The European Union as a Power in International Relations: The European Security Strategy and the Transatlantic Relationship

“New Europe”, Aspects of the EU Enlargement

Abstract

The European Union adopted its first ever security strategy in December 2003, less than a year after the Iraq War. The European Security Strategy (ESS) declared the EU to be ‘inevitably a global player’ and called it to fulfil its responsibility in the world. It was a symbol of the revival of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) that had been shattered by deep divisions among the members in the run-up to the Iraq War. The purpose of this article is to examine the current state of the EU as a power in international relations by paying particular attention to the ESS.
In the first section, it examines how the revival of the CFSP and ESDP after the Iraq debacle was achieved. First, a bitter experience of Iraq and the imminent enlargement of the EU forced the EU members to discuss issues of common security threat and the means to address them, which had been impossible before because of the reluctance of some members. Second, the need to restore transatlantic relations badly damaged by the Iraq war stimulated the new move in the CFSP and ESDP. In many ways, the ESS can be seen as the EU's overture to Washington.
The second section assesses the current state of the EU as a power in international relations by using four concepts: civilian power, military power, global player, and regional player. Some argue (or regret) that the EU is moving from a civilian power to a military power. And EU leaders like to point out that the EU is a global player. But the fact remains that the EU has many different characteristics and this article argues that the multifaceted nature of the EU in international relations is in fact one of the most important sources of the EU's strength. What the ESS calls ‘particular value’ that the EU could add to the international community only comes from this very multi-dimensional nature of the EU that combines civilian and military instruments and global and regional outlook.
The last section discusses the issue of division of labour between the United States and the Europe. A functional division of labour where the US engages in ‘high-end’ military operations while the Europeans undertake ‘low-end’ operations such as peace-keeping and reconstruction is a form that inevitably raises tensions, as has been demonstrated in the past decade. But given the huge capability gap between Europe and the US, some kind of functional division of labour is inevitable. But at the same time, what is emerging recently is a regional division of labour where Europe focuses on conflicts in Africa. The EU's new concept of ‘battlegroups’, which is specifically designed for use in the African theatre, is in line with this new direction.