Europe's Global Role

External Policies of the European Union

Jan Orbie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754672203
• eBook ISBN: 9781351938204
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in 2008 and based on an innovative framework for analysing the EU's external politics, this paperback edition provides a historical overview of and theoretical conclusions about the EU's global role. Taking an original approach, the volume highlights the expanding political science literature on Europe's international role in a range of external policy domains. It focuses in particular on the 'soft' dimension of Europe's international action which has previously been much neglected. Carefully structured to make this ideal supplementary reading for students and scholars of European politics and foreign policy, the book will equally appeal to a wider audience in political economy, security policy and international relations more generally.

Chapter 1

A Civilian Power in the World? Instruments and Objectives in European Union External Policies

Jan Orbie

‘What is Europe’s role in this changed world?’ Since the European Council asked this question in the 2001 Laeken Declaration, the topic of Europe’s global role has become more and more relevant. Policy-makers as well as academics have engaged extensively in debates on the potential and/or desirable contribution of the European Union (EU)¹ to new international challenges that have arisen since September 11 and the new security agenda, the increased salience of climate change and energy dependency, the changing power relations on the international trade front, the enduring development problems in the poorest countries, and the adverse consequence of globalisation in general.² Apparently, the widespread malaise in intra-EU politics which has emerged since the referenda on the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands in 2005, has only served to increase the interest in the Union’s international activities.

The contributions to this book analyse Europe’s global role, with a particular focus on its various ‘first pillar’³ external policies such as trade, development, humanitarian aid, environment, energy, competition, social issues, and asylum and migration. It also looks at Europe’s role in the ‘near abroad’ through enlargement and neighbourhood policies. The EU is arguably an important international actor in these ‘low politics’ or ‘civilian’ domains. But the degree of the Union’s power in these areas, as well as Europe’s successfulness in reaching the objectives that are pursued through these external policies, remain to be examined. This book aims to take a step in this direction.

The introductory chapter raises some conceptual issues that will reappear throughout the book, using the concept of the EU as a ‘civilian power’ in world politics as a leitmotiv. On the basis of the ‘civilian power Europe’ (CPE) literature, an analytical framework is suggested that will serve as the basis for the study of Europe’s external policies in the subsequent chapters.⁴ The main argument is that critical studies of Europe’s world role should simultaneously consider its power resources and policy objectives. Finally, we will summarise the findings of each chapter and draw some general conclusions. But first, the question arises: why study the EU’s global role?

Relevance of European Role Concepts

In the past decade, several role concepts for the EU have been advanced. Each of them suggests that the Union is, and has, a particular kind of power in the world. The idea of Europe as a civilian power underwent a renaissance (Whitman 2002; Telò 2006) but it was joined with other scenarios and ideal types such as a ‘magnetic force’ (Rosecrance 1998), a ‘gentle power’ (Padoa-Schioppa 2001), a ‘normative power Europe’ (Manners 2002), a ‘European superpower’ (McCormick 2007), a ‘quiet superpower’ (Moravcsik 2003), a ‘Kantian paradise (Venus)’ (Kagan 2004), a ‘post-modern state’ (Cooper 2003), a ‘middle power’ (Laatikainen 2006), a ‘neo-medieval empire’ (Zielonka 2006), and a ‘responsible Europe’ (Mayer and Vogt 2006).⁵

Studying EU role concepts is relevant for both descriptive and explanatory purposes. Most obviously, they constitute a pragmatic and convenient way to come to grips with the Union’s international activities. A specific role concept can be assigned to Europe on the basis of the different features in its external relations. This exercise is especially relevant in the case of the EU which is widely considered as a novel and distinctive actor on the world scene. Role concepts have been elaborated for ‘traditional’ states (e.g. Le Prestre 1997), but classifying the Union’s international position is all the more challenging, given its unique institutional nature. Typologies of roles shed light on its international distinctiveness as an ‘unidentified political object’.

Besides this classification function, international roles have a broader relevance. As argued by constructivist scholars, the presence of role concepts in the minds of policy-makers may both affect and constrain their definition of interests, and thus shape their policy choices. Within a densely institutionalised environment like the EU, such ideational dynamics may be all the more relevant (cf. Goldstein and Keohane 1995, 23–4). In line with the ‘logic of appropriateness’, the embeddedness of an ‘appropriate’ role concept indeed influences how the Union behaves in the world (cf. Harnisch and Maull 2001, 138, 150; Elgström and Smith 2006, 5).

The impact of role conceptions does not only stem from the Union’s intersubjective structure. Agency is also important, more specifically in the form of ‘role entrepreneurs’. For example, actors may successfully argue that the EU should pursue ethical foreign policies, appealing to Europe’s self-image as an actor which is built on principles of democracy and human rights. Such legitimisation in terms of EU role conceptions could influence external policy decisions, even if this runs counter to Europe’s material interests.

Roles can also be used instrumentally to advance self-interested objectives. Schimmelfennig’s (2003) notion of ‘rhetorical action’ – the strategic use of normbased arguments – clarifies the interplay between constructivist and rationalist logics in explaining the relevance of roles. Questioning why the EU decided to expand to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), he argues that Europe found itself ‘rhetorically trapped’ by those CEE and EU actors who could justify their interests on the grounds of the Union’s self-image as a democratic and liberal community (see also Chapter 11). Sedelmeier (2006) has further elaborated on the relationship between Eastern enlargement and Europe’s global role. He shows that EU ‘enlargement policy practice’ – for example, through political conditionality, discursive acts, and Treaty amendments – stimulated the formation of the Union’s role as an international promoter of democracy and human rights.

Analysing the construction and interpretation of EU roles is also interesting because, in a sense, they reflect political preferences and power relations. For example, diverse readings of what exactly the civilian power idea means also reflect a discursive struggle about the desirability of military integration at the EU level. Larsen’s (2002) discourse analysis points to both a majority and a minority vision among policy-makers on the interpretation of Europe’s ‘civilian’ behaviour in world politics. As explained below, similar divisions characterise the scholarly work on CPE. The adoption of security and defence competences has not led to a role conflict within the EU, using instead a more flexible interpretation of the civilian power idea. Diez (2005, 614) also draws attention to the political relevance of role concepts in his second-order analysis of the power inherent in the representation of the EU as a normative power. This constructs a particular and non-reflexive self of the Union, against an image of others in the outside word. Again, this suggests a concurrence of academic and political agendas: depiction of the EU as a ‘force for the good’, in contrast with the US, is nearly consensual among European politicians.

This book pays great attention to discourses constructed by EU policy-makers as regards the Union’s civilian or normative global role – for example, the EU as a force for the harnessing of globalisation (Chapter 2), as the most generous development donor (Chapter 3), as a leader in global environmental (Chapter 7) and competition issues (Chapter 8), as an exporter of the European social model (Chapter 6), and as the supporter of a comprehensive approach to asylum and migration (Chapter 5).

In this chapter we expand on the CPE concept. The primary reason for this focus is that the civilian power idea has been central in the political and academic debate about Europe’s global role since it was launched by Duchêne in the 1970s. As stated by Nicolaïdis and Howse (2003, 344), it constitutes ‘one of the main conceptual anchors for debate over the sources of EU influence in the world’. Second, CPE accounts emphasise Europe’s comparative advantage in the ‘low politics’ dimensions of external relations. Duchêne’s concept is often mentioned – but rarely elaborated on and applied – in the context of EU external economic relations (e.g. Holland 2002, 112; Schirm 1998, 76–7; Tsoukalis 2003, 192). Therefore, this book links the EU role literature with research on its international activities under first pillar policies. In the economic domain the Union’s ‘presence’ on the international scene is most tangible and unified (Allen and Smith 1990). In short, we look at Europe’s global role in those areas where it is potentially and prima facie a powerful actor.

Obviously, it is impossible to make a clear distinction from other aspects of Europe’s international policies, including the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Issues on the coherence between the Union’s external policies – and their possible securitisation since the development of a more fully-fledged foreign policy – will emerge in several chapters. The demarcation used in this book is rather pragmatic, focusing on those external areas that are usually not considered as ‘high politics’ in a country’s international affairs, and that are understudied in the EU role literature, but that are nevertheless crucially important for Europe’s global role.

Delving into the EU role literature, the next section will clarify the meaning of the CPE concept. Although the analysis shows that the civilian power perspective has strongly normative connotations, we will argue that that stimulates a critical analysis of Europe’s global role. Not only does the civilian power debate involve a useful reconsideration of the implications of military integration in the EU, but the proposed CPE framework also allows for an examination of the Union’s commitment to reach normative (or other) external policy goals.

Civilian Power Europe – After All

Duchêne among the Founding Fathers

Today, the early observation that it is difficult to find out what exactly the supporters of a civilian power have in mind (Everts 1974, 11) still applies. The CPE concept allows much flexibility (Hill 1990), it has ‘multiple meanings’ (Telò 2001, 250–51) and it ‘is inherently complex and multidimensional, bundling several specific and distinctive role concept elements into a whole’ (Harnisch and Maull 2001, 139). Although references to Duchêne’s articles are pervasive in the literature on EU external relations, these only offer a short and descriptive account of Europe’s possible role in the world. ‘Duchêne never developed his vision into a detailed and comprehensive scheme’ (Zielonka 1998, 226) and his CPE concept ‘is most striking for the unsystematic manner in which it was advanced’ (Whitman 1998, 11). Even the term ‘civilian power Europe’ is remarkably absent in the (sub) titles of his book chapters.⁶ And notwithstanding the ‘CPE renaissance’ since the 1990s, Duchêne’s most recent book⁷ and commentaries⁸ did not explicitly mention it.

One reason behind this apparent paradox is that the vagueness of the CPE scenario opens the door for different interpretations by policy-makers and academics. The enduring resonance of the CPE role is thus because of, rather than in spite of, the imprecise description by its founding father. Moreover, much detailed analytical work on this concept deals with the role of (West) Germany and hardly makes any reference to the EU (e.g. Harnisch and Maull 2001). In order to clarify the CPE ideal type, we first sketch its position vis-à-vis other foreign policy role concepts that have been applied to Europe since the 1970s. At the same time, the CPE concept is situated within its theoretical and historical context. In the next section, we elaborate on alternative role concepts that could be categorised within the pluralist school, which leads to a more precise outlining of the CPE ideal type.

Duchêne (1973; 1972) introduced the term civilian power to characterise (Western) Europe’s position in the world.

Europe would be the first major area of the Old World where the age-old process of war and indirect violence could be translated into something more in tune with the 20thcentury citizen’s notion of civilised politics. In such a context, Western Europe could in a sense be the first of the world’s civilian centres of power. (Duchêne 1972, 43)

Although the ‘founding father’ of the CPE idea rejected any naïve notion of European superiority, he states that a united and ‘civilian’ Europe may be well placed to play a stabilising role on the world scene. Europeans are ‘one of the most resolutely amilitary populations in the world’ and the ongoing European integration process is in itself an example of how cooperation in low politics may have a stabilising influence. Europe does not need to become a military superpower, on the contrary: in an interdependent world the civilian means of power and influence are gaining currency. ‘Lacking military power is not longer the handicap it once was’ (1972, 47). ‘The world is experiencing a ‘sea change in the sources of power’: the security policy of a state (including the superpowers) is oriented decreasingly towards security sensu stricto, and increasingly towards the promotion of a more favourable international environment. Duchêne (1973, 20) also states that Europe should promote social values that belong to its ‘inner characteristics’ (‘equality, justice and tolerance’ and an ‘interest for the poor abroad’).

This line of thinking broadly corresponds with the vision of Jean Monnet and the neo-functionalists on the merits of the European integration project. In fact, Duchêne collaborated closely with Jean Monnet in the 1950s and wrote the biography of ‘the first statesman of interdependence’. Since the debacle of the European Defence Community in 1954, most European policy-makers had abandoned the idea of a strong politico-military dimension to the integration project. However, French President De Gaulle did advocate a Europe puissance, urging a strong and autonomous military capacity for the EC as a third power between the US and the Soviet Union. Duchêne’s articles can be seen as a reaction to De Gaulle’s view on Europe’s world role. Mirroring the neo-functionalist critique on the federalist view that Europe should acquire state-like features in the political and military domain, Duchêne (1973, 13) warned against a ‘collective nationalism … which aims at a European super state’, influenced by ‘nostalgia and instinctive ambitions’. He stressed that the EC is about a different kind of power: it ‘may be one of the five major powers of the 1970s, but if so ‘major power’ must not be identified with ‘superpower’ and Europe’s leverage cannot be exerted along traditional lines’.

In the same period, Galtung (1973) also challenged the traditional view that conceptualises the EU as a state under construction. Although the EC may become a military superpower, he considered this as a hypothetical evolution that is actually beside the point. More importantly, he underlines the structural power of Europe through non-military means, especially in Eastern ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Boxes, Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 A Civilian Power in the World? Instruments and Objectives in European Union External Policies
• 2 The European Union’s Role in World Trade: Harnessing Globalisation?
• 3 The European Union’s International Development Policy: Leading and Benevolent?
• 4 European Union Humanitarian Aid: Lifesaver or Political Tool?
• 5 The External Dimension of EU Asylum and Migration Policy: Expanding Fortress Europe?
• 6 Legal Power and Normative Sources in the Field of Social Policy: Normative Power Europe at Work?
• 7 Green Civilian Power Europe?
• 8 The External Dimension of EU Competition Policy: Exporting Europe’s Core Business?
• 9 EU External Energy Policies: A Paradox of Integration
• 10 ‘Everybody Needs Good Neighbours’: The EU and its Neighbourhood
• 11 Civilian Power Europe and Eastern Enlargement: The More the Merrier?
• Index