Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)

1) A phased development from political cooperation to a CFSP Progress over the years has been slow, but steady. For most of the post Second World War period, Europe’s security was guaranteed in close cooperation with the US, and NATO was the predominant self-defence institution. With the end of the Cold War, the picture has changed.

The first step was an ambitious but unsuccessful attempt in the early 1950s to create a European Defence Community among the six founding members of the EU. Then came a process called “European political cooperation”, launched in 1970, which sought to coordinate the positions of member states on foreign policy issues. EU countries produced joint statements whenever they could. But on particularly sensitive issues, it was not always possible to reach the required unanimous decision. In the last 20 years, the Union has intensified efforts to play an international political and security role more in line with its economic status. The conflicts that erupted in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 convinced EU leaders of the need for effective joint action. The fight against international terrorism has strengthened this conviction. The present global and financial crisis has

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put these action-driven common goals under continuous and severe tension.

The principle of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was formalised in 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht. It defined the types of diplomatic and political activities the EU could undertake in conflict prevention and resolution. Five main objectives were identified: to safeguard the common values and fundamental interests of the EU; to strengthen the security of the Union; to preserve peace and international security in accordance with the UN Charter; to promote international cooperation; and the development of democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Only a few months later, war broke out in former Yugoslavia. The EU tried unsuccessfully to broker a political solution to the crisis. As the EU had no military force of its own, its member countries could only intervene as part of UN and NATO forces.

2) European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)

In the light of the Balkan wars, and of conflicts in Africa in the 1990s, the EU launched its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) within the overall framework of the CFSP. The Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) provided a limited upgrading of the CFSP. It spells out the objective “to strengthen the security of the Union in all ways” as one of the five fundamental objectives of the CFSP. This treaty incorporated the Western European Union’s “Petersberg tasks”

(humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking) into the treaty on the EU. This laid the treaty basis for the operative development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

The ESDP completed and thus strengthened the EU’s external ability to act through the development of civilian and military capabilities for international conflict prevention and crisis management. As regards military capabilities, the EU set up a force of up to 60,000 personnel, deployed within 60 days, to sustain it on the ground for at least one year, for the purposes of humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, and crisis management, including peacemaking. At the European Council in Lisbon in June 2000, the EU member states launched the civilian dimension of the ESDP. They established four priority fields of civilian action: police, strengthening the rule of law, strengthening civilian administration and civil protection. In 2003, the EU deployed its first external mission under the ESDP with a military force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Since then, it has instigated more than 20 civilian and military missions and operations on three continents.

An important decision in terms of improving the effectiveness and profile of the CFSP was the creation of the office of High Representative for CFSP (1999) whose role it was to coordinate EU foreign policy and, in conjunction with the rotating presidency, speak on behalf of the EU in agreed foreign policy matters. This post combines three functions: the EU’s representative for the CFSP, the President of the Foreign Affairs Council and a Vice-President of the Commission. At the moment, this post is held by Catherine Ashton.

3) European Security Strategy: a doctrine for Europe

At a summit meeting in December 2003, EU leaders adopted the EU Security Strategy (2003) and the subsequent report on implementation (2008). The EU established a strategic approach and set clear objectives for advancing its security interests based on core European values. The strategy takes into account key concerns such as: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, regional conflicts and problems related to state failure, including organised crime. It recognised that citizens in Europe and elsewhere face potential threats from terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and illegal immigration. It was said that each kind of threat needs an appropriate response, often requiring international cooperation. The European Security Strategy was set in a document entitled “A more secure Europe in a better world”.³It assesses the security environment in which the EU operates in terms of global challenges and key threats; it sets out the EU’s strategic objectives through a policy of conflict prevention and responding to complex problems with various solutions: response to challenges;

security at its borders and an international order based on multilateralism; and draws up the policy implications for a Europe that has to become more active, more capable and more coherent.

4) Assessment

A common security and defence policy has been a European ambition ever since the aborted 1954 plan for a European Defence Community. However, the legal basis for such a policy was only laid down with the adoption in 1993 of the Treaty on European Union, which first established a common foreign and security policy, and speaks of “the progressive framing of a common defence policy which might lead to a common defence”. Since the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, and spurred by external events such as the Kosovo crisis, an ESDP has developed rapidly. Following decisions taken by the EU leaders at the Helsinki and Nice European Councils in December 1999 and in December 2000, new and tailor-made structures in the

3 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/QC780 9568EN C.pdf

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military and political areas have been set up in Brussels to enable decision-making in crisis situations. Attempts have been made over the years to streamline the way CFSP decisions are taken. But key decisions still require a unanimous vote, which was hard when there were 15 EU members and is even more difficult with 27. Despite their commitment to the CFSP, member governments sometimes find it hard to change their own national policy in the name of EU solidarity. Still a few first conclusions can be made assessing the past security and foreign relations aspects of the EU within the globalising context.

Firstly, the EU has adopted a wider concept of security. The fact that security is becoming a wider concept reflects developments underway since at least the energy crisis of the early 1970s. This evolution clearly accelerated after the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, traditionally, security has been analysed and managed from state and alliance perspectives. Now, the geographical relevance of security issues has widened to include both subnational and global levels. Similarly, the scope has widened from the purely military to include broader political, economic, social and environmental aspects. In 2004, the study group on Europe’s security capabilities proposed A Human Security Doctrine for Europe.⁴This calls for a comprehensive understanding and (new) legal framework of the internal/external security landscape from an EU perspective, implying a conception of the EU as a norms-promoter.

Secondly, global and regional coordination efforts have increased during the last decade. The awareness of an increasing fragmentation of security efforts has resulted in a series of efforts to a large extent undertaken by the international community to achieve coordination on a global level, through the United Nations, on a transatlantic level through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and in Eurasia, through the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Thirdly, the very existence of the EU has its origins in a peace project seeking to overcome historical divisions between France and Germany. Particularly after the Cold War, enlargement, both for the EU, the candidate countries and their neighbours, has been viewed as being part of an overall security endeavour on the European continent.

Fourthly, the institutional and legal framework for the governance of all the various programmes in the Union varies considerably. Within the EU the main focus for overall coordination is the European Council, which gives strategic direction to EU security policy on the basis of proposals from both the Council and Commission.

4 A Human Security Doctrine for Europe, Barcelona Report of the Study Group on Europe’s Security Capabilities, September 2004.

Finally, the link between EU internal and external aspects of security is becoming more and more obvious. There are many security-related components developed in several EU programmes. They may not relate specifically to CFSP/ESDP, but are relevant to the internal security of the Union and for cooperation with partners outside the EU. Relevant policy areas in this field include: security of supply and energy stock reserves, the Single European Sky, protection of critical infrastructure, air transport and aircraft security.

II. The Lisbon Treaty and the EU Foreign Policy: Changes