6. Hurdles and Barriers to the Full Development of a Single European Foreign Policy, Defense policy and Defense structure

A. Hurdles and Barriers to a single foreign policy

The challenges in formulating a unified foreign policy are legion. Some of these issues are:

• Several members of the EU have historically been neutral - notably Sweden, Finland and Ireland. To develop a single EU foreign policy will likely necessitate some re-orientation of these countries' foreign policy outlook - a change which their populations may oppose.
• Many of the EU members - notably the UK, France, Portugal and Spain - had extensive colonial possessions with which they have continued to maintain and foster close links. Logically, for a single EU foreign policy to develop these countries will eventually have to submerge their peculiar interests and relationships with third parties to a single EU position.
• The UK and France currently hold two of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council. For a single EU foreign policy to be developed, a logical requirement is the resignation of those seats in favor of a single EU seat on the Council. However, there is currently no plan to revise the situation and neither country appears ready to discuss changing their status at the UN.
• With the eastward expansion of the EU and the approximate doubling of the EU's membership, the range of foreign policy interests will broaden dramatically. In particular the relationship between the EU and Russia will likely become a far more central foreign and security policy concern.
• Moreover, unanimity is required for the EU to take action. As a consequence, the probability that the EU will achieve a consensus is likely to decrease with enlargement. At the very least, the time taken to negotiate a common position is likely to increase, thereby restricting the speed and hence effectiveness of a common foreign policy.

B. Hurdles and Barriers to a single defense policy and defense structure

Not all members of the European Community, and now the European Union, are members of NATO - specifically Sweden, Finland, and Ireland. Consequently, with the WEU defined as the European Pillar of NATO, for there to be a single defense policy and defense structure, some change will be necessary - either an expansion of NATO to include these countries or the separation of the WEU from NATO. Neither possibility looks imminently likely, especially given the aforementioned definition of the WEU in Maastricht. In addition, setting the WEU as the European pillar of NATO is not unproblematic because Norway is within NATO, but not the EU.

Of the EU member states, only France and the UK possess nuclear weapons. For a single European defense structure to emerge, a logical requirement is that both countries surrender their nuclear weapons to the WEU. However, as with their UN Security Council seats, there is currently no plan to revise the status quo and neither country appears ready to surrender independent control over their arsenals.

C. General Problems with the development of a common foreign policy, defense policy and defense structure

That the members of the European Union failed to develop a common foreign and defence policy during the Cold War may raise doubts about the rationale and feasibility of developing common policies today. By comparison with the contemporary world, the Cold War period was relatively simple, in that all member states were confronted by the same single, common enemy that posed a serious and fairly immediate threat to their security. Foreign and defense policy issues today are much less clear cut and straight-forward, because the nature of threats to the member states is no longer simple and uniform across all states (e.g. not all member states confront the same degree of threat from Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists). And, the appropriate responses to perceived common threats are likely to vary across countries conditional on interpretations of the situation. Divisions within Europe during the Yugoslav crisis and in particular over Iraq in recent years, revealed very different conceptions of each problem and the best way of handling them. Indeed, despite almost a decade of work on CFSP the EU was split over Iraq to an extent probably not witnessed in more than two to three decades. In short, there are not good grounds for thinking that a common European foreign policy on all matters is within easy reach. However, this need not mean that CFSP is doomed to failure, simply that it’s development will almost certainly be both protracted and incremental. It is thus likely to be some considerable period of time before we observe a comprehensive, coherent EU foreign policy.

Finally, each of the EU countries has a different foreign policy, defense policy and intelligence culture that must eventually be welded into a single EU culture. This variation in cultures derives from different historical experiences, military structures and geographical locations. For example, in France territorial defence has historically dominated policy while in Britain the capacity for force projection has dominated policy. If a single EU foreign and defense policy is to emerge one or the other of these orientations will probably have to be made subordinate to the other.

D. European Attitudes Towards a Common Foreign and Defense Policy

The European public appears to be generally in favor of the establishment of a common foreign and security policy. In the bi-annual Eurobarometer surveys over the last ten years there has been a consistently significant majority of the population of the member states supportive of both a EU defense policy and a EU foreign policy, though support does appear to be slightly stronger for a common defense policy. Figure 1 below, displays the proportion of EU citizens in favor of a common foreign policy and the proportion in favor of a common defense policy, as recorded in the Eurobarometer surveys between Autumn 1993 and Autumn 2002 (the most recent survey for which there is published data).