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Foreign Policy

Selected e-articles

Abstract by the authors : How has EU foreign policy responded to the war in Ukraine and the wider backlash against the liberal international order? This article uses interpretive policy analysis to uncover the changing security role of the EU. It argues that the war has revealed the EU's transition from being an optimistic to a sceptical liberal actor. Abstract Russia's invasion of Ukraine brought both condemnation and vindication to the European Union. EU policies were condemned for being complacent, naive and greedy. However, when European leaders conducted a coordinated response backing Ukraine, the war also vindicated the EU as a liberal project. The crisis has led to a surge in support for the EU, unprecedented cooperation across policy areas and new accession negotiations with the EU's eastern neighbours. To understand this shift, the article argues that crisis has catalysed the EU becoming a sceptical liberal actor. Sceptical liberalism is characterized by a bleak view on the trajectory of the international order, a self-critical understanding of Europe's role in it, and a willingness to intervene, including with military means, to tackle political predicaments. The transition changes EU leaders' previous optimistic liberal approach of pursuing peace and prosperity though mediation and interdependence. Distinguishing between ideals and actions, the article argues that liberal ideals remain intact, but a sceptical outlook implies different actions to pursue those ideals. The article's argument challenges longstanding scholarly debates on ‘normal versus normative power Europe’, which build on an excessively bifurcated assessment of EU foreign policy that fails to capture contemporary dynamics and the dilemmas they cause.

Abstract by the author: Following-up on the many academic analyses of strategic autonomy over the past decade, this special issue aims to take a more comprehensive perspective on ‘security’ by analysing the notion of strategic autonomy from a legal vantage point. After two more general contributions – on the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union and on the ‘supranationalization’ of security despite the key role of EU Member States in this area – the focus turns on specific policy areas. Subsequent contributions thus address strategic autonomy in the context of EU defence-industrial spending, sanctions, data autonomy, energy and investment and economic measures. Together, these contributions highlight different dimensions of the challenges the EU is currently facing. The question that is central to this Introduction –and to the special issue as whole – is to identify and shed light on the important legal contours of an essentially political concept.

Abstract by the author: This article seeks to address the question of how membership in the European Union (EU) affects the foreign policy positions of its Member States. Most of the existing research has focused on single case studies and relied on qualitative methods, encountering difficulties in providing a systematic and consistent general picture about the causal effect of membership. Instead, this study adopts a comprehensive and quantitative approach. Drawing from constructivist theory in International Relations, it clarifies a general theoretical framework for Foreign Policy Europeanization. It then employs national speeches at the United Nations General Debate to construct two measures of similarity with the EU’s positions and norms in international affairs. Applying these to a difference-in-differences approach, it finds substantial evidence that, after several years of membership, countries gradually converge towards the positions and norms of the Union. It is argued that these overall findings are consistent with a socialization effect, but not with material cost-benefit calculations.

Abstract by the author: Even though security issues are structural elements of the EU legal order since a while, it is undisputed that the reorientation of the EU’s approach towards a more assertive stance in defending its values and interests has determined a relevant reshaping of the way in which the Union and its Member States interact in security matters – the EU-Member States security nexus. The present paper aims to identify both the reasons and the legal implications of this phenomenon, moving from a reconstruction of the doctrine elaborated by EU institutions to support this new approach, that is, the Strategic Autonomy Doctrine (SAD). Building on the assumption that the Union is now facing evolving threats, requiring a stronger capacity to protect the supranational interests and values, the paper argues that the reshaping of the EU-Member States security nexus has led to the creation of a buffer zone, where EU’s and Member States’ prerogatives for the protection of both (supra)national security and sovereignty are significantly blurred. This, in turn, produces significant consequencces for the EU constitutional framework, namely a hybridization of both the supranational competences and legal instruments concerned.

Abstract by the authors: Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has upended Europe's security order, with many observers calling it a turning point for the European Union. This article contends, however, that the EU's response has been less a turning point and more of an epiphany, providing a reality check for the EU and its member states about how far European foreign policy cooperation has evolved in recent decades. It suggests that an understanding of the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine requires consideration of the member states' foreign policy co-operation, which has intensified over the past half-century, and its underpinning norm which we term a ‘collective European responsibility to act’. In emphasizing this norm, we identify core ideas about the functioning of collective European foreign policy. We re-examine three key preoccupations of the EU foreign policy-making practice and assessment through the lens of the collective European responsibility to act and show how it enables a different and novel re-reading of the added value of EU foreign policy cooperation. The EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine thus serves as a timely focusing event that demands a rethink of the premises that have underpinned our analysis and understanding of collective European foreign policy-making over decades.

Abstract by the author: The current shifts in the post-Cold War international order are bringing the attention to notions of great power competition, demonstrating once again the geopolitical significance of Europe and Asia for global politics. This article applies concepts from the classical geopolitical thinking of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman as an ‘optic tool’ for analysing current global events and for considering the European Union’s (EU’s) strategic direction in light of the interests of the United States, Russia, and China in Europe’s wider region. With the American post-Cold War global preponderance steadily waning and the rising challenges from the east in the face of Russia and China, the EU finds itself in a position that requires the redefinition of its geopolitical identity and strategic pursuit of its own interests. A look through the classical geopolitical concepts of the Heartland and the Rimland reveals that the EU is an extraordinary player in geopolitics as it has the potential to determine (1) access to the Eurasian Heartland via its influence over Eastern Europe and (2) control of the maritime Rimland by virtue of its geography, alliances, and its potential participation in Beijing’s New Silk Road initiative. These findings are discussed by considering the EU’s potential foreign policy directions vis-à-vis the US, Russia, and China.

Résumé: En juin 2024 auront lieu les élections européennes, à la suite desquelles sera désigné un nouveau Haut-Représentant de l’Union européenne pour les affaires étrangères et la politique de sécurité, en remplacement de Josep Borrell. Comparé au précédent scrutin (2019), le contexte a considérablement changé sur le sol européen, notamment suite à l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie et au renforcement de l’autoritarisme en Turquie, mais aussi sur l’échiquier international, avec un renforcement des tensions entre les États-Unis et la Chine, et la progression d’une certaine « désoccidentalisation » du monde. Dès lors, comment l’Union européenne doit-elle se positionner et quelles devraient ou pourraient être les grandes orientations de sa politique étrangère en vue de maintenir la paix et la stabilité sur le Vieux Continent ?(...)

Abstract by the author: This article seeks to explore the relevance of the concept of international friendship for the study of EU foreign policy. Drawing on a nascent friendship literature developing in the field of IR, this article argues that the EU's friendships – relations with significant others based on shared narratives and projects – play an important part in the EU's construction of its international identity. To illustrate this argument, the article provides an analysis of the EU's relations with Japan. The analysis suggests that EU‐Japan relations can usefully be described as an emergent international friendship which – revolving around the narrative of a Free and Open Indo‐Pacific and shared projects such as the EU‐Japan Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure – shapes and solidifies the EU's self‐image as an actor in international affairs.

Publisher`s note: Taking the EU’s hybrid foreign policy administration, the European External Action Service (EEAS) as a laboratory for study, this article examines the changing structures and processes of communication and coordination as well as various patterns of cooperation and conflict within the organization. Whereas research frequently focuses on foreign policy making at the national level and actors at the political level, I here want to zoom in on emerging practices and the role understanding of administrators within the EEAS in order to identify the dynamics and the consequences of organizational reform. In short, the article explores the emerging European diplomatic practices. The argument starts from the assumption that new forms of transnational administrations provide the opportunity to re-combine diverse cultures stemming from different institutional origins, professional backgrounds, traditions, cognitive dispositions and behavioural logics, routines and ‘ways of doing things’. The emphasis is put on how such processes unfold, and why the adaptation of and the emergence of new patterns of behaviour contribute, at the same time, to institutional innovation and ambivalence. This line of investigation may benefit our understanding of increasing fluidity and blurring of boundaries between the fields of international relations and public policy. Empirically, the study draws on interview and survey data from EU foreign policy makers (Total N=232), and finds that despite institutional resilience and continuity, the confluence of and conflicts between diplomatic and organizational cultures leads to behavioural innovation as a result of the need to deal with ambiguities and to replace practices that have ‘gone out of use’.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Publisher's note: For a long time, the European Union (EU) has been described by many scholars and policymakers as a civilian and a normative power. This article argues that these concepts do not accurately capture the foreign policy behaviour of the EU as prescribed in the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS). It first situates EU identity and role played in international relations within role strain theory. Then, it notes that the EU has difficulties fulfilling duties connected with its international identity and role. The second part of the article uses three indicators to examine whether the EU is pursuing 'normal' international actor status or not, drawing on the Strategy and relevant literature to do so. In conclusion, this article argues that the EU is still a unique actor, although changes prescribed in the EUGS could begin the evolution towards the role of a normal international actor.

​​​​​​​Publisher's note: The European Union increasingly uses ‘soft’ international arrangements rather than formal international agreements in establishing relations with non-EU states. This contribution aims to raise the question of to what extent a move from hard to soft law in relations between the EU and its partners can be seen as allowing the Union to ‘step outside’ the legal framework (if that indeed is what is happening) and disregard the rules and principles that define the way in which EU external relations are to take shape. Possible consequences include the risk that these instruments are not subject to appropriate safeguards, that parliamentary influence (by the European Parliament as well as by national parliaments) is by-passed and that transparency is affected. There are various reasons for the EU not to use formal procedures, but a turn to informality does come at a price.

Publisher's note: The role of small member states in EU foreign policy is increasingly being challenged, especially in view of the reforms being proposed to make the EU more effective as an international actor. These reforms, if adopted, will require the small Central and Eastern European member states, such as Bulgaria, to rethink their old foreign-policy strategies and practices. Instead of band-wagoning and balancing conflicting interests, these small member states will have to learn to be more proactive, to build their reputations and to form alliances if they want to continue to have any influence on EU foreign policy. These issues are discussed in the light of the EU sanctions adopted against Russia in the aftermath of the Ukrainian–Russian conflict of 2014. 

Publisher's note: Germany’s growing leadership role in the European Union over recent years has been subject to a broad-ranging debate. The changed EU foreign policy-making procedures introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, with a significant delegation of formal leadership functions to the EU level, have created a new dynamic between EU institutions and member states, thereby complicating the picture of how and why Germany exercises leadership in the CFSP. We use social role theory to analyse Germany’s emerging leadership role in European foreign and security policy. We begin by drawing an important distinction between German power on the one hand, and its capacity for leadership on the other. German leadership in European foreign policy has emerged as a result of the Ukraine crisis and is being shaped by the interaction between domestic level factors and the role expectations of its key allies and partners. The form of German leadership in the CFSP reflects the paradoxical nature of post-Lisbon European foreign policy, which we argue can be explained in terms of ‘crossloading’ dynamics of Europeanization that are horizontal and informal. We illustrate the evolving form of German leadership with original data from an extensive interview survey and a case study of the Ukraine crisis.

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