Second Pillar Challenges: Foreign, Security and Defence Policies

Abstract

The ‘second’ and ‘third’ pillars of the European Union remain fundamentally different in nature from the ‘first’ in ways which significantly affect the ability of national parliaments to monitor and influence them. If we consider the second pillar (the subject of this chapter) then, to put it bluntly, neither the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) nor the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) have replaced national prerogatives in the way that, for example, EC fisheries policy has replaced national regimes. The extent to which the fifteen Member States are able and willing to pool their diplomatic and security resources for a sustained effort in a particular cause is a matter of almost infinite negotiation. The degree of coherence actually achieved in diplomacy and international security co-operation continues to fluctuate from week to week and issue to issue: the record of the CFSP is patchy at best; CESDP has barely got off the ground.