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11 Eur. Foreign Aff. Rev. 143 (2006)
The New Member States and the Making of EU Foreign Policy

handle is hein.kluwer/eurofa0011 and id is 147 raw text is: European Foreign Affairs Review 11: 143-162, 2006. © 2006 Kluwer Law International. The New Member States and the Making of EU Foreign Policy* GEOFFREY EDWARDS** I Introduction Much has been written on the mixed record of the European Union's common foreign and security policies both from the point of view of the EU's actual policies and the ways in which those policies are decided. The reluctance of the Member States to forego more exclusive bilateral relationships in the interests of sometimes uncertain benefits of common action have been made frequently clear, not least over the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A number of competing pressures and tendencies are discernable: on the one hand, if European policies are to remain complementary and additional to national policies, to be undertaken only when their 'added value' is clear, then the determination of Member States to maintain the requirements of unanimity remains obvious. And yet, on the other hand, there has been an equally clear recognition of the benefits of establishing a European presence, identity or capability, if only to meet the expectations of those within and outside the EU for it to match politically its economic weight, since there has a continuous deepening of institutional structures. That institutionalization has also in part been a response to the challenge of large-scale enlargement, particularly during a period of particular uncertainty and change in the international system, not least since the terrorist attacks on the USA in September 2001. It led to the proposals within the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 for the formalization and further development of the role of the High Representative as the EU's Minister of Foreign Affairs supported by an Integrated European External Action Service. The defeat of the Constitutional Treaty with the adverse referendum results in France and the Netherlands has, at least temporarily, halted such developments. What this article aims to do therefore is to look at some of the trends discernable in the interaction of the new Member States of the EU within the CFSP processes under the Nice Treaties, looking particularly at the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEECs). This is a revised and considerably extended version of an article that first appeared in (2005) 6/3 CFSP Forum, at <www.fornet.info/CFSPforum.html>. .* Reader in European Studies and Jean Monnet chair in Political Science, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.