EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts

Nicu Popescu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136851889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

The European Union is still emerging as a fully fledged foreign policy actor. The vagaries of this process are clearly visible, yet insufficiently explained in the EU policies towards the post-Soviet space.

EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts examines EU intervention and non-intervention in conflict resolution, with a specific focus on the EU's role in the post-soviet conflicts in the South Caucasus and Moldova: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. It explains how EU foreign policy affected these conflicts, but more importantly what EU intervention in these conflicts reveal about the EU itself. Based on extensive field research, the author argues that the reluctant EU intervention in post-Soviet conflicts results from a dichotomous relationship between EU institutions and some EU member states. Popescu argues this demonstrates that EU institutions use policies of 'stealth intervention' where they seek to play a greater role in the post-Soviet space, but they do so through relatively low-profile, uncontroversial and depoliticised actions in order to avoid visible Russian opposition.

Exploring an array of questions related to the EU as a foreign policy actor, this book traces the politics of conflict intervention by EU institutions using original empirical data related to the EU decision making process and will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, conflict resolution, foreign policy and Post-Soviet politics.

1
Introduction

European integration was conceived in the 1950s’ largely as a conflict resolution exercise. Its means were economic, but the declared objective mainly political: to pacify Europe. As integration advanced and the potential for conflicts in Western Europe faded, the European Union’s concern with conflicts has became increasingly externalized. From the Balkans to the Middle East, and from the South Caucasus to Western Sahara, the European Union (EU) is encircled with conflicts that affect European security (European Security Strategy 2003). The EU has little choice but to consider action, because ‘In its neighbourhood and beyond, the EU cannot confine itself to the economic and political spheres; it also needs to be able to guarantee stability, prevent conflicts and manage crises on its own doorstep’ (European Commission 2004a). In a difficult milieu, the EU has become increasingly, though hesitantly, active in conflict management on its doorstep. But the EU’s actions have gone hand in hand with failures to act, and both have been equally revealing about the EU as a foreign policy actor.

The EU’s main objective in the neighbourhood is to establish a ring of well-governed, prosperous and democratic states. The Treaty of Lisbon even stipulates that the EU ‘shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries’ characterized by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation (Treaty of Lisbon 2007). But there is little the EU can do in the eastern neighbourhood without addressing the secessionist conflicts in Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. One can hardly dream of good governance and functioning state institutions when the poorest European states invest heavily in their military, and do not control significant parts of their borders, where smuggling and corruption in and around the conflict zones flourish, publics have become increasingly radicalized, military escalation is a plausible possibility, and defence spending growth has often been in the double-digits. And this situation has persisted for almost two decades. The August 2008 war in Georgia tragically highlighted the fact that contrary to wide-spread beliefs, these conflicts are not ‘frozen’. Their settlement is. A better analogy is that of a frozen river: the ice on the surface may be apparently immobile, but underneath it currents continue to run (Fall 2006). At times they erupted on the surface leading to renewed bloodshed as in Abkhazia in 1998 or South Ossetia in 2008. These conflict zones might be invisible on the map of the world, but they are real political phenomena that affect the development of the European foreign and security policy, as well as EU relations with virtually all of its partners in wider Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey.

With the launch of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2003, the EU has deployed a widening array of foreign policy instruments aimed at influencing conflict settlement patterns in these conflict areas. The EU appointed EU Special Representatives (EUSRs), launched conflict-management missions, became involved in conflict settlement talks and discussed the possibility to send peacekeepers. These measures went hand in hand with broader EU policies such as offering financial assistance, trade liberalization and visa facilitation; developing energy partnerships and inclusion in some EU agencies and programmes to all of its neighbours. Overall, the EU deployed several missions with over 400 personnel and spent hundreds of millions Euro on conflict management in the post-Soviet space.

However, the growing list of EU foreign policy actions is offset by a similarly expansive list of potential EU actions that have ultimately failed to materialize. Among these were the EU’s failures to deploy EU peacekeepers in Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh, border monitors in Georgia, or develop any semblance of policies on Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite a fast-growing European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and high-level declaratory commitments to establish a strong EU presence in the neighbourhood, the level of EU engagement in conflict resolution in Moldova and the South Caucasus is unremarkable. It often paled in comparison to EU commitments to conflict resolution, not only in the Balkans, but also in sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Middle-East.

The question: explaining EU conflict intervention

The discussion whether and how EU institutions intervene in conflict settlement efforts is not just a theoretical exercise, as it potentially has huge implications for real life developments. The EU’s value added to international conflict management efforts partly stems from its size. A union of half a billion people that successfully ensured a largely peaceful Europe for the last 60 years, and now disburses over a half of global development assistance to poor and conflict-prone regions can in theory become a truly global force for good. No single European country would be able to influence conflict settlement patterns the same as the EU could do. Thus the debate whether and how the EU intervenes in conflict management worldwide has relevance for the lives of hundreds of thousands of victims of territorial conflicts.

Modern conflicts cannot have a purely military solution as they require a wide range of tools for conflict management ranging from huge amounts of economic aid, civilian policing in conflict areas and reforming courts and border management agencies. In theory, the EU is uniquely positioned to provide such an integrated approach to conflict management where military and civilian capabilities can be blended together with reconciliation assistance, trade concessions and support for institution building. This is particularly so after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty which brings together the various foreign policy arms of the EU which had operated in a fragmented (and sometimes competing) manner.

This book does not assume that EU intervention in conflict resolution is or will be inherently positive. In fact the EU, just like any other actor, can undertake actions that harm conflict settlement (Diez et al. 2008), and many would argue that it did just that in Cyprus or Kosovo. Moreover, this book does not assume that all EU member states should let a common EU foreign policy supersede their own national policies. However, all EU member states have expressed a clear determination to build an EU common foreign and security policy and contribute to conflict resolution in the neighbourhood through common actions. The Treaty on European Union states in its preamble that EU member states are ‘resolved to implement a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, […] thereby reinforcing the European identity and its independence in order to promote peace, security and progress in Europe and in the world’ (2008). How it scores in this ambition has clear cut practical, as well as theoretical, relevance. That is why this book seeks to assess how the EU acts as a conflict management actor.

A number of empirical puzzles have been at the source of this research. Given the global ambitions of EU foreign policy, why does the EU choose to get involved in some conflicts in the neighbourhood, but not in others? Why and under what conditions does the EU decide to get involved in conflict management? What determines the scope and form of EU conflict resolution efforts? What is the impact of EU conflict management policies? Similarly important for our understanding of the EU is explaining the opposite: why and under what conditions does the EU choose not to get involved in conflicts? What makes the EU choose not to intervene? What are the mechanisms and motivations of the member states for blocking common EU action, particularly when no vital national interests are at stake?

EU conflict management policies are an under-theorized phenomenon, especially when it comes to explaining non-involvement in conflicts in the eastern neighbourhood. In addressing this gap, some of the questions worth asking are: why is the EU involved in conflict resolution in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but not in Nagorno-Karabakh? More narrowly, why has the EU deployed border assistance teams to Moldova and Georgia, but avoided to even seriously discuss the sending of peacekeepers, at least before the August 2008 war?

Perhaps, most important is the fact that identifying patterns in EU policies toward conflicts in the eastern neighbourhood also contributes to the more fundamental discussion on the nature of the EU as a foreign policy actor. This research sheds more light on the internal workings of the EU by asking questions such as: What is the relationship between EU institutions and member states in EU foreign policy? What drives EU involvement in conflicts? Is EU policy toward separatist conflicts in the neighbourhood merely a function of the interests of member states that dominate EU foreign policy? Do supranational institutions matter in initiating, shaping and implementing EU policies on conflict resolution? If they do matter, when, how and under what conditions will the workings of these institutions trump the interests of EU member states? Can general theories of European integration help to account for the patterns of EU conflict management policies? What are the dynamics of cooperation or competition between the various actors operating from within the EU and its member states when it comes to EU conflict management policies?

The literature

Despite the fact that EU foreign policy is one of the most popular topics in European Union studies today, it remains chronically under-theorized. Theoretical work on EU foreign policy is ‘meagre’ compared to work on the internal aspects of European integration. Given the rather unique character of the EU as an enterprise, it has been argued that it is not surprising that no general theory has arisen to explain EU foreign policy-making (K. Smith 2004: 12). Philippe Schmitter, one of the pioneers of European integration theory, even claimed that:

all students of regional integration […] now understand that no single theory will be capable of explaining dynamics and predicting its outcome. The EU is already the most complex polity ever created by human artifice and it is going to become even more so before it reaches its end-state – whatever that will be.

(Schmitter 2004: 69)

Indeed, most existing books and articles on EU foreign policy provide empirical and factual accounts of what EU foreign policy is and how it operates, but pay less attention to comprehensively theorizing EU foreign policy (White 2000; Nuttal 2000; K. Smith 2003; M. Smith 2003; Mahncke et al. 2004; Casarini and Musu 2007; Ginsberg 2007; Krotz 2009). This equally applies to the literature on EU conflict management, where most of the existing literature is predominantly empirical (Monar 2002; Piana 2002; Salmon 2002; Sourd 2005; Faria 2004; Ioannides 2006; Emerson and Gross 2007; Batt 2004, 2005; Knaus and Cox 2004; Martinelli 2006; Gunaryadi 2006; Grevi 2005; Tannam 1997; K. Smith 2003; de Vries 2002; Bourne 2003b; Sasse 2009). There is a growing body of literature using mid-range theories to conceptualize the EU role in conflict management (Hill 2001; Comelli et al. 2007; Coppieters et al. 2004; Tocci 2004b; Barbe and Kienzle 2007; Papadimitriou et al. 2007; Kurowska and Tallis 2009; Gegout 2009; Hughes 2009). However, more often than not these studies do not offer a theoretical framework for understanding EU involvement in conflicts more generally and which could be applied to other cases of conflicts. Still, given the fact that EU conflict management is a relatively recent phenomenon, it could hardly be otherwise. Without taking stock of EU’s record in conflict management – one could hardly advance too far in theorizing it.

Second, with some exceptions (Comelli et al. 2007; Coppieters et al. 2004; Diez et al. 2008; Gordon and Sasse 2008; Sasse 2009; Tocci 2007), the literature on EU conflict management tends to focus on single case studies (Aoun 2003; Diez 2000; Faria 2004; Kurowska and Tallis 2009; Nugent 2000; Rumelili 2007; Salmon 2002; Sourd 2005; Tocci 2004a). These case studies are rich in empirics concerning the workings of the EU, the policy instruments it uses and the impacts its actions have. Nonetheless, single case-studies do not allow for a comparative analysis of EU actions across cases, thereby limiting opportunities for valid generalizations across cases. There is an emerging literature comparing two or more cases of EU involvement, but they are also predominantly empirical or focus on specific EU policy instruments (such as civilian crisis-management, or EU Special Representatives) across a number of conflicts (Merlingen and Ostrauskaite 2006; ICG 2006; Grevi 2007; Emerson and Gross 2007; Hughes 2009).

Third, the bulk of the literature theorizing EU and conflict management has so far focused on states that were or are (potential) candidate states for EU membership – Cyprus, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Western Balkans (Diez 2002; Kelley 2004a; Merlingen and Ostrauskaite 2006; Tocci 2007; Sebastian 2009; Gordon 2009). In all these cases, the EU has used its most potent external policy instrument so far – membership conditionality – investing enormous amounts of funding into promoting conflict resolution, supporting reforms and preventing conflicts. The EU policy toward secessionist conflicts in EU member states or candidate countries may thus tell us little about what drives the EU in conflict management efforts on a global scale. This is because EU foreign policy is largely tied up with enlargement policy in European cases of conflict and the degree of EU commitment to achieving conflict resolution goals is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere.

But the most important limitation in virtually all the existing research on EU and conflict management ignores the EU decisions not to intervene, as analysts focus almost entirely on conflicts where EU involvement already occurs. EU decisions to intervene in such conflicts have variously been explained through humanitarian concerns (Sudan, DR Congo), geopolitics (Western Balkans, Moldova, the Middle East), commitment to alliance with the US (Iraq, Afghanistan) and external pressures and expectations for action (Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Chad, DR Congo, Moldova, Georgia). However, only a few studies seek to explain why the EU chooses non-action in some cases (Helly 2003). In other words, virtually none of this scholarship explores non-events, i.e. cases where the EU chose not to intervene. This creates a significant selection bias in attempts to explain EU conflict management policies.

EU inaction or decisions not to intervene in conflicts provide additional information concerning the nature of the EU as a foreign policy actor, and such cases have significant untapped analytical potential. By studying only those cases where the EU engages in conflict settlement, one cannot answer important questions such as: Why and under what conditions does the EU decide to get involved in conflict resolution? When does the EU choose not to intervene? Once a decision to intervene is taken, what determines the type of intervention the EU will pursue?

As this book argues, decisions about non-involvement are as important and revealing about the nature of the EU as a foreign policy actor as the decisions to intervene. Therefore, one should take a step back in the policy process and study not just the results of EU interventions in conflicts, but how the EU decides to intervene, which has been largely overlooked in the existing literature. By problematizing the decision to intervene, and the way the EU proceeds to make such decisions, we can advance existing understandings of the pattern of EU engagement in conflicts worldwide.

This book has greatly benefited from the numerous studies on EU conflict management which are mentioned above and seeks to bridge some of the lacunae in the existing literature. It develops and tests some of the claims already made about the EU, namely that the EU tends to work around the conflicts, rather than directly engage in conflict resolution efforts (ICG 2006a; Diez et al. 2008); that it is a mainly an economic, rather than a political, actor in conflict management (Gogia 2008; Hughes 2009); that non-intervention is often due to a lack of agreement among EU states, rather than a lack of capabilities (Gegout 2009: 410); and that the EU sometimes prefers the policies of non-action or declaratory actions, while avoiding doing anything substantive that would challenge the existing status quo (Hel...