Of policy entrepreneurship, bandwagoning and free-riding: EU member states and multilateral cooperation frameworks for Europe’s southern neighbourhood

Abstract

Over the past 25 years the EU and NATO have displayed considerable agency and thus influence as far as the development of institutionalised collective cooperation and/or foreign policy frameworks towards Europe’s southern neighbourhood is concerned. Against this backdrop, this article puts EU and NATO member states’ foreign policies towards their southern neighbourhood at its centre. After mapping their southern neighbourhood-related interests, it discusses how they have been pursuing these interests – to the extent that they exist – within and beyond the EU and NATO and examines whether this pursuit has resulted in concrete foreign policy action. The article focuses on the EU Big-5, i.e. France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany, as well as Portugal, usually considered a “small state”. This choice allows for both a most deviant and a most similar case comparison and contrasts policy entrepreneurship (France, Spain, Italy) vis-à-vis Europe’s southern neighbourhood with bandwagoning and free-riding tendencies (Portugal) and a mix of opportunity-maximising and/or fence-sitting practices (United Kingdom and Germany).