Foreign policy

Abstract

For long, European integration in the area of ‘foreign policy’ progressed only slowly and tenuously. With roots in the ‘European Political Cooperation’ of the 1970s, it picked up speed and gained substance after the end of the Cold War, not least in the wake of the Yugoslav wars, EU-Eastern enlargement, and a resurgent Russia. New legal bases in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 and in particular the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 strengthened the EU’s role in foreign policy and made it an essential part of the evolving twenty-first-century international order. However, the EU has not developed a unitary foreign policy. Rather, a set of different actors and bodies together shape EU foreign policy. EU foreign policy, furthermore, involves several domains of activity such as the Common Security and Defence Policy, the politics of EU accession and association, international trade, and development cooperation. Disagreements persist regarding the allocation of competences between national and EU levels of government and the decision-making rules that should apply. At the heart of this debate is the trade-off between the EU’s capacity to act efficiently and the sovereignty of member states to pursue their own foreign policy agendas. The twenty-first century has brought about a range of challenges for EU foreign policy. These include Russia’s military invasion in Ukraine; complex and unstable ties with some of its neighbours (e.g., Turkey, Northern Africa); a loss of EU influence in relation to other global players, notably China; an uncertain future relationship with the United Kingdom; and a challenging enlargement in the Balkans.