ABSTRACT
With the end of the Second World War, the international political scenario favored the progressive integration of Europe. At its inception it was a project of political engineering aimed at fostering peace and resolving European conflicts. The Schuman Declaration of 1950 laid out a plan to build a peaceful and united Europe one step at a time. According to the French foreign minister, the pooling of coal and steel production should first create a “de facto solidarity” that would ultimately make war between France and Germany “materially impossible.” This was the basis for the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. In the early 1950s there was also an attempt to establish a European Defense Community (EDC), which entailed the symbolic formation of a European army only five years after the end of the Second World War. However, defense was considered a fundamental part of national sovereignty and few countries were prepared to give it up. This wave of support for a united Europe led to the signature by
“the Six”2 of the Treaties of Rome in 1957 which resulted in the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) and of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). Western Europe had clearly set itself on the path of economic integration. The foreign policy of Europe was born of what was felt to be a need
on the part of the member states of the European Economic Community to consult each other more effectively on foreign policy issues. In 1969, the six founding members issued a declaration (Hague Summit) which called for a “united Europe capable of assuming its responsibilities in the world of tomorrow and of making a contribution commensurate with its tradition and mission.”3 This paved the way for the emergence of the External Policy Cooperation (EPC) in the 1970s, a consultation structure based on periodic meetings between diplomats and ministers, which grew more complex as time progressed. The central
objective of EPC was to create a forum where the regular exchange of information and periodic meetings between foreign ministers and senior officials was enabled in order to increase the weight of the EU (then EEC) in international affairs. EPC was, however, akin to “a private club, operated by diplomats, for diplomats.”4 Nevertheless, in 1986 the Single Act gave EPC a treaty base (article 30), codified procedures, created a secretariat in Brussels, and provided for better preparation of meetings. The Treaty on European Union (adopted at Maastricht in 1992) was
the logical outcome of 20 years of European political cooperation and a decisively new step. Its preamble declares the resolve of member states to implement a common foreign and security policy and the progressive framing of a common defense policy. In 1996, the Treaty of Amsterdam established a High Representative for the CFSP and the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit (now called the Policy Unit), a small structure comprising some 20 people who help to pinpoint strategic options, flesh them out and implement them. It also paved the way for the incorporation in the frame of the EU of the “Petersberg Tasks,” which included humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. At the end of the 1990s, the uneasiness with which the EU handled
the Balkan wars served both to unveil the weaknesses of the CFSP and to persuade European leaders to further foreign policy cooperation.5 This set the stage for the famous Saint-Malo meeting in 1998, where France and the UK agreed on a fundamental point: the EU should intervene in international affairs not only economically and commercially, but also in terms of security and defense. At the June 1999 European Council in Cologne, member states agreed
hence that “the European Union shall play its full role on the international stage” and should “assume its responsibilities regarding a common European policy on security and defense.” This new European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), a policy tool within the CFSP, was further refined in the Council summits in Helsinki (1999) and Feira (2000). It comprises both a civil and a military part-the civil part enables intervention in four domains: policing, civil protection, civil administration, and judicial administration. The military part is based on an instrument that enables the Union to constitute a combined force of 60,000 men from the member states’ respective national armed forces and deploy them within 60 days for a period of up to a year. Another major step was taken when the European Security Strategy
(ESS) was adopted by the member states at the Brussels European Council of December 2003. It identifies the global challenges and key
threats to the security of the Union and clarifies its strategic objectives in dealing with them, such as building security in the EU’s neighborhood and promoting an international order based on effective multilateralism (Box 11.1). Biscop notes that “it is crucial for the success of the Strategy to recognize that it does not just concern security policy in the narrow sense, that is in the politico-military dimension, but that because of its distinctive and ambitious comprehensive approach it directly covers all dimensions of EU external action.”6 In December 2008 the European Council adopted a Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy-Providing Security in a Changing World, which reinforces (does not replace) the European Security Strategy. Adjusting to an ever-mutating global context, the report adds energy security and climate change to the list of key threats to Europe previously included in the European Security Strategy.
