ABSTRACT
A great deal of literature addressing the EU’s international capacity reflects a realist approach. This relative hegemony of realism is based on analyses of what state foreign policies are traditionally made of: diplomatic formal relations, geopolitical constraints, security stakes and so on. This approach towards the EU’s international capacity is biased by a ‘high politics’ preconception, which logically focuses on the CFSP and leads-not less logically-to highly critical conclusions about the ‘failures’ of EU diplomacy (Durand and Vasconcelos 1998). These include Europe’s ‘uncommon foreign policy’ [present author’s italics] (Gordon 1997), the absence of European potential in the field of defence and security (Duke 1999), the weakness of the EU’s international influence in a world of ‘power politics’ (Gnesotto 1999), the ‘European anarchy’ and its ‘hard road into high politics’ (Holm 2001), ‘Europaralysis’ (Zielonka 1998) and so on. After the terrorist attacks against the United States in September 2001, it would be absurd to ignore the fact that foreign policy still has a lot to do with the management of international crises and security issues, straight diplomatic influence and coalition-building capacity. In this respect, it is undeniable that the EU has not played the peace-building role that it should have in the violent conflicts since the Balkan tragedies in the 1990s. Dealing with these conflicts, the CFSP has not proved to be a practical and effective tool in its current state.
