suggest that the European Union (EU) is a 'Normative Power' and its foreign policy is based on the norms and principles which have shaped and consolidated the EU itself. Such principles include the norms of international law such as the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. The controversial Iranian nuclear program has appeared as a test for the EU normative foreign policy. This paper tries to assess to what extent the EU has been successful in conducting the normative principles of its foreign policy regarding Iran's nuclear program. The research identifies a major obstacle that challenges the EU normative foreign policy. When the United States follows non-normative policies that stand in contrast with the EU normative ones, it negatively affects the EU capacity to follow its normative approach.
EU Normative Foreign Policy Actorness on Iran's Nuclear Profile: Capability and Limits
Young Journal of European Affairs (YJEA), 2021
Some scholars suggest that the European Union (EU) is a global actor, and its foreign policy is based on the norms and principles that have shaped and consolidated the EU itself. Reviewing the current literature on the Normative Power Europe notion and using Natalie Tocci's framework to assess normativity in foreign policy, this paper investigates to what extent the EU has been capable of independently formulating and effectively implementing its normative foreign policy on the case of the Iranian nuclear program since 2003, where the EU has sought to make Iran abide by the international law norm of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The research identifies that the formation and implementation of EU normative policies have been mainly challenged by the Realpolitik of the US, driving the EU to adopt non-normative policies or leading to embarrassing instances of inaction in the EU foreign policy for which normative power approaches offer less explanatory power. Concomitantly, the research illustrates how over time, the EU has shown greater determination to act autonomously on the Iranian nuclear profile.
The EU as a Foreign Policy Actor in the Nuclear Realm: The Soft and the Not-So-Soft Power
University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) Graduate Forum Proceedings Volume (2018)
This paper traces the EU’s involvement as a foreign policy actor in the nuclear energy field, a field where the EU ostensibly plays two intrinsically different roles – the first, as a “soft” power, and the second, as a “hard” power that possesses an important sanctioning authority. In this respect, sanctions are used as a tool to promote the objectives of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, namely, the furtherance of peace, democracy and the respect for the rule of law and human rights. Nevertheless, the sanctions the EU adopts within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy carry significant legal consequences for the human rights situation of the natural and legal persons affected. The paper follows a case study approach, focusing on the case of Sahar Fahimian, an Iranian doctoral student who was denied residence in Germany as a result of the application of the EU’s comprehensive sanctions regime towards Iran. By observing how the said sanctions regime has affected particular individuals, the paper aims to square the far-reaching consequences borne by the EU’s sanctions and the potential fundamental rights breaches thereby arising.
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While often recognised as a difficult actor in global efforts addressing the proliferation, control, and disarmament of nuclear weapons, the EU is also assumed to have the potential to play a more cohesive “state-like” role, especially in multilateral forum such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons review cycle. Such assumptions raise expectations of EU external action and influence, which the EU then invariably fails to meet. This article offers a reframing of how we understand the EU as an actor, focusing on its role in the nuclear weapons regime complex. Specifically, the article considers how, and under what conditions, the EU orchestrates within and across the nuclear weapons regime complex. Drawing on the orchestration and regime complex scholarship, alongside empirical data of EU external action from 2003 to 2019, the article shows how the EU’s natural proclivity for effective multilateralism, coupled with its functional limitations, the political cleavag...