The EU as a Global Actor? EU Policy Towards Iran

Abstract

This paper explores EU policy towards Iran to challenge the common implicit or explicit notion that the EU's ‘actorness’ in the international system rests primarily, or solely, on its Pillar I external relations. Utilising criteria developed to examine the ‘actorness’ of the EU, the article explores this policy area to demonstrate that the EU's ‘actorness’ resulted not only from the ‘Community’ aspects of foreign policy, but also from its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).     

The security–development nexus and securitization in the EU's policies towards developing countries

This article assesses how and to what extent the European Union (EU) uses a security perspective to define and shape its relationship with the developing world. In order to evaluate the EU's development policy and its relations with developing countries we link the concept of ‘security–development nexus’ with the concept of ‘securitization’. The article examines whether securitization can be observed with regard to four dimensions: discourse, policy instruments, policy actions and institutional framework. The analysis demonstrates a securitization of the EU's development policy and its relations with developing countries, particularly in Africa. However, paradoxically, the securitization's extent and nature suggest that the EU can also use it as a way to avoid a more direct involvement in conflict areas.     

Political factors affecting cooperation between Italy,Greece and Turkey

The rise of political Islam in the EU's southern neighbourhood represents a political as well as conceptual challenge to the EU as a foreign policy actor. In the past, the EU reacted to this challenge based on its essentialist perception of political Islam and its overarching interest in regional stability and security. However, the growing salience of ‘contingencist’ interpretations of political Islam and the resolution of the EU's democratisation-stabilisation dilemma in the wake of the Arab Spring have recently provided an opportunity for greater engagement and cooperation. This has enabled a switch in EU policies from a strategy of containment to a strategy of engagement. Despite this, problems remain as the EU continues to expect Islamist actors to adjust to its own discursive framework and as intra-European divisions revive as a result of the renewal of secular-religious divisions in the neighbourhood. This will complicate EU attempts to build a new partnership with Islamist democracies and will fuel old stereotypes and animosities.     

Re‐setting the Euro‐Mediterranean security agenda

The EU’s reaction is slow; the EU is divided; the EU is unable to deliver: time and time again, newspapers depict the image of an incoherent and uncoordinated EU foreign policy. This time, the topic under discussion was the EU’s response to the Libyan crisis. Many have compared the EU’s internal divisions over Libya with those over the Iraq war, an often used example to illustrate the limits of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This article aims to assess the coherence of the EU’s short- to medium-term response to the Libyan crisis. It distinguishes between the horizontal, inter-institutional, vertical and multilateral dimensions of EU coherence. The analysis shows that unilateral actions or inactions of the member states mainly account for the EU's incoherent response. The post-Lisbon institutional structure has done little to compensate for these internal divisions. While the EU cannot change the course of national foreign policies, it should increase its ‘leadership for coherence’, Europeanise its crisis response in the medium term and aim at preventing incoherence in the longer term.     

The EU's security and the sea: defining a maritime security strategy

Abstract

This article comprehensively discusses the maritime dimension of the European Union's (EU's) security, which encompasses military and civilian aspects, intergovernmental and community components as well as institutional and geopolitical elements. First, the article provides a narrative of the development of the maritime element in the EU's security policy since the adoption of the European Security Strategy in 2003. By depicting the interrelations between the sea and the EU's security, the article shows that the maritime dimension of EU security is generally well established, but often obscured by the complicated institutional structure of the Union. Thereafter, the article emphasises the need to define an effective EU Maritime Security Strategy, which would provide a strategic framework for the Union's security-related activities regarding the sea that encompass maritime power projection, as well as maritime security and safety. Accordingly the article provides some recommendations concerning the definition of such a strategy and for appropriate constituting elements: the maritime-related risks and threats, the maritime strategic objectives, the means to implement the strategy, and the theatres of EU maritime operations.     

EU power and armed humanitarianism in Africa: evaluating ESDP in Chad

This article analyses the European Union's (EU's) largest European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military mission outside Europe to date; Eufor Tchad/RCA was a 3700-strong force involving personnel from 23 states, deployed to Chad and the Central African Republic for 12 months from March 2008. Far from this mission achieving EU ‘supremacy’ or projecting an ‘imperial’ reach, an evaluation of its objectives and achievements reveals acute limitations in the EU's ability to project power. The article analyses the context in which Eufor was conceived and deployed. It notes that the mission's weaknesses, like those of the United Nations mission to whom the EU transferred its security role in 2009, reflected its convoluted origins and objectives. Finally, the article examines whether the EU as a unitary actor has the desire or the ability to ‘replace’ individual European nations—in this case France—in their post-colonial military and ‘humanitarian’ roles in sub-Saharan Africa.     

The future of the United States as a European power: The case of NATO enlargement

Abstract

European Union enlargement has left Russia on the margins of European political processes and led to widespread suspicion in the Moscow foreign policy establishment of European motives. This has resulted in, first, increasing resistance to the imposition of European norms and, second, a more assertive policy, particularly in the EU's and Russia's ‘overlapping neighbourhoods’. Although Moscow is likely to continue the strategy of engagement initiated under Putin, Brussels must radically rethink the nature and extent of Russia's ‘Europeanisation’. Russia's drive for modernisation will coexist with the strengthening of sovereignty and the power of the state, seen by the Putin administration as key to external and internal security. The EU will have to limit its ambition and work within this ‘window’—wider or narrower depending on state of play—of policy possibilities.     

The EU and the Bosnian Civil War 1992–95: The Capabilities–Expectations Gap at the Heart of EU Foreign Policy

Abstract

Using the empirically driven case study of the European Union's response to the Bosnian civil war 1992–95 this article assesses the effectiveness of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), through Christopher Hill's ‘capabilities–expectations gap framework’. In assessing effectiveness it explores both the expectations placed on the EU and the capabilities the Union was able to deploy. Moreover, this research suggests that the EU was ineffective in responding to the Bosnian crisis. The EU pursued a rigid strategy of diplomatic and economic foreign policy, failing to generate the political will to attempt alternative approaches. This research argues that the capabilities–expectations gap framework is a useful tool for conceptualising the EU's effectiveness but that it under-specifies the importance of the end result of the policy.     

The unexpected EU leadership on landmines: the influence of the Ottawa Convention on the EU

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has led international politics on antipersonnel landmines (APLs) for a decade now, and its foreign policy in this domain is perceived as a success story. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the negotiations that led to the Ottawa Convention, the EU looked unable to play any relevant part. This article addresses the emergence of the EU's foreign policy on APLs by arguing, in a second image-reversed way, that the corresponding international regime has deeply influenced the EU. It has changed Member States' and EU institutions' preferences, and it has empowered pro-Ottawa and pro-integration actors. This article explores the intra-EU conditions that have facilitated this influence and the way in which the regime itself has shaped them.     

The European Union and Latin America: ‘Transformative power Europe’ versus the realities of economic interests

Relations between the European Union (EU) and regional subgroups in Latin America (Mercosur, the Andean Community and Central America) are clear examples of ‘pure interregionalism’ and provide evidence of the EU's active promotion of regional integration. Within the context of these cases, this article explores what type of international power the EU wields, how interregionalism is embedded in that power, and how it is deployed. Combining strands of literature on EU–Latin American relations, interregionalism, EU external policy and power provides a framework within which interregionalism can be understood as an important normative and practical tool for the EU's external power projection. Drawing on official documentation and interviews with key individuals, the paper highlights the EU's articulation of power in interregional relations and reflects upon its mixed success. It concludes that, while imperial qualities and aspirations can be observed in the EU's penchant for interregionalism, the transformative power of the EU remains limited.     

From “partnership” to “principled pragmatism”: tracing the discursive practices of the High Representatives in the EU’s relations with the Southern Mediterranean

ABSTRACT

The EU’s relations with countries in the Southern Mediterranean have a long history as the region is of great strategic importance for the Union and its member states. The High Representatives of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy have been highly involved in shaping these relations, and this role has been officially strengthened with institutional changes brought about with the Lisbon Treaty. This article analyses the role of the HR/VPs in shaping the EU's foreign and security policy towards the region with an analytical focus on discursive practice. Drawing on insights from practice theory in IR and EU studies, the analysis traces continuity and change in how the Southern Mediterranean is described in the drafting of key strategic documents. The main finding is that EU foreign and security policy towards the Southern Mediterranean shows a high degree of continuity despite several crises and institutional changes, although the discursive practices have evolved. The article ends by highlighting a conundrum that the EU can be said to implicitly acknowledge: if authoritarian states in the Southern Mediterranean are inherently unstable, yet stable enough to quench the democratic aspirations of their people, then what should be the basis for EU actions?     

The EU's approach post-September 11: global terrorism as a multidimensional law enforcement challenge

In response to the threat of terrorism following 9/11, the European Union has opted for a clear cross-border law enforcement approach that is quite distinct from the putative ‘war on terror’. This choice has been determined by factors of history, divergent threat perceptions, relative value orientations and restricted competences. And yet, far from limiting itself to a traditional ‘internal’ law enforcement focus, the EU has developed an extensive multidimensional approach that combines legislative and operational, repressive and preventive, internal and external, as well as institutional, measures. But weaknesses persist: the preference given by member states to instruments of cooperation and coordination, rather than integration, as well as the poor implementation of many agreed-upon measures, negatively weigh against the effectiveness of the EU's multidimensional law enforcement approach. Legitimacy deficits also exist owing to limited parliamentary and judicial control. These deficits will need to be addressed to reinforce the credibility of the EU's approach as a viable ‘European’ alternative to the US ‘war on terror’.     

The Stockholm solution? Papering over the cracks within the area of freedom,security and justice

Abstract

In 2010, the EU agreed its third five year programme for internal security, with the Stockholm Programme building on pre-existing arrangements from Tampere and The Hague. This article seeks, firstly, to highlight the nature of the problem that has confronted the EU in the area of internal security, by exploring a range of thematic concerns regarding both the institutional and conceptual construction of the EU's internal security regime, from the lack of an effective statistical analysis into the nature of the problem confronting the member states to the continued fragmentation of the European level as a practical venue for policy-making. Having considered the consequences of these continuing structural flaws, in terms of both the EU's wider credibility and legitimacy as an actor in this key security field, the second half of the article proceeds to critically appraise the solutions contained both within the 2010 Stockholm Programme and the Treaty of Lisbon. Having considered both, it will be argued that, at best, the ‘Stockholm solution' simply papers over pre-existing cracks, leaving the EU with a continued credibility gap in this important and developing area of co-operation.     

Europe's global ambitions and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD): of what relevance is the Politique Africaine?

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) agreed in 2001 between the G7 and African leaders is an ambitious initiative to resolve the problems of economic underdevelopment, political instability and armed conflict in Africa. Essentially, it rests on the promise of increased economic aid in exchange for African commitment to liberal political and economic governance. This article examines the implications of NEPAD for the EU's policies towards Africa. It argues that the EU's economic instruments are more suitable for tackling security problems in Africa than its evolving military capacity or global multilateral cooperation with African states through NEPAD structures. It is argued that extant structures of European-African relations can significantly impact on African governance processes and their security outcomes only if they can be graduated into ‘constitutive’ forms of economic intervention similar to processes of accession into the EU. Such a modification, based on variegated competitive partnerships, would be consistent with the French origins of European-African relations and maybe possible because of the links between French foreign policy and Europe's evolving global role.     

Europe’s engagement with China: shifting Chinese views of the EU and the EU-China relationship

This article discusses the dramatic recent shifts in Chinese policy perspectives on the European Union (EU) and on EU-China relations. Whereas for more than a decade, policy makers and Europe specialists in China had regarded the EU as an exemplar of regional integration and as a promising new ‘pole’ in the global order, a recent survey shows that today, in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, and the ‘Brexit’ referendum, many perceive the EU as a troubled actor unfit to deal with the existential challenges confronting it, let alone play a credible leadership role beyond its own borders. Despite this, Beijing’s ambitious international agenda at a time of increasing global uncertainty guarantees China’s ever-growing stake in building a reliable, long-term partnership with the EU, even though recent Chinese diplomatic and economic initiatives are gravitating toward the Union’s periphery, targeting subregional groupings of Member States along Europe’s re-emerging, traditional fault lines. Based on the research findings presented in this paper, the authors argue that the EU and the Member States need to rethink the basic assumptions underlying their China policies in the so-called ‘New Era’ and explore new approaches of engagement that match these shifting perceptions, policies and political realities.     

Partnerships for effective multilateralism? Assessing the compatibility between EU bilateralism, (inter-)regionalism and multilateralism

This article investigates the notion of ‘lateralisms’ and how various modes of engagement (namely bilateralism, regionalism and multilateralism) relate to one another. It begins with a careful analysis of the evolution of ‘lateralisms’ and their (in)compatibility at the global level, building on the existing literature from multiple research disciplines. The second part of this article focuses specifically on the European Union's (EU's) foreign policy approach. The author puts forward two main hypotheses. First, the EU has performed a rebalancing act between bilateralism and regionalism/multilateralism over the last decade in favour of the former, notably through the deepening of its so-called ‘strategic partnerships’. Second, this enhanced bilateralism is not necessarily compatible with other ‘lateralisms’, as it can at times undermine regional integration processes or the building of an effective multilateral order. The author eventually formulates some recommendations to ensure that bilateral partnerships are geared towards the strengthening of the multilateral fabric which remains the EU's fundamental and long-term objective.     

Model power or reference point? The EU and the ASEAN Charter

Several scholars have suggested that ASEAN's institutionalization can be attributed to the EU's influence as a ‘model power’. The notion of the EU as a model power is premised on the assumption and belief that Europe's history of regional cooperation presents a viable blueprint for other regions. This article argues that the EU exerts some power over ASEAN—but merely as a ‘reference point’. The EU's influence is not an active one; the organisation essentially serves as a passive reference point for ASEAN. The obvious and arguably most important example of this referencing is the framing of the ASEAN Charter in 2007. This article disagrees with scholars who reduce ASEAN's institutionalization to an imitation of the EU form without the substance. Instead, it shows how ASEAN has innovated as a regional organization through its Charter and Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission.     

The European Union's human security discourse: where are we now?

The language of human security has been prominent in the European Union's (EU) official discourse for a number of years. However, whilst it has been promoted as a new approach for the EU in the development of its security and defence policy, the aim of this article is to assess the extent to which it actually features in the EU's contemporary strategic discourse and practice. It seeks to uncover where and how the concept is spoken within the EU's institutional milieu, how it is understood by the relevant policy-makers in the EU and the implication of this across key areas of human security practice. It is argued in the article that human security has not been embedded as the driving strategic concept for Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in an era of crisis and change in Europe and beyond and that the prospects for this materialising in the near future are rather thin.     

Humanitarian impacts of economic sanctions on Iran and Syria

International sanctions against Iran and Syria have been tightened to unprecedented levels since 2012, particularly in the case of the European Union's (EU's) restrictions on the countries' energy and finance sectors. Marking a departure from the EU's carefully targeted sanctions policies of recent decades, they represent de facto comprehensive measures widely associated with negative humanitarian impacts. This paper analyses semi-structured interviews, official discourse and case studies to explore early reports of negative impacts on the health of ordinary citizens in Iran and Syria and examines associated policy responses, particularly in the EU context. The author outlines why a shift towards broader-based sanctions could be problematic for the EU and outlines constraints currently preventing more efficient risk mitigation. This paper suggests ways that sanctions, representing an increasingly vital, albeit contested, tool of EU foreign and security policy, could be used in a more prudent manner if a worsening humanitarian situation is to be avoided.     

The EU and the Gulf monarchies: normative power Europe in search of a strategy for engagement

The Persian Gulf region is of strategic importance to the European Union (EU). Yet, different political realities of authoritarian government in the Gulf challenge crucial parts of EU foreign policy that are based on normative power Europe concepts. Cooperation with the ruling dynasties appears beneficial for EU decision-makers if one looks at the comprehensive agenda of common interests in the Gulf region. In 2004, the EU aimed to build a strategic partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East; in this the EU emphasized its commitment to advancing its partnership with the Gulf countries. Yet, from the perspective of 2012 the results are bleak. Despite some signs of improvement in deepening the political, economic and security interactions with the region, there is still no concerted EU policy in the Gulf beyond the thriving bilateral activities of some EU member states. The events of the Arab Spring have increased the challenges even further. The EU, on the one hand, is trying to support forces of liberal and democratic reform in some neighbouring countries. On the other hand, it seeks close partnerships with authoritarian family dynasties in those Gulf countries in which a democratic opening is not around the corner. This article suggests an alternative explanation for this dichotomy. While there is an inherent tension between the EU's reformist agenda and its own interests, whether security or trade interests, this article argues that much of the EU's relationship with the Gulf countries can be explained through a misperception of the specific settings of government in the region. Despite a substantial agenda of interests on both sides in areas such as trade, energy, regional security, terrorism and irregular migration, the EU's foreign policy outputs remain rather limited.