The EU Presence in International Organizations

Spyros Blavoukos, Dimitris Bourantonis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415522823
• eBook ISBN: 9781136920363
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study provides a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of the European Union presence in International Organisations (IOs). The editors seek to explore both the political and institutional implications of the EU's interaction with IOs and the effect of the EU's presence on the functioning of the respective IOs.

The result of an international workshop with an outstanding line up of experts, the book discusses a range of issues, including:

• The Impact of the EU security contributions to IO's such as the OSCE, NATO and the UN, and the EU's role in decision making.
• The role of EU – US relations in the development of major International Organisations
• Participation in the Doha Development agenda and the EU's relationship with the WTO
• The issues of leadership and coherence within and outside the EU
• The growing international relationship with the African Union and the more troubled supporting role of the Commonwealth.

Approaching the EU's international interactions from different theoretical and analytical angles, this work clearly discusses the broad spectrum of issues that surround the evolution and future of the European Union in an international context

1
Introduction

The EU presence in international organizations

Spyros Blavoukos and Dimitris Bourantonis

The growing international ascendance of the EU has been long associated with a debate about the overarching guiding principles and objectives that inform and delimit the broad range of policies articulating the EU’s international identity. In 2003, the European Council adopted the European Security Strategy (ESS), which identified what the EU member-states perceived as the main security challenges as well as the appropriate way of dealing with them, multilaterally and in close cooperation with international organizations (IOs). The 2008 ESS revision has not altered substantially the EU security preoccupations, reinstating the increasingly complex nature of threats and challenges at regional and global level and the holistic EU approach to their tackling.

The embrace of ‘effective multilateralism’ as the cornerstone of the EU’s interactions with the international community has added a new dimension in the debate about the EU’s international presence and orientation (Biscop 2009a). Effective multilateralism suggests a specific modality of ‘going international’ for the EU, thus shifting the focus of the ongoing debate from policy objectives to the appropriate modality of action (Biscop 2009b: 13). In that respect, a new underlying question emerges: is such commitment to multilateralism principle-or interest-based (i.e. another means to pursue ‘European interests’)? Ontological considerations related to the sui generis, multilateral EU nature and its distinctive post-Westphalian international identity, which the EU seeks to project and export worldwide, point to the former. In that respect, it is possible to discern a normative and values-based orientation in the EU’s international presence that testifies to the sincere and genuine adherence to the principles of multilateralism. In contrast, the interest-based approach highlights the multi-dimensionality of EU’s international interactions. These interactions are not exclusively multilateral but integrate minilateral and even unilateral courses of action, from the EU as a whole but also from constituent member-states that may function complementary but also antagonistically to the EU. In that respect, the argument goes, multilateralism is no Holy Grail per se but rather an instrumental means to pursue specific policy objectives related with distinctive EU or member-states’ interests.

In any case, proponents of multilateralism attribute a key role to IOs in the functioning of the international system. They constitute critical cooperation forums in areas in which cooperation entails advantages for all or most of their constituent states (Bennett and Oliver 2002: 3). The more representative and legitimized IOs are and the more efficiently they operate, the more they contribute to international order and stability. Therefore, it is in the interest of international actors embracing multilateralism to take the necessary steps to ensure representativeness, legitimacy and efficiency of IOs, suggesting among others open ears to reform calls to address changing conditions in the international setting, either at systemic or institution-base level. Failure to do so undermines the credibility of the ‘multilateralists’ and raises doubts about their genuine adherence to the principles of multilateralism. ‘Yes, we do embrace multilateralism and resort to international institutions,’ the criticism goes, ‘but only as long as we control them in terms of membership and decision making rules and avoid harmful outcomes of multilateral deliberations.’

The security doctrine of the EU and the critical importance of IOs in a multilateral international order necessitate the closer examination of the EU interaction with IOs. This interaction constitutes the principal focus of this book. The EU engagement with IOs is by no means a new feature in the process of European integration. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) acknowledged already in the 1970s the possibility of the EC – at the time – becoming a founding member of another IO, arguing that since the EC had a legal personality, it had the capacity not only to enter into contractual relations but also to set up a ‘public international institution’.¹ However, acceding to an already existing IO was a different story. In the absence of an explicit Treaty provision regarding membership of an IO, the EU applied by analogy the procedure devised for the conclusion of international agreements by the Community (Sack 1995). This discussion and the related literature (Wessel and Wouters 2008; Eeckhout 2004; Govaere et al. 2004; Macleod et al. 1996; Brückner 1990) capture primarily the formal-legal aspects of the EU interaction with IOs. However, useful as their insights may be, these studies say little about the political dimension of this engagement.

In that respect, the intensification and extension of international governance through IOs, especially in the post-Cold War era, has evolved in parallel with the quest of the EU for an international identity and a political role in international affairs. Thus, there has emerged a need to explore the interrelationship between the EU and IOs, resulting in a series of studies of the political aspects of the EU engagement with major IOs and their agencies. A few of these studies target explicitly the EU interactions with IOs (see, in particular, the collective volumes of Jørgensen 2009b; Laatikainen and Smith 2006; Elgström and Smith 2006). Others address this issue through their broader focus on international politics and security (Ortega 2005; Hill 2005; Missiroli 2005; Schmitt 2005; Fassbender 2004; Smith 2004; Johansson-Nogués 2004; Tsakaloyannis and Bourantonis 1997), economic relations and trade (Smith 2009; Young 2002, 2007; Meunier and Nicolaides 2006; Meunier 2005; Smaghi 2004; de Burca and Scott 2001; Woolcock 1993), environment (Bretherton and Vogler 2006; Vogler 2005, Sbragia 1998), communications (Sandholtz 1998), and human rights (Manners 2002, 2006). These studies have shown that the EU interaction with IOs has both an internal and an external dimension: the former encapsulates the intra-EU institutional and political implications of the interaction, comprising issues of intra-EU policy-making coordination and formal institutional representation. The latter captures the effect of the EU’s presence on the functioning of the respective IOs, in particular the EU effect on their institutional format and policy-making process and outputs.

Based on this focus and taking the existing literature further, this volume addresses three interrelated sets of research questions:

• First, which endogenous (i.e. EU related) and exogenous (i.e. systemic/IO-specific) parameters condition such interaction? For analytical purposes, we identify two broad clusters. The first, which is related with the institutional features of both the EU and the respective IOs, comprises, among others, decision-making rules within the EU and/or the IO including potential veto points, and the legal status of EU presence (i.e. formal–informal EU representation, overlapping membership between member-states and the EU, etc). The second cluster encapsulates the political component of the EU–IO relationship, in particular member-states’ preferences and their effect on intra-EU cohesion (e.g. ‘big’ member-states’ directoire, ‘middle power’ diplomacy, ‘EU neutrals’). It also considers other third states’ membership and role in an IO (e.g. US), as well as compatibility among multiple arenas of EU international presence (i.e. simultaneous participation in international forums of deliberation with contradicting objectives).

• Second, it is important to bear in mind the cross-temporal, dynamic nature of the EU–IOs interactions. In other words, the EU relationship with most IOs has evolved over time, thus generating the need for a historical overview of this evolving relationship as well as raising interesting questions about its conditioning parameters. In this pursuit, two important aspects should be taken into consideration: first, the changing membership both of the EU and the IOs. The successive rounds of EU enlargement have not only radically transformed its modus operandi, potentially at the expense of internal cohesion, but have also raised the EU collective capabilities. At the same time, membership expansion of IOs (e.g. NATO and WTO) alters internal balances and affects the EU’s role in them. Second, the changing international role and aspirations of the EU and the IOs alike (e.g. NATO and the British Commonwealth) bring to the fore new issue areas of potential friction and new cleavages, transforming the EU–IO relationship.

• Third, our interest lies not only with the EU impact on the functioning of the IOs but also with the ‘top-down’ dimension of the EU–IOs interaction, in other words with the intra-EU effect of these interactions. What challenges may they entail for the EU political and institutional evolution, in terms of policy-making processes and outputs? Which actors – member-states or supranational bodies – are empowered by such interactions and what is their effect on the inter-institutional power constellation in the EU? Finally, is there any feedback to EU member-states, in the sense of triggering a process of national repositioning on policy issues?

At this point, we should clarify three issues recurring in all contributions in this volume. First, our understanding of the ‘EU international presence’ is not limited to the EU collective actions alone but incorporates the ‘presence’ and contributions of individual member-states with an effect on the EU dimension, especially given that in several cases the two cannot be easily disentangled. Such an expansionary definition creates a few analytical and methodological problems, not least those related with the necessity to establish specific criteria to discern between individual (i.e. national) and collective (i.e. EU) contributions. Perhaps the most illustrative example of such difficulties is the case of developmental assistance and financial aid, which constitute one of the core pillars of EU external action and in which the lines between national and EU allocations are often blurred. Acknowledging such methodological hurdles, we believe that such a broadening of the concept remains extremely useful, not least because it sheds light on the co-existence of the two sets of contributions. This scarcely researched relationship may not always be symbiotic, with national contributions also functioning potentially in an antagonistic way to the EU ones. Thus, we need to examine – inductively to begin with – the conditions under which national contributions emerge as liabilities rather than assets for the EU, undermining its international presence or cases where duplication of resources deprives the EU from fully capturing its international potential.

Second, in identifying the focus of our collective work, we have relied on the explicit distinction between international institutions and organizations, the latter defined as ‘ … material entities possessing physical locations (or seats), offices, personnel, equipment, and budgets’ (Young 1989: 32). This emphasis on formalized aspects of international cooperation derives from three features of IOs: they have agency (for example, they make loans and send peacekeepers around the world), agenda-setting influence and a potentially important socializing effect (Simmons and Martin 2002: 193). In that respect, their organizational format and distinctive formal structures of bureaucratic administration provide a clear focus for the study of the EU international presence: the EU and/or its member-states participate in their respective deliberations, have voting rights, contribute to their budgets, and affect their policies and course of action. Still, besides the agentic qualities of IOs, it is also important to bear in mind their institutional characteristics, their roles, functions, authority, and capabilities as defined in their founding rules (Duffield 2006: 634–5). Thus, IOs are subject to continuous institutional evolution, not least affected by their dynamic interaction with the EU, which some authors also seek to capture in their contributions (i.e. the ‘EU effect’). The two most widely used criteria for the clustering and comparative analysis of IOs, to which we also adhere in this volume, comprise membership (IOs of regional or global status) and the scope of their functions or policy area (mono-or multi-thematic IOs) (Higgott 2006: 614–15).

Third, as Ojanen also argues in her contribution in this volume, the EU interactions with IOs may take various forms. The EU’s international identity is not exhausted with its presence in IOs. In that respect, the title of the volume may be slightly misleading but is justified on the ground of brevity and eloquence. The EU may and does also function through IOs, outsourcing or delegating tasks to other IOs; with IOs, in parallel institutional structures with some or no degree of overlapping but largely in a symbiotic relationship; or even against other IOs, in a competitive and antagonistic relationship. These alternative forms of interaction come out prominently in several of the contributions. The variety of IOs covered and the diversification of the authors’ research agenda within the broader research and analytical framework of this collective volume ensure that we have identified and captured hopefully many important aspects of these interactions.

Facets of ‘effective multilateralism’

If the Cold War period is to be remembered for something positive that should be its rigidity at the centre of the international system and the deriving predictability of state-action for the majority of international actors. The collapse of the bipolar world after the events of 1989 brought about a new series of international challenges, bringing forward the need for security reconceptualization and the requirement for a new international regime. In this context, multilateralism emerged as an option of systemic organization that would remedy the traumas of the bipolar confrontation. In the pioneering work of John Ruggie and others,...

Table of contents

• Routledge Advances in European Politics
• Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 EU contribution to and cooperation with multilateral organizations
• 3 The European Union and NATO
• 4 The EU as a security actor
• 5 The big three and the High Representative
• 6 The EU, the US and international organizations
• 7 Effective multilateralism on trial
• 8 The European Commission in the WTO’s DDA negotiations
• 9 The Commonwealth and the European Union
• 10 Conclusions
• Index