One of the major objectives of the IGC was ‘to give Europe a stronger voice in world affairs’. Just how far can the Amsterdam Treaty be seen to have achieved its objectives?
With the aim of securing consistency between the first and second pillars of the EU, the IGC looked at ways of giving the EU a legal personality. Mainly owing to the opposition of the UK, no further explicit provisions were added in this direction. In the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy, the following developments deserve attention.
Firstly, the new treaty provides for the setting up of a High Representative for the CFSP. This shoud help to make the external policies of the EU more consistent and at the same time contribute to the efficiency, viability, and visibility of the CFSP-though the choice of Mr or Mrs CFSP may not fall exactly where France has wished.
In the second place, the setting up of the policy planning and early warning unit will certainly help towards consistent policy making throughout the whole process of analysis, forecasting and planning. This unit was, however, on the ground that it is only a preparatory organ of the CFSP, denied the right to initiate policy.
Thirdly, we should take note of some developments concerning the determination of CFSP's policies. The range of questions subject to qualified majority vote will be widened, and a flexible system —termed ‘constructive abstention’— will be introduced for the first time. In principle, consensus remains the rule, but except in the sphere of defence policy, the notion of over all consensus would seem to be on its way out.
At the IGC another important task was to establish the concept of ‘European Security and Defence Identity’. In this respect considerable progress would seem to have been made. The Amsterdam Treaty says that ‘safeguarding the integrity of the Union’ should be among the objectives of the CFSP. The EU will strengthen its links with the WEU by providing that the latter supply the former with ‘access to an operational capability’, and that the latter support the former in ‘framing the defence aspects’ of the CFSP. The treaty also goes so far as to include the phrase ‘with a view to the possibility of the integration of WEU into the Union’.
In the matter of the ‘Petersburg tasks’, while avoiding the use of the term, the treaty refers to humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and the use of combat forces in crisis management, including those of a peacemaking nature. It should be noteworthy that at the IGC all the neutral member states were in favor of including the ‘Petersburg tasks’ in the terms of the treaty.
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