Relational Power Europe. Conflict Management and the Future of EU Foreign and Security Policy
The EU has been confronted with mounting challenges in the pursuit of its foreign and security policy. The distribution of power amongst multiple players – from the United States to Russia and China, but also regional players like Iran or Turkey – that espouse conflicting views of order compels the EU and its member states to rethink their international engagements along multipolar patterns. The severe weakening of state authority and governance mechanisms in regions across the EU’s borders fuels a multiplicity of challenges, from illicit trafficking to migration flows, which the EU struggles to address simultaneously and organically. These systemic phenomena intermingle with internal divisions across member states to further complicate EU efforts to deal with the many crises and conflicts that impinge on Europe’s security. Multipolar competition, regional fragmentation and internal contestation, individually and in combination with one another, define the context of EU foreign and security policy. In this study, we explore how the EU dealt with crises and conflicts between the mid-2000s and the early 2020s – including Russia’s invasions of Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear dispute, Syria’s civil war and others still – to understand the peculiar nature of the EU’s role in international security. We argue that the EU is a ‘relational power’, an entity dynamically constituted by its interaction with its internal and domestic context. As such, the EU emerges as collective actor that amplifies its member states’ international influence but is not capable of engaging in power contests on its own. We also offer policy-relevant insights into future scenarios of reform or fracture of EU foreign and security policy.
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Details
Rome, IAI, May 2024, 135 p. -
In:
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Issue
JOINT Research Paper 26
Introduction
1. The evolution of EU foreign and security policy discourse
1.1 An outward-looking, liberal EU in a safe environment
1.2 A pragmatic EU in a contested world
1.3 A geopolitical EU in a dangerous world
Conclusion
2. Inside-out theories of EU foreign and security policy
2.1 Theoretical accounts of EU foreign and security policy
2.2 Theoretical constructions of the EU’s ‘power’
Conclusion
3. An outside-in perspective of EU foreign and security policy
3.1 The pressure of multipolar competition
3.2 The pressure of regional fragmentation
3.3 The pressure of internal contestation
Conclusion
4. The strengths and limits of the EU’s relational power
4.1 Handling multipolar competition
4.2 Handling regional fragmentation
4.3 Handling internal contestation
Conclusion
5. The future(s) of EU foreign and security policy
5.1 An open future for EU foreign and security policy
5.2 A reformed EU
5.2.1 A reformed institutional set-up
5.2.2 The reformed EU: A collective power
5.3 An adjusted EU
5.3.1 An adjusted institutional set-up
5.3.2 The adjusted EU: A multilateralist polymorphic actor
5.4 A fractured EU
5.4.1 A fractured institutional set-up
5.4.2 The fractured EU: A supplementary framework
Conclusions
References