MAIN FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVES OF THE EU

Main foreign policy objectives of the EU



Main foreign policy objectives of the EU

Introduction

The French political scientist, physician, and author Jean-Christophe Rufin once stated that the democratic civilisation cultivates the delicate privilege to know itself more mortal than all others. “ While his depiction of Western democracies as hypochondriacs appears to be somewhat far-reaching at first sight, the statement illustrates precisely one of the most prominent moods currently en vogue all over Europe, a Europe that does not yet seem to have overcome its identity crisis of the fin tie mi/lénaire. However widespread this mood might be, its assumptions are all but true. Europe, as one of the figureheads of democracy, has lived through manifold crises during the past decades but has eventually resolved all of them successfully.

Despite this strength, the European Union is only slowly adopting a more active international role, by spreading its values and influence piecemeal — but spreading them all the same. Even when focusing on the regional setting, the European Union still seems in a process of discovery just like it has discovered the relevance of other vicinities” in the previous past. This cognitive process has always been particularly been particularly observable either in the aftermath of enlarging the Community's or later the Union's own geographic scope or as a result of developments at its periphery that had caused direct repercussions on Europe itself. Among some of the most prominent adaptations features the Euro- Mediterranean Partnership. It was mainly promoted by Southern EU members as a sort of geographic compensation for Eastern enlargement3 barely a decade after Portugal and Spain had joined the European Community in 1986. Analogously, the Northern Dimension was brought to life after Sweden and Finland had joined the Union.

Even the establishment of the European Security and Defence Policy is largely owed to the impact of the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia and the failure of the EU to cope with the resulting wars and “ethnic cleansings”. Hence, the basic motives of the EU to establish special relations with neighbouring states can be regarded as two-fold: on the one hand, the EU endeavours to prevent developments in its geographic neighbourhood to negatively affect its security or prosperity, on the other hand, the EU and particularly the member states geographically most concerned or most present in the respective areas actively attempt to maintain or even enlarge a certain sphere of influence in these areas.4 Consequently, at the turn of the century it was only a matter of time until the EU began to formulate a new policy scheme with Eastern enlargement coming into perspective. The establishment of such a scheme follows the development of the EU's foreign policy regime over the past decades. As the European integration process has first of all involved economics - either for the sake of common welfare or for the sake of having economic integration help to create a pacified political Europe5 - Europe's foreign policy impact has largely and foremost been ...