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The 'Europeanization' of European Political Cooperation:
Trust, Transgovernmental Relations, and
the Power of Informal Norms
Political Relations and Institutions Research Group
Working Paper 2.44
November 1996
Abstract
Intensive, effective foreign and security policy cooperation is one of the most ambitious goals of those who favor a more integrated Europe. Indeed, despite the failures of the European Defense Community and the European Political Community in the 1950s, and of the Fouchet plans for closer political integration in the 1960s, the European Community (EC) 1 has persistently attempted to establish itself as an influential international political actor. Serious efforts toward this end were first successfully established as "European Political Cooperation" (EPC) in 1970. Hoping to become "a cohesive force in international relations," and to encourage "political union," EC member states gradually and quietly developed EPC to preserve European economic integration. 2 After twenty years of informal foreign policy cooperation under the EPC system, in 1991 the Treaty on European Union finally and explicitly linked this unusual arrangement to the existing EC treaties by establishing a common foreign and security policy (CFSP) for the new "European Union."
While foreign policy cooperation in the EC is obviously underdeveloped compared to its other policies, by most standards of international cooperation it is an impressive achievement. EC member states, with their long histories of conflicting interests in foreign affairs, have increasingly considered the foreign policy positions of their partners, even to the extent of conducting joint actions. The EPC system in particular was used to forge common views, pool resources, and even influence the interests of EC member states. Less than three years after creating the mechanism, EC foreign ministers enthused that EPC was "a new procedure in international relations and an original contribution to the technique at arriving at concerted action." 3 One participant was so impressed with the mechanism that he claimed EPC probably was "the simplest, leanest, and most cost-effective form of international cooperation yet devised." 4 Another official long-involved in the process argued that EPC was "the world's most advanced model of collective diplomacy." 5
This is high praise for a system as informal and rudimentary as member states intended EPC to be. Why does this enterprise deserve our attention? That states as interdependent as those of the EC should cooperate in foreign policy is not remarkable by itself Although theorists argue that international political cooperation is supposed to be harder to achieve than cooperation in economic affairs, 6 many internal and external forces might have led EC states to coordinate their foreign policies over the past several decades. Equally, that such states -- already embedded as they were in the long-term economic integration project -- should establish modest institutional support for such cooperation is not very puzzling. In this sense the initial creation of EPC could be viewed in part as a product of functional or sectoral "spillover;" it was intended to reinforce the expanding external economic policies of the EC. What is remarkable about EPC is the way it had an increasingly constraining influence on its member governments, while becoming inseparably entangled with, and deferential to procedures within, the EC. More surprisingly, this happened with a very weak institutional structure and with severely limited involvement (compared to other EC policy areas) by supranational Community actors. Hence it is difficult to claim that what could be called the "Europeanization" of EPC was primarily a product of political spillover, whereby powerful EC actors (chiefly the Commission) expand their authority over a policy domain. 7
Indeed, where member states have increasingly surrendered much of their foreign economic policy to the institutions of the Community, they strongly disagreed over the extent to which Europe's external political relations should involve the EC. Also, as an issue-area, foreign policy is not usually subject to the same integrative dynamics between societal actors and EC-level institutions involved in socio-economic policymaking. As a result, EPC rested on informal practices and rules not formally codified by treaty, and not closely involved with EC actors; it was generally a decentralized, flexible, secret, non-enforceable policy domain. Since previous attempts to "Communitarize" defense cooperation had failed so spectacularly, EC member states took special care to keep EPC from being "contaminated" by existing supranational procedures in the EC. Thus, governments easily dominated EPC at first; EC-level actors such as the Commission and the European Parliament were marginally involved; the European Court of Justice was specifically excluded; and EPC decisionmaking rules -- unlike those eventually used to establish the single market -- relied on the consensus principle. Hence a formidable barrier was deliberately erected between European Community foreign economic policymaking and EPC.
In this sense, then, the fact that states are unlikely to permit, and citizens are unlikely to demand, a supranational European foreign policy confirms the view that European integration is closely associated with cross-border economic transactions between firms and individual. Yet the story does not end there. The orthodox view that political cooperation is exclusively or even primarily controlled by member state governments, and that a dynamic relationship between "transactors" and EC institutions in a policy domain is a necessary condition for it to become less intergovernmental, is somewhat misleading. EPC expanded in ways unanticipated or opposed by many member states, and authority in this area was increasingly influenced by EC procedures. In practice, then, EC foreign policy cooperation was at once institutionalized and "Europeanized;" norms and policies of EPC became more coherent and stable while the system itself moved closer to the EC. EPC was not, however, "supranationalized." As generally used, this term implies a much greater involvement or autonomy of EC actors than ever truly existed in EPC. This process also demonstrated more significant institutional effects than those associated with the reduction of transactions costs for interstate bargains. 8 As I show in this paper, this view of institutions is far too narrow to understand EPC. Although bargalning and negotiation are very important during ideological debates (such as during an Intergovernmental Conference) over the formal institutional structure of EC/EPC, they are only partially applicable to day-to-day EC foreign policymaking.
Here the main argument is that supposedly weak international institutions can have surprisingly significant effects over time, even in "difficult" issue-areas such as foreign policy cooperation. In economic-related policy areas, the integrative causal chain starts with transactors, who demand or support integrative policies to conduct their business across borders; the ECJ and the Commission take advantage of these demands to replace national practices with European norms and standards. These areas (and their institutional structures) have developed in part because of the actions of interest groups, businesses, a European-level technocracy, or the involvement of other domestic actors affected by the distributional effects of integration. EPC, of course, did not have a well-defined bureaucracy, defender, or constituent. European interest groups were involved only on a marginal basis, and domestic politics in the form of public opinion, lobbying, or electoral competition rarely intruded on EPC. In general, then, EPC had no major distributional effects, EC technocratic elites or domestic interest groups were not closely involved, and there was no involvement by the ECJ as EPC deliberately rested on a separate legal foundation.
However, EPC did become less intergovernmental and domestic politics in the form of bureaucratic competition and elite socialization were very important to EPC. In particular, I show how EPC developed as a peculiar European institution among national diplomats by reinforcing norms of behavior established through trial and error, and to a much lesser extent, by permitting and legitimating the involvement of EC actors and procedures. Informal EPC norms and EC-level procedures changed EPC from a forum for sharing information among governments (as it was designed) to a more institutionalized, collective, binding, and "Community-sensitive" system despite the efforts of many states to resist this process. As habits and procedures of political cooperation became institutionalized into a coherent body of European values and norms, they even caused member states -- large and small -- to change their attitudes and preferences in certain situations, despite the absence of any real compliance or enforcement mechanisms besides peer pressure. EPC members often conformed to EPC positions for the sake of European unity, and not because they were induced with side-payments or coerced into it. This did not hold true for all states across all EPC decisions, of course, but enough such behavior occurred to mount a serious challenge to balance-against-power, balance-against-threat, or collective goods theories used to explain the political cohesion of alliances.
Given the limitations of these realist-based theories to explain the development of EPC, this paper relies on an analytical framework that takes institutional mechanisms, norms, and history more seriously than most analysts of international cooperation have. EPC has often been inadequately described as "less than supranational but more than intergovernmental;" alternatively, the framework used here identifies mechanisms by which EPC conditioned member states to behave in two ways: first, to respond automatically and collectively to changing currents in world politics; and second, to increasingly frame these responses in terms of EC policies and rules.
However, in this story there are no dramatic leaps forward, no signal events or cases, and no decisive breaks with past. Change here was steady and incremental; indeed, since EC foreign policy cooperation was driven by a tension between two competing rule systems - the informal one of EPC and the EC's own treaty-based legal system - and was always subordinate to the wishes of governments, EPC innocently, slowly, and privately encouraged government subordination to more formal and binding EC rules. Over time, however, the mechanisms of Europeanization became so linked that change in one domain enabled change in another, the entire effect of which was to remove EPC from the direct control of member governments. Finally, it should be emphasized that these processes were dynamic and hi-directional; the threat of more EC involvement in EPC, particularly after the Single European Act and the Treaty on European Union, caused defensiveness among member states and temporarily eroded some of the gains achieved by institutionalization.
The argument is presented in five stages. First, I briefly describe how EPC was initially established as a mechanism to privilege member state governments in the decisionmaking process. Second, I show how EPC began to change (against the wishes of some member states) from an exclusively intergovernmental system due to the development of an innovative transgovernmental network, which linked and harmonized foreign policymaking in EPC member states. Third, I explain how this network led to the establishment of EPC norms, and how these became associated with EC rules and procedures. Fourth, I show the extent to which the EPC mechanism encouraged the involvement of EC actors to preserve the norms previously established in the transgovernmental network. Since EPC ceased to exist with the creation of the CFSP, I write of it in the past tense although most of its procedures live on in the new mechanism. Fifth, I continue this argument by examining the replacement of EPC with a more formal and Community-bound CFSP in 1993. As the CFSP's rules are still distinct from the supranational EC procedures, this type of cooperation cannot last if the EU hopes to expand its instruments into the military sphere, and more importantly, if it hopes to absorb a dozen ore more new member states in the near future. Accordingly, the EU is now engaged in yet another intense debate about changing the institutional foundations of political cooperation among its member states.
Although many realists still dismiss the role international institutions in helping states cooperate, 9 students of European integration appreciate that in some policy areas (such as the Common Agricultural Policy, technology policy, or the single market) EC "governance may resemble a policy community or network (if not a federal polity), with exclusive or shared competencies at different institutional levels. Analysts of these issue-areas contend that actors and institutional rules at various levels and during certain policy phases can influence the policy process in ways which make the EC appear to be a "supranational polity," not an international organization. 10 How might these arguments apply to EC foreign policy cooperation? In this domain the division of labor between governments and the EC seems fairly straightfoward. Legally and in actual practice, any such "supranationalization," "Communitarization," or "Europeanization" has been strongly resisted by member states especially in the area of political cooperation. States created the "EC method" for trade policy to produce legally-binding negotiating positions; the "EPC method" simply established a context in which consultation and coordination (and possibly joint action) could occur. 11 In view of the origins, original structure, and goals of EPC, it is probably an exaggeration to consider it as an institution or even as a specific EC policy area. EPC was created in 1970 as a compromise between supranational and intergovernmental structures. Especially during the economic difficulties of the times and perceptions of American inattentiveness (if not hostility) to European problems, all EC member states recognized that radically different national foreign policy positions could harm the EC, its policies, and relations between its members and between it and the outside world. 12
Since they agreed only on the need for some measure of foreign policy coordination, the institutional structure of EPC reflected the fact that governments would dominate and define any such coordination and that it would be separate from EC policies and procedures. Small EC states who wanted EPC to be part of the EC (all but Denmark perhaps) were seduced with the hopes that EPC would eventually be supranationalized; large states who opposed this (chiefly Britain and France) were confident they could prevent excessive or unwanted involvement by the Community. Furthermore, EPC would not discuss defense matters and thereby threaten NATO or neutral EC states (only Ireland at first). After very broad guidance provided by EC heads of state and government during the Hague Summit in December 1969, 13 EPC was created by EC foreign ministers parallel to the existing EC treating to achieve an indeterminate set of ends:
- To ensure, through regular exchanges of information and consultations, a better mutual understanding on the great international problems
- To strengthen their solidarity by promoting the harmonization of their views, the coordination of their positions, and where it appears possible or desirable, common actions 14
- To seek common positions on major international problems 15
By consulting and sharing information with each other during these summits, EPC states held hopes of at least determining common interests and taking common positions. In EPC, all member states were theoretically equal, with no system of voting or weighted votes as in the EC. Each state took a turn leading the system; the state holding the six-month rotating EC Presidency also set the agenda for EPC discussions, represented EPC abroad,, served as the meeting place for such discussions, and provided temporary staff support as needed. In terms of formal rules, EPC was not linked to the EC, not supported by a permanent institution or bureaucracy, and not even negotiated as a treaty. It had no permanent budget or staff for many years, no meeting place, no secretariat-general or chief official, and no specific areas of competence. It had no compliance standards, legal obligations, or enforcement mechanisms to speak of, and it formally required little more than a commitment (not an obligation) among member states to consult with each other and to coordinate their foreign policies if possible. It was little more than an exclusive "gentleman's club" run by diplomats for diplomats, subject to the goodwill of its members and closed to outside scrutiny. 17
With such a weak institutional structure and vague articulation of goals, EPC inevitably developed on a trial and error, case by case basis. The system seemed so innocuous and low-key at first that all states acquiesced to it despite serious reservations over procedure and substance. Superficially, then, everything here points to dominance by governments and the exclusion of the EC's actors and procedures. The external economic and political relations of the EC were compartmentalized. EPC had different ground rules, working methods, policy issues, legal foundations, instruments for action, timetables, venues for meetings, working languages (English and French only below ministerial level), and its own political culture. Its administrative infrastructure was centered in the foreign minstries of its member states, and did not include other ministries involved in EC affairs (agriculture, finance, etc.). Additionally, the "low politics" of EC affairs were handled by the economics or EC section in most foreign ministries; EPC was "high politics" handled by the political section. EPC's three most important founding documents between 1970 and 1981 (the Luxembourg, Copenhagen, and London Reports) did not have treaty status nor were they submitted to national parliaments for approval. In short, for states who wished to cooperate informally, EPC exhibited all the requisite characteristics: states avoided explicit, formal, visible pledges; agreements were not ratified; states could quickly change or renegotiate their commitments according to circumstances, and they could use and develop (or abolish) the system as quickly or as slowly as they desired. 18
Quite understandably, these characteristics have tempted many analysts to apply general models of intergovernmentalism 19 or more sophisticated "two-level games" theories 20 to European foreign policy cooperation. These approaches focus on the role of governments, emphasize bargaining, and pay minimal attention to both institutional structures and historical context. On the basis of day-to-day policymaking, EPC could easily have been an informal bargaining arena, where deals were working out behind the scenes between major players. Chiefs of governments (COGs) alone decided what issues could be considered as appropriate for EPC discussions and considered possible policy options. Their monopoly over agenda-setting and the general secrecy of the entire process, domestically and at the EU level, effectively insulated governments from domestic pressure for (or against) particular actions, from criticism about how EPC should be evaluated as a system of cooperation, and from ideas about how EPC should develop as an institution. Simply speaking, in the beginning EPC was what its member governments said it was. Thus a two-level games approach, where COGs make collective policy in between the "game boards" of domestic and international politics, seems especially appropriate for analyzing EPC.
I argue, however, that narrow intergovernmental or multi-level games approaches do not capture key elements of EPC policymaking. If one view EPC as an iterative policy process instead of as discrete bargaining sessions, another picture of cooperation emerges. The cumulative impact of EPC deliberations created a far more institutionalized (i.e., rule-based) and binding system than that desired or expected by member states. In addition, state preferences were often formed endogenously, within the EPC system. This argument challenges the view that EPC was a multilevel bargaining game by noting three general tendencies in EPC.
First and most generally, domestic actors rarely had an opportunity or even a desire to ratify EPC agreements. As noted, these were not treaties, the agenda was almost completed dominated by COGs or their representatives, and talks were conducted in secret. Agreements were rarely open to public scrutiny or approval, public opinion was unaware or uninterested in EPC, and there were no access points to relevant policymakers. 21 Thus, EPC as an issue-area seemed particularly predisposed to dominance by governments or diplomats; it involved elites at the highest levels with little or no involvement of domestic actors. In only a handful of cases did domestic politics in the form of public opinion or party pressure intrude on EPC deliberations (such as arms control and anti-apartheid sympathy).
Second, and more importantly, COGS did not often use EPC as a forum for bargaining. Indeed, here bargaining appears to be the exception, not the rule. The system was not intended to be used as a forum for making side-payments, threatening sanctions against each other, or linking issues into broad package deals (deals which regularly occur in other EC policy sectors or during IGCs) to solve incomplete contracting problems. Member states simply were not that ambitious at first. According to most accounts of the EPC process, it was inappropriate to use overt bargaining tactics to make policy in EPC; its officials honestly attempted to avoid power politics and confrontation during EPC discussions. In general, EPC became directed more towards a "problem solving," not bargaining, style of decisionmaking. Even during difficult discussions over the imposition of sanctions for political ends, officials usually avoided trading favors. 22 The cornerstones of EPC were trust, confidence-building, common definitions of problems, and emphasis on the equality of its participants. Because the system was so informal and non-confrontational (at first), it was used to sound out each other's views on foreign policy and to search for compromise and consensus, not to make complex policy deals. Problems tended to be treated on their own merits, to judge whether each deserved a unique "European" response.
Third and finally, governments did not monopolize the EPC system to the extent assumed by intergovernmental or two-level games approaches. Its administrative infrastructure developed in such a way that it limited the ability of COGs to dominate normal policymaking. To an extent surprising even to those who designed it, EPC outcomes became far less based on ad hoc political discussions than on the socialization of lower-level officials in national capitals and the involvement of EC actors in Brussels. By directly involving and empowering domestic bureaucrats in the process, EPC helped to create European loyalties among foreign policymakers in its member states. 23 This sensitivity to European issues among lower-level policymakers filtered up to governments in terms of the issues and options that were considered. With EPC's low-key network of consultation, state preferences were changed in some cases and practically created out of thin air in others. States which previously had no interest in third countries or problems took on EPC positions or even helped bring them about simply due to their participation in the mechanism.
In general, then, EPC was conceived as a "different" form of intergovernmentalism. It was intended to be a forum for an exchange of views, not for crude bargaining. If states discovered a common interest during discussions they could act in common, but there was neither an obligation to do so, nor provisions for trading favors to forge a common action. Also, unlike the EC, EPC did not possess its "own resources" to implement such an action; this was to be handled (at first) by individual states. EPC was also distinctive in the way it was institutionalized and became linked to EC affairs. A more sophisticated view of policymaking than by intergovernmentalism suggests that the system demonstrated a paradox of institutional strength: although EPC was an informal, decentralized, non-coercive institution, and did not enjoy strong public support or interest, it resulted in an expansion of foreign policy cooperation and changed state interests and preferences. As Wolfgang Wessels once argued, intergovernmentalism quickly became a limited tool for analyzing EPC because of the system's multi-diplomatic structure, socialization process, reliability, continuity, and its de facto binding character. 24 Like the EC in general, then, EPC developed in ways unanticipated -- or even desired -- by many of its member states. How did this occur?
In spite of its modest beginnings and fragile structure, EPC resulted in decisive changes in the way the EC conducted its external political relations. Its first direct tools were merely declarations, demarches, and collective approaches to international organizations and conferences. For example, after years of acting unilaterally in the UN General Assembly, voting among EC states increased from 30-40% unanimity in the 1970s up to 60% near the end of the 1980s. 25 Performance in CSCE meetings was even better. 26 From this timid start, EPC tools expanded to include codes of conduct, written conventions, economic measures, peace and democratization plans, fact-finding missions, and other measures. EPC also expanded the EC's political relations geographically. In terms of tasks, EPC became useful during crisis situations, in drawn-out negotiations to resolve conflicts or foster development, and in the increasing tendency of the EC to bunch external negotiations into "package deals" which included a political dialogue. And as Roy Ginsberg has observed, after EPC the EC also began to take what he calls "self-styled actions." These self-styled actions reflected
(T)he EC's own internal deliberations, both within the EC bodies themselves and between the member states and EC bodies. Self-styled actions reflect the EC's own sense of mission and interest in the world. They are not solely dependent on the need to respond to external stimuli but instead are products of (A) habits of working together; (B) EC and member state initiatives; and (C) a sense of what Europeans want in foreign policy questions. 27Equally importantly, EPC changed the ways member states determined and pursued their interests. Foreign policies of EC states became more transparent and somewhat more predictable, while compliance with positions became more common despite the absence of sanctioning mechanisms. An increasingly binding set of behavioral standards emerged from a small set of informal guidelines, and states generally considered opinions of their partners before forming their own positions on many international problems. EPC did not always produce "lowest common denominator" positions either; instead, they tended to converge around a dominant or "median" point of view once taken up in the sytem. 28 Only a few years after the creation of EPC, Henri Simonet, acting president of the Council, could state before the European Parliament that "The practice of political cooperation has become more enduring and more scrupulous than the actual texts intend." 29 As another participant observed, EPC acted "as a delicate system of incentives and sanctions imposing a European discipline on its member states." 30
Several general forces may have encouraged these changes, helping to link EPC and the EC: increasing global and regional interdependence, the erosion of the artificial distinction between high and low politics in the view of foreign policymakers, external demands placed on the EC by third parties, etc. 31 Many of these issues were inevitably tied up with those on the EPC agenda, but it cannot be argued that EPC was a mono-causal process of functional spillover. The process was (and still is) far more haphazard and dynamic, and less inevitable or predetermined, than suggested by functionalist logic (although, ironically, EPC arguably demonstrated a far greater and faster expansion of tasks and issues than other EC socio-economic policy areas). Also, political tensions in the Atlantic alliance undoubtedly encouraged EC members to use EPC as an alternative forum for their discussions of the links between the political and economic aspects of security, since economics were not discussed in NATO and security was not discussed in the EC. 32 However, beyond these general tendencies it is possible to identify several specific processes which help account for the way EPC fluctuated between an intergovernmental system (like NATO) and a supranational one (like the EC). This section and the two that follow show the extent to which the empirical evidence of the influence of EPC can be understood as the cumulative product of a dynamic and multi-faceted process of Europeanization. Toward this end I explore three intervening processes -- a middle-range theoretical framework -- that evolved between the policies of individual national governments and the risks and opportunities provided by the international system to account for the way ad hoc EPC foreign policy coordination resulted in an enduring, rule-based, EC-sensitive body of behavior and policies. The Europeanization of EPC can be generally understood as a process of institutionalization which increasingly involved first, the generation of shared European norms and the harmonization of behavior according to those norms at the domestic level; and second, the (non-exclusive) involvement of actors and procedures at the EC level. This process can be broken down into three linked elements, in order of decreasing importance: transgovernmental relations, the development and codification of EPC norms, and the involvement of EC actors.
In this section I consider transgovernmental relations. Analysts of EC policymaking (and of international cooperation in general) have long argued that transnational links between interest groups, businesses, or other actors can play an important role in determining cooperative outcomes. These links are likely to emerge in dense, complex issue-areas, especially those which involve international institutions. 33 Transnational groups can mobilize in support of, or opposition to, an agreement between states (or its implementation), which affects the final product.
In EPC the picture was slightly different in three respects. First, links between governments were far more important and strongly developed than those between non-state actors such as interest groups. Second, these links did not "emerge;" they were deliberately created by states (though on the basis of a non-treaty instrument) as an alternative to EC control, but quickly expanded beyond the original plan. Third and most interesting, these links were originally forged to serve no specific purposes or policy ends. EPC basically created a novel communication system between officials without a very clear goal to be served by that system. Officials were first directed to share information as they saw fit; policy outcomes were a peripheral consideration. Yet outcomes were produced, preferences were changed, and EPC became more binding than states originally suspected. These results were a product of the norms gradually generated by transgovernmental links.
Indeed, transgovernmentalism was the key feature of EPC from the beginning. As noted, the European Council summits were supposed to dominate the EPC process and provide the main link between the EC and EPC. The Council Presidency became an important part of EPC in this regard. The extreme positions of some member states were definitely moderated when they held the Presidency, and large states became more confident in the ability of small states to run the EC/EPC. Yet on a practical, day-to-day basis, governments could not ignore the fact that delegation and communication below the European Council/Presidency were required, especially in the absence of an EPC bureaucracy. In most cases the European Council (which still meets only twice a year) was not even involved in policy details; it was almost always preoccupied with EC, not EPC, affairs.
In fact, foreign ministers actually dominated EPC discussions, meeting at least four times a year (eventually much more frequently, before they were required to do so). EPC thus began to involve foreign ministries more, to their delight, and it "brought them back" to EC affairs at a level equal to other domestic ministries who often acted as foreign ministries in EC discussions (agriculture, finance, etc.). 34 Smaller states in particular saw a revolution -- terms of reorganization and expansion -- in their foreign ministries to cope with the EPC workload. With their limited representation outside the EC, they especially benefitted from information shared by larger states. EPC became their "umbilical cord" to events outside Europe, in the words of one observer. 35
With EPC, officials enjoyed somewhat more freedom of movement since norms and sanctions were not yet as well-developed in EPC as in the EC. To a large extent, then, the norms that did develop later (see below) were created by the very officials who had to abide by them. This progress was encouraged by the fact that governments permitted coordination below the highest levels to harmonize their views in the hopes of producing common positions. Mthough it still had the atmosphere of an informal club, some logistical support for EPC was necessary and states (especially small ones) were aware of the need to preserve traditional EC procedures. Without a permanent staff to manage EPC and keep it separate from the EC, the creation of a transgovernmental infrastructure was an acceptable, low-cost alternative, but this became the first step towards Europeanizing foreign policy cooperation. While the norms of EPC eventually emerged through a sometimes painful process of trial and error, few states could object to seemingly innocuous lower-level links between professional bureaucrats and diplomats. Several characteristics of the system became especially important in the day-to-day workings of EPC.
For example, below the level of foreign ministers, coordination was achieved through regular contacts between foreign ministries, primarily through the designation of a Political Committee (PoCo) composed of Political Directors (senior officials from each foreign ministry). PoCo began to meet at least four times a year (it eventually met once a month or more) and agreements reached in its unusually casual group atmosphere could then be defended to individual national governments. The PoCo was also permitted to set up working groups to consider particular problems. These were composed of experts from foreign or other appropriate ministries (and eventually also from the Commission); they were organized along both functional (UN, CSCE, non-proliferation) and geographical (Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe) lines according to the needs of EPC. Hundreds of meetings of such groups took place each year. Below the PoCo, a system of European Correspondents was also set up to manage EPC on a daily basis in the absence of a secretariat. Liaison between EC capitals was the primary task of this group. Cohesion in this group became especially close over the years, and many personal friendships were forged within it. With their common bureaucratic roles, esprit de corps, and devotion to a new policy system that privileged their input, European Correspondents and their counterparts in other states (and in the Commission) made common analyses of problems rather than bargained on behalf of their governments. 36
To further help with information-sharing in EPC, the highly innovative and effective correspondance Europeene (or COREU) telex network was established in 1973. The number of COREUs exchanged quickly mushroomed to hundreds per week, and the system enabled points of view to be shared between all member states (and eventually the Commission) within a matter of hours. In addition to this quantitative change, officials familiar with the system also acknowledge a qualitative change in the subject matter of COREUs over the years, with more security and military matters being discussed via telex (such as arms control issues) than in the beginning. The thousands of COREUs sent each year served "as a perpetual reminder of EPC to all those over whose desks COREUs pass(ed)." 37 Between the personal links and the COREU system member states were gradually able to establish a body of procedures of policies that gave substance to EPC. Political cooperation (like EC membership in general) also encouraged states to reduce their own internal conflicts before considering common European options. States cannot pursue an unlimited agenda at the EC level; priorities must be set at home and with partners to make the most of their influence in Brussels. Especially in small states, EPC fostered a convergence of many foreign policy positions among officials and political parties. 38
Other, less-formalized transgovernmental relationships influenced the system as well, helping to break down the desired distinction between EPC and EC affairs. Missions of EC member states to third countries expanded considerably during the first decade of EPC. Diplomats in these missions (and their local interlocutors) rarely if ever observed the formal distinction between EPC and the EC, and they could hardly be made to do so by their foreign ministries. EC officials thus informally coordinated their EC/EPC efforts in third countries, and they were eventually directed to do so by the London Report and the Single European Act (SEA). Indeed, monthly meetings of EC ambassadors and the heads of the respective EC delegations had become quite common long before the SEA. EC ambassadors prepared joint reports (which was not expressly called for or even desired by EC states), shared information, and made policy recommendations to higher officials at home. They also conducted common demarches in third countries (most often on human rights issues), held common debates with high representatives of third countries, and cooperated during crisis situations without much guidance from EC capitals. Frequently missions of large EC states acted on behalf of small EC members who had limited representation in the developing world. Especially when small or remote states were the object of action, links between missions became a vital "back door channel" to achieving political cooperation. This was occasionally resented by foreign ministers and by the PoCo; the French even attempted to put a halt to such activity during the 198Os. 39
In sum, these transgovernmental contacts helped reduce COGs' monopoly of the EPC process on a day-to-day basis. They acted in much the same way as transnational links between interest groups and EC actors do in other EC policy areas. Direct communication between governments was institutionalized at all levels, even in departments and embassies, while the EPC working groups especially played a greater role than originally anticipated. They often suggested collectively-derived options to higher officials. A distinct "mobilization effect" or "coordination reflex" could be observed in foreign ministries and missions: when a problem came up, officials automatically activated the COREU network to exchange opinions, consider options, and build consensus before individual national positions were established. Government actors at all levels both gradually adapted to each other and oriented themselves toward "Europe" when considering problems. As one participant put it, a "European dimension" was built into a process which previously had been exclusively based on national considerations. 40 In EPC, coalitions were also unusually fluid, changing as the problem demanded and cutting across issues and regions, rather than hardening into blocs of states with dominant shared interests or forming permanent cleavages. As Hill observed, alignments in EPC were usually issue-centered, informal, and shifting. 41
Since EPC encouraged the search for joint gains and a common perception of problems, a distinct communauté de vue on foreign policy issues emerged. In other words, transgovernmental relations were structured here to produce consensus, not for the more confrontational purpose of exploiting divisions in other member states' domestic politics, as some analysts of two-level games have suggested. 42 Personalities mattered of course, as did the commitment to develop a new system for common objectives, but thanks to the tendency towards information-sharing and consultation, officials also felt more committed to the EPC communaute de vue since they had been closely involved in its articulation. As I discuss in the next two sections, the set of common viewpoints which emerged and expanded through transgovernmental discussions eventually became more explicitly codified, and were loyally defended, as substantive EPC norms, and the involvement of EC actors was gradually permitted (if not encouraged) to protect those norms.
As noted, a distinctive feature of EPC during its first sixteen years of operation was that it operated outside any legal or treaty arrangements. Due to the sensitivity of the issue-area and EPC 's informal nature, rules and substantive policies took time to develop and arduous debates took place whenever any actor attempted to formalize them. Indeed, the system would not have been created at all if states had attempted to impose legal rules on themselves. As Simon Nuttall, a former EPC participant (and now an extensive writer on the subject), once observed, "The first decade and a half of Political Cooperation (was) marked by extreme conservatism in the drafting of theoretical papers and bold innovation on the ground." 43 Additionally, for some states (such as Denmark and Ireland) debates over procedure were far more difficult than those over substance because of the thorny domestic constitutional issues they raised; thus they were avoided as much as possible. As another observer of EPC once remarked, "Pragmatism is one of the main features governing political cooperation. The fixing of rules and procedures in official texts before they have proven their usefulness is alien to EPC procedure." 44 However, it is equally true and important that EPC procedures, once established, were respected as much or even more than the actual substance of policy. States generally supported the "correct" use of informal procedures on good faith, even if they did not agree with specific policies. Although norms were not formally codified for many years, and they were usually "enforced" through intra-group politics of reputation and persuasion rather than by reference to legal obligations or sanctions, nonetheless a peculiar set of "unwritten laws" emerged during EPC discussions according to ministers, diplomats, bureaucrats, and scholars familiar with the system. These influenced state behavior in profound ways and found increasing legitimacy as norms, the violation of which brought down heavy condemnation from other EC members. 45 Even if states violated EPC's norms, which of course did occasionally happen, they felt increasingly obliged to defend their defections to their EPC partners, suggesting the presence of a norm.
This section focuses on the most important and explicit EPC norms, both procedural (those concerning the way policy is made) and substantive (those outlining specific EPC policies or actions), which showed increasing and enduring EC-wide legitimacy. Since there is not the space here to engage in an extended discussion of the differences between principles, unwritten laws, norms, rules, conventions, decrees, and the like, I rely on a simple distinction between norms and rules and follow Kratochwil's treatment of them as problem-solving or choice-simplification mechanisms. 46 Norms are defined here as explicit, shared standards for behavior; rules are a particular subset of norms where rights and obligations are more clearly specified in written form (not necessarily in a treaty).
Procedural norms
EPC did not even exist at first according to international law, but officials conducted their relations in EPC -- which itself was established as an explicit "gentlemen's agreement" -- according to improvised habits which became an increasingly binding set of norms. Governments generally recognized the power of precedent in EPC, even if actors such as the ECJ were excluded from the process. Behavioral norms were vague at first and acted as de facto "opt-out clauses" since interpretations over their application could vary. As Holland put it, EPC provided the best of both worlds: "collective foreign policy harmony together with virtual domestic autonomy."
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However, states became less inclined to opt-out as norms were codified. Most important at first were the general norms of confidentiality, consensus, and consultation. EPC discussions were private; states could not use information shared during them to embarrass or blame other states. The engineering of trust was a foundation of the system; secrecy encouraged confidence among states since they typically did not have to fear public politicization of issues brought up for discussion, embarrassment at failure, or that information shared would be used against them. EPC discussions were also conducted with unanimity; any state could block a discussion of a sensitive matter without justification. This norm became increasingly challenged over the years with enlargement and the growing number of difficult issues on the EPC agenda, but in the early years it made discussions less threatening since states felt they could terminate them at will. Finally, states adopted a general rule to consult with each other before adopting final positions of their own so that policies of their partners would not catch them by surprise. These three basic norms, practiced and reinforced in the EPC transgovernmental network, fostered the development of a communauté de vue on what constituted "European interests."
In terms of explicit working procedures, EPC members discovered that consistency of the policy process would be difficult in a system with no central bureaucracy and with rotating directors (the Presidencies) every six months. In 1976 Denmark suggested the idea of the coutumier, a compilation of all formal and informal working procedures which became the "bible of EPC" for European Correspondents in foreign ministries. This was done primarily to smooth transitions between Presidencies in the absence of a permanent secretariat. 48 A number of EPC procedures found their way into the coutumier, which became a kind of "EPC common law." Coordination of positions became a rule in organizations and conferences, the most visible expression of EPC at first. Additionally, EC states who were also members of the UN Security Council were required to take account of EPC positions in that forum and inform their EC partners about its deliberations. EPC was intended to produce medium and long-term positions, but after Afghanistan and Iran EPC crisis procedures (consultations d 'urgence) were introduced; these were first successfully invoked during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Finally, the role of the Presidency became more central as EPC's main contact with outsiders, which reduced the importance of bilateral "special relationships" in some cases. 49 These changes also made it necessary to clarify the role of EC actors in EPC, as I discuss below.
The expansion of the coutumier over the years, and the eventual expression of many of its procedures in treaty form, showed how norms could develop in a legitimate and authoritative manner merely through routine and self-policing, even without the involvement of a bureaucracy or court. Although, as Wessels observed, "Legalistic discussions which aim(ed) to avoid or produce precedents rarely occur(red) in EPC," 50 norms in fact did become more binding. States felt an obligation to group-derived norms which they constructed themselves. The specification of such rules also helped placate the small states in particular, who were always sensitive to the idea of an intergovernmental EPC being run by a directoire of large states. Instead of "balancing" against the large states, small states (with the notable exception of Denmark) tried to turn EPC into the more rule-based regime it became (they also pushed for more involvement by the Commission for the same reason; see below). As in the EC, small states in EPC attempted to overcome their dependency by constructing a system based on law, not power. A more stable partnership between large and small states was forged in EPC by the principle of equality under the law.
Thanks to the coutumier procedures, long before the SEA many began to suggest that the informal, extra-legal arrangements worked out between governments in EPC were sufficiently constraining to be considered legally binding. As Belgian foreign minister Henri Simonet told the EP in 1977, in EPC "a kind of law of custom has emerged. .. which naturally does not envisage any sanctions but which has nevertheless taken on the character of a recognized rule which can be occasionally broken but whose existence one still recognizes." 51 Nuttall writes that EPC mainly operated by "talking incessantly;" officials simply pestered each other in hundreds of meetings until a common view emerged which was understood to be morally if not legally binding upon all. The system thus did not operate under the "perpetual threat of veto." 52 It was also argued that even without formal codification, the reports and practices of EPC "could well have come to form a beginning of customary European law as far as applied in practice, as implementation pursued consistently would have provided validity by precedent." 53
However, as Renaud Dehousse and Joseph Weiler once observed, while international commitments such as EPC can arise without a formal treaty, their binding quality always rests on the consent of member states. Similarly, the "guidelines" of the European Council on EC/EPC were also of dubious legality, since it too was not an EC body. Instead, these arrangements seemed to a part of what international law scholars began to call "soft law," or the body of international conventions, codes of conduct, and declaratory texts which aim at changing state behavior but which do not necessarily establish legal rights and obligations. Dehousse and Weiler argue that a "sociological" view of such soft laws makes them legal, and participants in EPC would seem to agree. 54 Also, the fact that sovereignty in EPC was pooled or ceded to a center created the impression that it had legal personality, although EPC was of course neither a state nor an international organization. 55
With these problems of interpretation it was not until 1987 that Title III of the SEA "legalized" EC foreign policy cooperation as a treaty for the first time, but the debate over the extent to which the SEA set down legal obligations was never clearly resolved. After much heated discussion over terminology (reflecting the sensitivity of states to both the power of language and the binding nature of Title III), member states were still referred to as "High Contracting Parties" (not EC members) in the SEA, emphasizing the de jure intergovernmental character of EPC. According to Title I of the SEA, the EC was still based on the EC Treaties; EPC was still based on its various reports and the "practices gradually established among the member states" (the coutumier). The reference to EPC in the SEA also was to "cooperation in the sphere of foreign policy" in the hopes of forming "a European foreign policy" rather than to a common foreign policy. There was also no stated obligation to achieve common positions. 56 Thus EPC was not formally "Communitarized" with the SEA, and like the Treaty on European Union (see below), it merely codified existing practices in an attempt to clarify and preserve what had been achieved. But it did create stronger legal obligations than had ever existed under EPC. According to Dehousse and Weiler, the SEA provision that parties shall "endeavour" to formulate a European foreign policy created an obligation to act in good faith, a recognized concept in international law. The real problem was the lack of effective adjudication or enforcement mechanisms in EPC, not the lack of specific legal obligations (again these problems exist in many other international agreements). 57 Peer pressure was becoming less effective towards the late 1 980s with an expanding EC, more contentious items on the EPC agenda, and an increasing desire to use EC tools to give more force to EPC actions. Those who did not support an act could, out of respect for the majority, decide not to oppose them, already a standard EPC practice. 58 This enabled states to avoid the terribly difficult issue of majority voting in EPC, and since the Luxembourg compromise has effectively disappeared, this seemed to put EPC and the EC on nearly the same footing where voting and consensus were concerned.
Besides this general elevation of EPC to a legal status closer to that of the EC, a more specific procedural link between the two rule systems developed when EC governments decided, sometimes with great difficulty, to use EC instruments for EPC ends. At first EPC sanctions were imposed on only a national basis (with variable compliance) with only a symbolic invocation of EC procedures. However, the rigid distinction between the European council/EPC and the Council of Ministers/EC began to disappear as foreign ministers considered how EC resources or procedures could give more weight to EPC actions. 59 More specifically, when EPC decisions affected an EC competency the invoking of certain articles automatically made EPC a more rule-based and Europeanized regime than usual practice warranted. As Martin Lak observes, the interaction rules of the SEA constituted the most "legal" of its EPC provisions given the language used, in part because these rules made Commission involvement in EPC mandatory (see below). 60
Several articles of the Rome Treaty have been invoked (more than one article in some cases) in the context of EPC discussions: Articles 113, 223, 224, 228, 229, and 238 in particular. Articles 113 and 228 were often cited when EC and EPC actions were taken parallel to each other and decided with their separate procedures. Article 113 (the common commercial policy) was later invoked to provide a makeshift legal basis for an EPC decision to use EC tools, although there were doubts as to whether Article 113 could be legally used for political ends. After much heated debate over procedure in the 1980s (provoked by the Iran and Afghanistan crises), Article 113 EC legislation which referred to "discussions in the context of EPC" became standard practice for sanctions; this opened the door to other "interactive" EC/EPC external political actions and the production of "dualist" EC/EPC case law. This was done as much for efficiency's sake as it was to respect EC competencies, as states realized it was difficult to ensure compliance with EPC economic measures without EC regulations and the monitoring of member state behavior by the Commission. A 1989 EC regulation on controlling weapons-grade chemicals finally provided an acceptable legal formula for EPC/EC procedures to be combined in a single text. 61
In sum, states gradually found ways to bridge the "legal gap" between the EC and EPC, another procedural norm which developed from pragmatic habits or customs shared by officials who were responsible for the EPC system. These norms were produced in the transgovernmental network and internalized at the same time. Many were developed after crises: EPC procedures changed notably after states were caught off-guard by international problems in the late 1970s and late 1980s. Once customs and draft texts proved their usefulness, they were more likely to be codified in the coutumier at first and in the SEA later. These procedural norms also brought EPC closer to the EC in two ways: they reflected a growing sensitivity to the greater legitimacy and efficacy of treaty-bound EC rules, and they justified more involvement of EC actors to protect both EC and EPC rules and to encourage compliance. This is even more extraordinary when one considers that, as Weiler noted, all instruments of national policy (including sanctions) could have been used in EPC given enough political will. 62 Instead, states increasingly chose to respect and utilize EC rules, resources, and actors when acting in EPC to make the system more efficient and forceful, and the two systems became more closely linked than in the beginning.
Substantive norms
This section focuses on EPC policies or actions designed to serve certain collective goals or interests of EPC/EC member states. Since there was no formally institutionalized representation of European political interests apart from those of member states, it may be tempting to consider EPC' 5 substantive policies or norms as the sum of its members' interests. Any EPC policy would reflect a "lowest common denominator" consensual position, which had often been forged by the state holding the rotating EC Presidency. This was not necessarily the case. First, EPC was embedded in the same broader normative structure which gave birth to the EC itself and which influenced liberal democratic states in and out of the EC. This structure generally emphasized free and open government, respect for the rule of law, protection of human rights, economic liberalism, the indivisibility of security in Western Europe, multilateral cooperation in the UN and CSCE, the peaceful resolution of disputes, etc. The EC has occasionally attempted a formal definition of "European interests,"
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but such efforts often were premature, vague, and difficult to conclude when divorced from positions already forged within EPC.
Second, instead of formal institutionalization as a treaty, or being produced in an ad hoc way depending on the leadership of individual Presidencies, most substantive EPC norms were codified as customs, which later influenced member state positions. To be sure, respect for EPC procedures was greater than that for substantive EPC policies, but in neither case could the norms associated with these processes be understood as "lowest common denominator" outcomes. In the case of substantive EPC norms, these were usually described as a component of "political union," a vague notion; in practical terms, discussions in the framework of EPC enabled states to bridge many previously divisive cleavages over a number of issues. These include the East-West and North-South conflicts, the question of ending colonialism, the debate between justice and human rights versus economics and strategy, differences between nuclear and non-nuclear states, large versus small states, neutrals versus alliance members, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and many specific cleavages over tactics. The collective positions that emerged from these debates were increasingly codified in EPC reports and treaties as substantive norms.
More specific norms of EPC were still generally based on the informal communauté de vue or acquis politique produced during discussions on important foreign policy questions in the EPC network. These comprised a package of "unified basic foreign policy standpoints" on issues considered in EPC. At the initiative of the British Presidency in 1977, it was decided to compile the substantive EPC texts of each Presidency into a collection, the recueil. 64 Although the recueil expanded in unforeseen ways over the years, EPC was first and foremost a defensive measures to protect the EC. As such, it could be considered a "regime of common aversion;" 65 member states generally agreed on the need to shield the still-evolving EC from unilateral foreign policy actions of its own members. This "damage-limitation" function has been continually recognized since the Luxembourg Report (it also justified the role of the Commission to give its views on how EPC might affect the EC). The important of this norm was quickly revealed in practice during the chaotic response of the EC to the first oil shocks in the 1970s. The lack of cooperation here directly led to one of the longest-running EPC initiatives: the Euro-Arab dialogue. By the time of the SEA, this damage-limitation norm had expanded into a norm that the twin pillars of the EC and EPC must also be consistent. Action in one domain had to support action in the other, and both had to be interactive. The Presidency and the Commission were directed to make sure EC/EPC consistency was sought and maintained (Articles 30.3 - 30.5, SEA).
Beyond protecting the EC from reckless independent foreign policies, a number of other norms emerged from EP deliberations. The expansion and codification of substantive norms was difficult, but it occurred. It is impossible to cite all of them here; instead they might be classified as sets of collective values or policy orientations surrounding a geographic and/or functional domain. Based on the most ambitious and highest-profile EPC initiatives of its early years, it was clear that issues were chosen based on their proximity and importance to the EC, not on their chances for resolution. At first, the emphasis was typically on long-term goals with third countries or regions closest to the EC (hence the CSCE, the Euro-Arab dialogue, a working group on Mediterranean issues). These plans generally emphasized progressive conflict resolution as opposed to crisis management. In part to distinguish itself from the US, EPC declarations on these issues showed what behavior or principles would result in a favorable response from the EC.
Beyond these broad areas, EPC was initially confounded by the specific domaines réservés of its members. At first, an unwritten rule made taboo the consideration of issues which were known to be sensitive to certain member states (France and Africa; Greece and Turkey; Britain and Ireland; East and West Germany; etc). Thanks to this understanding, substantive norms in EPC were more easily defined in terms of what subjects were off-limits rather than what issues could be discussed. The most important functional expansion of EPC involved the inclusion of security affairs on its agenda. Although Article 224 of the Rome Treaty obliged member states to consult each other when considering unilateral action on security issues which may impact the functioning of the EC, at first security or defense matters were rarely the object of serious discussion in EPC. Defense in particular was usually left to NATO, but EPC enabled its members to carve their own role in such matters while recognizing their status as junior partners of NATO, even in the face of domestic difficulties over this role for EPC. After these positive developments, and after the Iranian/Afghanistan crises, the 1981 London Report finally recognized the necessity of discussing in EPC "foreign policy questions bearing on the political aspects of security." 66
Later, when the EC's tools of economic sanctions began to be used in EPC, substantive norms were formalized and used as precedents for later acts. After more heated debate against the backdrop of renewed US-USSR tension during the early 1980s, the SEA finally included a reference to cooperation on the "political and economic aspects of security" within the framework of EPC, a major advancement of the agenda. 67 This opened the door to more consideration of security-related questions, non-proliferation measures, and arms control issues in EPC despite their controversy for some member states. 68 But military crises were still hard to handle in EPC as member states diverged over the means and ends of defense policy (and defense ministers of course were not permitted to meet in Council or EPC). This disagreement directly led to the "reactivation" of the Western European Union (of which Denmark, Ireland, and Greece were not members) in 1984 as a quasi-defense arm of the EC, and it increasingly challenged the ability of EPC to handle the rapid changes in the USSR in the late 1980s. Except perhaps for military instruments, then, EPC thus quietly and persistently led to a major expansion of the EC's foreign affairs agenda, in both geographic and functional terms, and a simultaneous contraction of the domaines réservés, often to the irritation of member states. The veto was used less frequently; even when it was attempted, the system rarely "gave up" on important matters. Officials wore each other down with arguments until previously taboo subjects were considered in EPC.
To summarize, "codification" of norms (procedural and substantive) in the SEA essentially meant putting soft law into hard law, making fragmented practices a coherent whole and elevating them to real legal status. Governments were supposed to take obligations more seriously; violations had higher costs (if only reputational at first); aggrieved parties had legitimate avenues for redress (but in international courts, nor the ECJ; see below); and the treaty was ratified by, and had the formal support of, national parliaments and/or citizens. The legality of the SEA was also important for its impact on the socialization process, consolidating the acquis politique previously created through trial and error. The acquis politique was not as clearly articulated or as binding as the acquis communautaire, of course, but it was important nonetheless. Later, the SEA enhanced the stability and acceptability of the EPC process by combining the institutional instruments of both EPC/EC. As Dehousse and Weiler observed, the total separation of the two (legal) systems (of EPC and the EC) had become untenable; because of the progress they achieved in the European Community, member states effectively abdicated part of their automony as EPC partners. 69
Equally importantly, the SEA officially excluded any differentiated participation in EC/EPC, which would have an effect on future enlargements. New members had to accept the acquis politique to join the EC, a condition first imposed during Greece's accession to the EC (and later made part of the SEA). Documents on EPC procedures and the "European identity" were given to Greece, and they were asked to take part in EPC with all its associated rights and obligations. But a notable difference was made; acceptance of EPC procedural texts (the coutumier) was required, but not of the substantive ones (the recueil). 70 This reflected the difference between procedure and substance, and between the EPC acquis and the EC acquis discussed above. But EPC deliberations and the power of precedent continually raised the status quo of procedures and policies so that states felt the costs of exit or defection were often higher than the costs of compliance, even if there were no specific sanctions involved in the cost-benefit calculation.
While theorists might argue about the impact of EC actors on state sovereignty in certain policy areas, member governments are certainly convinced about the power of Brussels. In the early years of EPC, states took great care to emphasize the distinction between EPC and Community affairs to prevent the "contamination" of one by the other. At first, EC foreign ministers were not even permitted to discuss EC and EPC business during the same meeting; they went to absurd lengths (such as travelling to two cities on the same day or moving from one meeting room in the Council building to another) to stress that the decisionmaking procedures of these two regimes did not affect each other. Not surprisingly, then, EC actors were included as little as possible, more so than in other policy areas. Governments also resisted the establishment of any permanent bureaucracy for EPC. Yet they began to realize that EPC would become more consistent, if not efficient, in many ways if they could draw upon the resources of the EC. The two most important developments in this area were the increasing involvement of the Commission, and to a lesser extent, the creation of a permanent EPC secretariat. Again, it should be emphasized that, for most of its history, the involvement of EC actors and the secretariat were far less important than the mechanisms of transgovernmentalism and norm codification. But the limited involvement described in this section set the stage for institutional changes at Maastricht.
The European Commission
Between the Luxembourg Compromise and the creation of EPC and the European Council, the Commission was in the midst of losing authority vis-a-vis EC members. It was also feared as an actor within EPC by many states; it had no diplomatic status or experience, and it would open the door to the Communitarization of EPC. Likewise, the Commission was highly suspicious of the way both EPC and the European Council could reduce its own authority in EC affairs and contaminate the EC with intergovernmentalism. Thus, where the Commission acted as an engine for the EC's development and the custodian of its treaties, and assumed a strong role in the EC's trade policy, it played a fairly limited role in EPC. The privileged role of foreign ministries in EPC tended to strengthen them against the Commission in this domain. As an issue-area, EPC also was not very conducive to the kind of power the Commission has been especially adept at mobilizing: generating support for European policies among businesses and other interest groups.
Yet Commission involvement in the early years of EPC was vital at least for one reason: making sure EPC decisions did not adversely affect the Community. Again, most small states appreciated the Commission's role as an independent functional link between EPC and the EC. At first it could be invited to EPC discussions as an observer or source of expertise on the EC, but nothing more. It performed such a role during the first EPC initiatives: advising CSCE and Euro-Arab dialogue working groups on economic cooperation (against the wishes of France). Also, the fact that trade policy for Eastern Europe had been taken over by the EC at the beginning of 1973 provided the Commission with a convenient procedural excuse to be consulted on CSCE issues, and it attempted to make the most of this opening. But Commission officials were admitted to EPC meetings only when specific points relevant to the EC were on the table, then they were quickly ushered out. Also, the Commission was not even linked to the COREU network until 1981, although it was occasionally supplied with COREU's by "EC friendly" diplomats. According to EPC insiders, the Benelux states were especially generous in providing the Commission with EPC information that other states had wanted to keep from it. 71
From the Commission's highly circumscribed role in EPC at first, it became more valued and involved in the policy process. Its status changed from that of an invited guest to that of an active participant. Its role as a link between the EC and EPC was mentioned in all EPC reports since the creation of the system. Involvement here took several forms. First, the Commission was especially useful as a source of information and expertise, especially when states were considering the use of EC tools for EPC purposes. It became an alternative resource when departments in foreign ministries neglected to share information with each other, or when foreign ministries did not share information with other ministries involved in EC affairs (due, for example, to bureaucratic rivalries or time constraints). 72 It was especially helpful in filling the information gap between states' foreign ministries and their economics ministries, and the information gap in Brussels between the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) and EPC officials when EC tools were being considered since the Commission's representative was often the only person to participate in both meetings. After the SEA, possibly the most important change in this regard was that the Commission together with the Presidency was legally directed to ensure the all-important "consistency" between EPC and Community external policies (Art. 30.3). It played this role most forcefully perhaps in directing the EC's external policy towards the Mediterranean. And of course the Commission was charged with monitoring state behavior when EC/EPC mixed agreements (such as the control of dual-use goods for political ends) were established.
Second, the Commission became an informal policy entrepreneur of its own (albeit a subtle one) even though it did not enjoy the same exclusive "right of initiative" it held in the EC and could not initiate EPC actions. It granted emergency economic aid in part for political reasons (Cyprus and Portugal were notable early efforts) and suspended economic negotiations on others (Spain). It also controlled the disbursement of development aid thanks to the Lome convention and other agreements, and occasionally made such aid subject to political criteria on an ad hoc basis. These efforts not always controlled or even approved within the EPC framework, and some (such as the Ortoli declaration on Spain) were more the result of individual Commissioner action than that of the body as a whole. In part to prevent the Commission from becoming a "loose cannon" in EC foreign policy, 73 the London Report finally called for Commission involvement in all EPC working groups (which had been taking place already to some extent). The SEA slightly expanded this by permitting a formal association with the Commission in all EPC discussions (Article 30.3).
Third, the Commission began to represent the EC abroad on EPC matters. Unanimity was usually necessary for the Presidency/troika to contact a third country; this could be difficult to achieve. A compromise in 1983 first allowed the Commission to accompany the troika in contacts with third countries at the Ministerial and Directorial levels, and to be involved in all regional groupings. 74 The Commission now has over 100 diplomatic missions and is continually opening new ones; its network is more extensive than that of many member states. The Commission was increasingly lobbied by outside actors to undertake EPC initiatives, and it received diplomats and other leaders from non-EC states. It became an especially important actor when member states chose to delegate to it external responsibilities which inevitably allowed it to use both economic and political criteria to make its decisions. This occurred during the development of the Mediterranean policy noted above, and later with the Commission's control of the huge PHARE and TACIS programs used to disburse billions of European Currency Units (ECU) to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after 1989.
Finally, EPC affected the Commission as well. It was increasingly expected to take into consideration a more comprehensive approach to problems of democracy, stability, and development rather than view only the economic dimensions of issues facing the EC. Its position between the EC and EPC had a general stabilizing effect on the EC's external relations, which compensated for the lack of continuous attention by the European Council. It recognized the potential for mutual gains when the EC and EPC acted in unison. Although its position markedly improved in EPC, the Commission never had any real autonomy; its power here always rested on the evolving attitudes and goodwill of member states. The holder of the Presidency in particular largely controlled how much influence the Commission had in EPC. Thus it would be an exaggeration to say that the Commission was an instrumental actor in the Europeanization of EPC, although its position has improved since the late 1980s and the Treaty on European Union.
EPC Secretariat
EPC lacked its own bureaucracy for many years; states intended it to be self-administering. Although an EPC secretariat was discussed when the system was founded, enough states opposed this to prevent the creation of any permanent staff for EPC. However, the expansion of the EPC agenda, the increased burden placed on the Presidency by such an agenda, and the limitation felt by small states when they held the Presidency resulted in some important informal changes which led to a permanent secretariat for EPC. Although it was not an EC institution at first and it played a limited role, in recent years this body was made part of the EC's institutional structure.
The secretariat had its roots in the informal troika practice of sharing some of the burden of the Presidency among the previous, current, and following holders of the office. This developed in the 1970s in part to support the Euro-Arab dialogue. In 1977 EC states quietly adopted the practice of seconding a few of their junior officials to the next Presidency state as a support team to assist with the transition. This practice of lending diplomats was formalized in the London Report and it became especially useful to help maintain EC/EPC contacts with Turkey after the accession of Greece to the EC. It also helped educate officials about the national foreign ministries of their EPC partners. 75 Over the next several years an intense debate raged over whether to create a permanent secretariat to do preparatory work for EPC and to reduce the load on the Presidency country. The creation of an EPC working group of policy planners under the German Presidency in 1983 helped, but the question of a secretariat was not resolved until the SEA in 1986 when France finally accepted that the secretariat would serve EPC, not the European Council, and it gave up its long-held insistence that any EPC secretariat must be based in Paris.
Indeed, the secretariat was the SEA's most important and controversial organizational change, a product of fifteen years of intense debate. The idea posed an especially difficult problem for small states: they often needed help during their Presidencies, but were still wary of any permanent EPC institution. Hence, its tasks at first were administrative and organizational, it was based in Brussels, and it was supposed to serve the Presidency (or the Political Committee). It consisted of only five diplomatic officials plus a Head, supported by a small administrative staff all were seconded from national foreign ministries. It was not nearly as strong as Franco-German proposals had suggested, with no budget or authority of its own. Nor was it involved in political dialogues or actions. 76 The Head of the secretariat did not emerge as an influential neutral broker; he had limited personal autonomy which always depended on the Presidency state.
But the secretariat did engage in some limited conceptual work, such as drafting texts and preparing speeches for the Presidency. It also drafted responses to the growing number of questions asked by the European Parliament (EP) about EPC, an important example of how actions of one EC actor helped justify the creation of another institution to ensure the consistency of replies to the questions. The Head of the secretariat also regularly appeared before the EP's relevant committees to discuss EPC issues. The secretariat competed to some extent with the European Correspondents in national capitals, although a beneficial working relationship eventually developed between them, and it became important as an institutional memory for EPC beyond the coutumier and recueil collections. As Elfriede Regelsberger has noted, after the SEA a gradual integration of the secretariat's personnel with the external activities of the Presidency could be observed, and there was concern that secretariat decisions may have unexpected external repercussions. 77
Before turning to the CFSP, a brief comment on the EP and ECJ, both of which played a marginal role in EPC. The SEA permitted the EP to be "associated" with EPC, and the Presidency was required to report to the EP on EPC, but little more. This did not stop the EP, of course, from continually pressing for institutional changes in EPC and submitting many questions, reports, and declarations about external political relations. It did push for EC action on security and called for crisis management procedures in 1981, which found their way into the London Report. 78 The ECJ's role in EPC is even smaller; besides the devotion to consensus in EPC, the absence of an authoritative body (such as the ECJ) for resolving disputes and judging compliance has kept EPC from becoming a more supranational rule system. Governments kept it outside of EPC, realizing that ECJ rulings could not be predicted or controlled by them. 79
Later ECJ rulings established a non-restrictive view of sanctions under Article 113, which enabled them to be used with EPC (the first of the so-called EC/EPC "parallel powers"). Other ECJ cases expanded the EC 's right to be a member of certain international organizations, its treaty-making powers, and the use of export controls for political ends. 80 Yet none of these decisions directly imposed on EPC as a policy process; at best they merely made states acknowledge the relevance and legitimacy of EC rules during their EPC deliberations. However, the fact that the ECJ was excluded from EPC lends much credence to the view that states truly fear the unpredictable power of the ECJ to advance integration (say, by "judicializing" diplomatic processes such as EPC) further than governments would like.
In sum, this section and the previous two showed how the Europeanization of EPC can be understood as a product of three closely linked processes: the development of a decentralized but complex and resilient transgovernmental network; the codification of EPC habits as norms and rules; and the involvement in EPC of entrenched EC actors such as the Commission. Trust, habits, and interests emerged mainly through a distinctive set of diplomatic ties at all levels of government. Communication and the lending of officials to each other provided an environment conducive to the establishment of norms. After habits proved their practical usefulness to the officials involved in the system, governments were more likely to treat such customs as binding norms, and finally, to at least accept that these norms be codified as legal rules. These rules in turn increasingly involved the EC itself and EPC became a valuable component of European integration. However, in recent years the gains achieved in EPC have been threatened by internal and external pressures as is members attempted to formally institutionalize this pragmatic, informal system into a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). How innovative and successful has the transition from EPC to the CFSP been? It is to this final question that I now turn.
Only two years after the SEA entered into effect it was confronted with an unprecedented (and unexpected) set of challenges. The changes in world politics between 1989 and 1991 stimulated the creation of a tri-pillar "European Union" (EU) featuring the existing EC, the CFSP, and cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA). After a tortuous ratification process, the CFSP along with the rest of the Treaty on European Union (TEU, or Maastricht Treaty) finally entered into effect in November 1993. Although the CFSP is much less ambitious than many of the convenors of the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union had hoped, 81 it does include several important, though incremental, changes to foreign policy cooperation in Europe. These should not be interpreted, however, as decisive moves towards supranationalization. Like the SEA before it, the TEU's provisions on the CFSP (Title V) are generally based on a set of existing practices established by informal custom. Its decisionmaking rules (like those of the third pillar) still deliberately set it apart from those of the EC. And the most significant changes are still vague enough in their language to cause confusion and debate among officials when CFSP actions are taken. Here I discuss the main institutional changes involved in the transition from EPC to the CFSP and the problems that arose when these changes were implemented.
Institutional changes in the CFSP
Four important differences between EPC and the CFSP should be noted. First, the CFSP represents a stronger commitment to common positions than under EPC. Article J.2, TEU, requires member states "to ensure that their national positions conform to the common positions of the CFSP." Second, the CFSP provides for changes in decisionmaking rules so that joint actions can be initiated and/or implemented by qualified majority voting (QMV) in Council (Article J.3). Third, security issues are fully included in the CFSP, including the "framing" of a common defense policy "which might in time lead to a common defense." The Western European Union (WEU) is directed to "elaborate and implement" any decisions which have defense implications (Article J.4). Fourth, the TEU replaces the "High Contracting Parties" language of EPC with EC terminology. The CFSP is to be part of the single institutional framework of the EU; the Council of Ministers and the Commission are to ensure consistency between the EC and the CFSP (Articles C and J.8). Although EC and CFSP procedures still vary, there is no more practical distinction between EC policy and the CFSP (the SEA of course had maintained such a distinction); the General Affairs Council of EU foreign ministers deals with all issues regardless of the pillar from which they originate.
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A few points of clarification on these changes are necessary. As noted, most provisions of Title V were largely codifications of existing practices. There had been no practical distinction between the EC and EPC for years in the view of most officials involved with EPC; Maastricht finally recognized this. The "new" instruments of common positions and joint actions were generally based on tools of the EPC regime, but Maastricht created a new and far more complicated procedure for taking joint actions. This involves broad guidelines from the European Council, unanimous decisions by the Council of Ministers on both areas for action and the definition of later decisions (implementation, duration, funding, etc.) which can be taken by QMV, and final QMV decisions to complete the joint action. Actions with defense implications are strictly excluded from this procedure. The change to majority voting appears innovative, but again, the SEA had included a provision (Article 30.3c) that states should not impede the formation of a consensus. Similarly, the use of EC sanctions for political ends (i.e., as a CFSP action) now specifically requires a unanimous decision in Council (Article 228a) before the EC can act according to its usual procedures (QMV). This already was typical practice, but had not been stated so clearly before in treaty form.
Other TEU provisions regarding the involvement of the Commission and the EP also reflected previous EPC traditions. Although the Commission now has a formal "right of initiative" shared with member states, the CFSP is still directed by the Presidency state. Also, the Presidency (or the troika), not the Commission, still represents the CFSP abroad. The powers of the EP were unchanged, except for its role in approving EC funds for the CFSP, an issue which has still not been resolved. Finally, and most significantly perhaps, the ECJ is again specifically excluded from the CFSP (and JHA) 83 In these pillars, then, the ECJ cannot as yet be counted on as a potentially significant force in the process of supranationalizing political cooperation.
Besides formal rules outlined in the TEU, a number of other institutional changes were effected to enhance the skeletal provisions of Title V. The Commission created a new external relations Directorate-General (DGI-A) in part to help implement the CFSP. In addition, Commission President Santer has instituted regular meetings of the six Commissioners (plus himself) who have external relations portfolios, meetings of Commission planning staff, and meetings of cabinet officials involved in the CFSP as well. These have helped improve internal coordination in a system where so many speak for the EU's external relations. 84
Since the Council of Ministers now has formal jurisdiction over the CFSP, several changes were made in COREPER as well. COREPER now prepares all Council meetings now, and it has the last word to ensure consistency between its preparation of EC matters and the PoCo's preparation of CFSP matters. To improve this function, a Council decision in July 1994 called for the attachment of permanent "CFSP counselors" to each Permanent Representation. These officials ensure that PoCo's CFSP decisions conform to the legal, technical, political, and economic aspects of the EC/EU. Importantly, they now handle all matters related to the imposition of sanctions as a CFSP instrument, currently the strongest instrument of the system. Finally, relevant EPC working groups and the EC counterparts were merged into single units in order to improve the coordination between EC and CFSP affairs. 85 Thus, if knowledge of a political system's rules is a source of power, then COREPER and the CFSP counselors in particular are in an advantaged position thanks to these changes since they are the primary nexus between the EC 's complex political system and those of all member states. This is especially true with regards to financing the CFSP from the EC budget or using EC economic tools for CFSP ends, domains where COREPER's expertise about what can and cannot be done is crucial.
In short, then, the TEU reflects some degree of progression along the three dimensions of Europeanization mentioned above. The transgovernmental network was enhanced by centralizing the links between governments in Brussels: through the new functions of COREPER and the creation of CFSP counsellors. Procedural changes in voting and budgeting were instituted, and norms on security and consistency were enshrined in the TEU. Additionally, in a decision taken immediately after Maastricht, the Lisbon European Council (26/27 June 1992) defined a number of specific geographical and functional areas open to joint action in the CFSP. When the CFSP entered into effect in November 1993, these areas had been made the subject of the first CFSP joint actions. Finally, the Commission and the EP saw their CFSP roles legitimated, and the old EPC secretariat was attached to the Council of Ministers and directed to serve it, not to the Presidency alone.
Problems in the transition from EPC to CFSP
However, the CFSP has been the subject of serious criticisms since in was inaugurated in November 1993. It clearly did not meet the expectations of officials, observers, or citizens - all of whom now find the CFSP policy process confusing and inefficient. Actions taken under the rubric of the CFSP were more modest than what was anticipated, and those that were achieved had to be haphazardly improvised as many of the details on the CFSP were unclear or unspecified by the TEU. In addition to a general lack of political will, the fact that expectations for the CFSP (and the TEU in general) may have been inflated by EU officials themselves, the normal "breaking-in" period required of new procedures, and a preoccupation with other internal and external problems, most critics have also pointed to a number of problems inherent in the institutional design of the CFSP.
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In general, the TEU's dual structure for external relations (the EC and the CFSP opened up a new battle between intergovernmental and supranational visions of political cooperation. Since the wording of Maastricht was unclear on a number of issues (like EPC before it), states fear that any new decisions will set precedents for the CFSP which may bind them later, or will involve the Commission or EP to a greater degree than they would like. The conniving and procedural debates which most CFSP decisions have provoked reflect a textbook case of "path dependency phobia," or the fear of the way current decisions can persist over time and limit future options. 87 The fact that the Commission and Council legal services are deliberately attempting to legalize - far more vigorously than under EPC - CFSP decisions exacerbates this fear. Officials have been drafting texts with the understanding that legal precedents are being set, even in the face of claims by governments that the CFSP will remain flexible in the future. Difficult yet valuable experiments in creating "model common positions" and EC/CFSP "mixed agreements" have been attempted to avoid tedious, time-consuming debates over the wording of texts and the choice of voting procedures. 88
Unsurprisingly, QMV for the CFSP has not been successfully attempted, even in seemingly uncontroversial areas (such as disbursing previously set-aside CFSP funds for Mostar.) Funding problems have also resulted in money being taken "illegally" from existing EC budgets (such as the development or cooperation budgets) on an ad hoc basis to avoid having to create a permanent CFSP line in the budget which the EP can control. While the CFSP line is now part of the Commission's budget, CFSP disbursements still have to be approved by the EP. The system has also seen Council jealously over Commission involvement in security-related areas, which has limited the number of security-related CFSP actions. Rather than a coherent strategy, actions taken under the CFSP have involved a haphazard mix of instruments, as under EPC: regulations, diplomatic conferences, minor temporary operations, or substantial commitments of EC resources to certain regions. Finally, officials complain that the informal, club-like atmosphere of EPC has been changed in two ways. First, the 1995 enlargement brought a number of new diplomats into the CFSP process who are still being socialized to the system. Second, the CFSP process is far more legalized, formal, and bureaucratized than EPC ever was. This change of policymaking style and the sensitivity of states to legal precedents makes decisionmaking under the CFSP a far more demanding and contentious process than under EPC.
Besides procedural disputes in the CFSP, the entire tri-pillar structure of the TEU has come under attack since consistency between the three decisionmaking systems has not been achieved. The CFSP may already be "contaminating" the first pillar; when there is a conflict between the decisionmaking rules of these two pillars, those of the CFSP (i.e., unanimity, intergovernmentalism) dominate. 89 In addition, little attention has been given to the links between EMU and the CFSP, and between the CFSP and JHA. Thus, CFSP reforms are once again being considered at the 1996-97 IGC of the EU. States are looking to (among other ideas) changes in CFSP decisionmaking rules, the creation of a permanent CFSP policy planning and analysis unit, using EC funds for the CFSP on a permanent basis, and merging the EU and WEU to overcome the CFSP's institutional problems and prepare the EU for the next enlargement. 90
Maastricht, then, left much to be desired among those who are anxious for a more forceful EU political presence. The present system for foreign policy cooperation is still one designed for a dozen members at most. The CFSP does not able the EU to focus its formidable economic resources quickly, consistently, and effectively to meet external challenges. Homogeneity, flexibility, and informality were hallmarks of EPC, but these characteristics are being threatened in the new EU. The TEU also demonstrates the extent to which Commission involvement in a European policy area is necessary to make the process more efficient if not supranational. Commission influence in turn depends on its ability to mobilize support among domestic actors, who are usually more concerned with socio-economic problems than with foreign policy. The Commission has, however, turned its attention to defense equipment cooperation, where it may be able to influence support for a European-wide security and defense policy through the "backdoors" of industrial policy and the single market. 91 This development, and the Commission's role vis-à-vis the East in development and enlargement policy, might enhance its influence - though indirectly and in the long - over the CFSP, but a few member states are still on the defensive.
Finally, the TEU shows how institutional changes can backfire, as it disrupted the fairly harmonious EPC with ideological disputes about CFSP procedures and the new division of labor. The dual structures of the CFSP and the EC now conflict, with the PoCo and COREPER unsure of their specific roles and unable to resolve of differences of opinion. And even though there is an increasing amount of concern among European citizens for cooperation in both the second and third pillars, 92 some states are still determined to avoid serious institutional changes (such as true majority voting, involvement of the ECJ, or effective compliance mechanisms) to meet these concerns. Thus, based on the CFSP's uncertain performance over the past several years, the lingering obstacles to institutional change in this area, the lack of strong domestic pressure for a CFSP, and the fact that NATO has been able to reform itself (through the Combined Joint Task Forces concept 93 ) to meet some of the challenges that the CFSP was supposed to confront, it is still questionable whether the CFSP will lead to a full-scale common European external policy or merely improve the coordination of national foreign policies started under the EPC regime.
The case of EPC reveals two fascinating tendencies. It shows that the lack of transactors and the limited involvement of EC actors enable governments to keep an EC policy area from becoming truly supranational in a particular policy area. If governments are insulated, and domestic interest or pressure is absent in a policy area, EC actors are less able and willing to expand their authority (or they expand it very slowly) EPC also shows, however, that intergovernmentalism can still be seriously challenged with norms that are more powerful than diplomats or analysts appreciate, and that neither the ECJ or nor the Commission are necessarily needed to develop and reinforce them. In EPC, institutionalized transgovernmental relations helped produce these norms, not revolutionary EC legal doctrines such as direct effect or supremacy. Of course, a number of internal and external factors stimulated policy changes which later became common practices. These include: changes in US-Soviet relations; crises; the ability of large states to lead the system; the persistence of small states' arguments to legalize EPC; the willingness of "EC-friendly" member states to include the Commission in EPC; and the efficiency and entrepreneurship of Commission when it was involved. But without the transgovernmental network, coutumier procedures, recueil policies, and the establishment of an EPC secretariat to preserve these norms, they stood little chance of lasting longer than each rotating six-month Presidency.
Thus, despite the formidable obstacles to developing a consensual, noncoercive, effective system of foreign policy cooperation, the EC has persistently tried to achieve this aim for more than 20 years. Whether defined in terms of political union, integration, cooperation, or a common foreign and security policy, EC member states have at least harmonized their interests and moderated their conduct of foreign policy to accommodate the views of their partners. EPC also became more sensitive to the rules and objectives of the EC itself These dual processes have been broadly described as Europeanization. The analysis here, sensitive as it is to historical development and norms, lends much credence to arguments made by Karl Deutsch about the creation of a "pluralistic security community" devoted to peaceful, collective change. 94 Although a number of factors may have increased the opportunities for states to cooperate in this area, success was by no means assured without an institutional framework to guide behavior. As a community of interests, EPC developed and was allowed to become part of the EC environment even though it was deliberately conceived as a separate, intergovernmental, extra-legal system. However, preparatory work and communication between lower-level officials eroded the monopoly on foreign policy held by chiefs of government and foreign ministers; this did not, of course, replace them as key actors. More importantly, this institutionalized information-sharing was specifically directed towards identifying and developing common interests, and changing state preferences, rather than for trading favors.
Now that defense is included in the CFSP, and the CFSP itself is closer to the EC than ever before, Europeanization may slowly give way to supranationalization in some ways. It is clear that although the CFSP (like EPC) is understood to be a major component of political union, as a policy process it can not be treated in terms of supranational institutionalism or federalism. Member governments still exert most influence in the CFSP, the CFSP executive (in the form of the Presidency or the Commission) is very weak, and there is little consistency in terms of budgetary resources or ECJ involvement. And domestic politics in the form of public opinion or party influence are unlikely to exert significant pressures for the supranationalization of the CFSP.
However, like the broader system of integration in which the CFSP is embedded, political cooperation or union should always be viewed as a process rather than an end result. Even in well-developed federal systems the balance of power between a central government and the constituent units shifts according to the internal and external demands placed on the system. Although states still have ultimate authority over the CFSP, only a small minority of member states is holding up the transfer of more foreign policy power to EC institutions; even these states recognize the system is necessary but unworkable (or will be, after the next enlargement) if they demand consensus at every stage of the policy process. The EC/EU is a unique, vibrant arena where the demands of interdependence and the limits of institutional engineering continually engage each other. Conventional notions of territoriality, authority, and sovereignty are sadly outmoded in many regions of the world - especially in Western Europe - and the technology of international cooperation (not to mention the analytical tools of international relations) has not caught up with many changes. 95 Some EC states still see the debate in terms of a zero-sum game between the power of governments and that of the EC, between a loose community of interests and a formal system of compliance or authority, and between a supplemental tool of states and a monopoly of power by the EC.
In short, sovereignty over foreign policy need not be directly confronted (as it has been in other EC policy areas) with majority voting, regulations, directives, ECJ rulings, or in the glare of public IGC bargains. It can be subverted in some cases, through back channels and at lower levels of administration, so that states find themselves producing common positions and conducting joint operations even while they loudly proclaim their sovereign rights to refrain from doing so. Even if member states support the improved efficiency brought about by an institutional change, they are often hesitant to commit themselves to such an institution (as during an IGC) for fear of being forced into behavior that was not anticipated when the institution was created, or for fear that the public will think they gave up too much sovereignty to the EC. This is especially true of political cooperation, where it is difficult to measure the costs and benefits of common action.
However, when a cooperative system such as the CFSP moves from formal institutional changes to normal policymaking, the transgovernmental network will resume its operations to effect changes in state behavior and promote cooperation from the "bottom up" in ways I have outlined in this paper. Thus, the battle over institutional control of political cooperation is not yet over. In fact, now that the Commission, COREPER, and the Parliament have legitimate roles to play (even if they are often prevented from playing these roles), the decisive battle between supranational and intergovernmental visions of European political integration may be just beginning.
Note *: Michael E. Smith, Dept. of Politics and Society, University of California, Irvine. Back.
Note 1: To avoid confusion, in this paper I generally favor the term "European Community" since most of the discussion relies upon a distinction between EC structures and those of EPC/CFSP. I use the term "European Union" to refer only to the three-pillar structure created by the Treaty on European Union. Back.
Note 2: Article 30.2(d), Single European Act (hereafter SEA). In this paper, quotes from EPC reports and texts are taken from the documents collection European Political Cooperation, fifth ed. (Bonn: Press and Information Office of the Information Office of the Federal Government of Germany, 1988). Back.
Note 3: "The Second Report of the foreign ministers to the heads of state and government of the member states of the EEC, 23 July 1973," (Copenhagen Report), Part I. Back.
Note 4: Douglas Hurd, "Political co-operation," International Affairs 57 (Summer 1983), p.388. Back.
Note 5: Otto von der Gablentz, "Luxembourg revisited or the importance of European Political Cooperation," Common Market Law Review 16 (November 1979), p.688. Back.
Note 6: Robert Jervis, "Cooperation under the security dilemma," World Politics 30 (January 1978), pp.167-214; Charles Lipson, "International cooperation in economic and security affairs," World Politics 37 (October 1984), pp.1-23. Back.
Note 7: For more extensive discussions on the application of functionalism to EPC, see Roy H. Ginsberg, Foreign Policy Actions of the European Community: The Politics of Scale (Boulder: Lynne Rinner, 1989), chap 2; and Panayiotos Ifestos, European Political Cooperation: Towards a Framework of Supranational Diplomacy? (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1987), chap. 3. On the general distinction between types of spillover, see James A. Caporaso and John T. S. Keeler, "The European Union and Regional Integration Theory," in Carolyn Rhodes and Sonia Mazey, eds., The State of the European Union, Vol.3 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995). It should also be noted that one of the founding fathers of neo-functionalism, Ernst Haas, explicitly excluded security and defense from his expansive logic of sectoral integration, which emphasized socio-economic issues. See Haas, "International Integration: the European and the Universal Process," in M. Hodges, ed., European Integration (Hammondsworth: Pengiun Books, 1972), p. 100. Back.
Note 8: Robert Keohane's work is representative of the view that international institutions are used primarily to reduce transactions costs and solve incomplete contracting problems between states. See his After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); and his "International Institutions: Two Approaches," International Studies Quarterly 32 (December 1988), pp.379-396. Lisa Martin applied this argument to an EPC case-study in "Institutions and Cooperation: Sanctions During the Falkiands Islands Conflict," International Security 16 (Spring 1992), pp.143-178. Back.
Note 9: John Mearsheimer has made the most forceful statements of such a view. See his "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War," International Security 15 (June 1990), pp. 5-56; and "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19 (Winter 1991), pp.5-49. Back.
Note 10: For example, see Alec Stone and Wayne Sandholtz, "European Integration and Domestic Politics: A Framework," typescript, UC Irvine, 1994; Simon Bulmer, "The Governance of the European Union: A New Institutionalist Approach," Journal of Public Policy 13 (Winter 1994), pp.351-380; John Peterson, "Decisionmaking in the European Union: towards a framework for analysis," Journal of European Public Policy 2 (March 1995), pp.69-96; Gary Marks, "Structural Policy and Multilevel Governance," in Alan W. Cafruny and Glenda Rosenthal, eds., The State of the European Community, Vol.2 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1993); and Alberta M. Sbragla, "Thinking about the European Future: The Uses of Comparison," in Abragia Sbragia, ed. Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the "New" European Community (Washington: Brookings, 1991); and Rhodes and Mazey, The State of the European Union. Back.
Note 11: Roy Ginsberg, Foreign Policy Actions of the European Commnity: The Politics of Scale (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), p.45. Back.
Note 12: The pre-history of EPC is covered in David Allen and William Wallace, "European Political Cooperation: the historical and contemporary background," in David Allen, Reinhardt Rummel, and Wolfgang Wessels, eds., European Political Cooperation: Towards a Foreign Policy for Western Europe (London: Butterworths, 1982); and Simon J. Nuttall, European Political Co-operation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), chap. 2. Back.
Note 13: At the Hague Summit on 2 December 1969, EC foreign ministers were directed to "study the best way of achieving progress in the matter of political unification, within the context of enlargement." These instructions led to the drafting of "The First Report of the foreign ministers to the heads of state and government of the member states of the EEC, 27 October 1970," (Luxembourg or Davignon Report). See Francoise de La Serre and Phillippe Moreau Defarges, "France: a penchant for leadership," in Christopher Hill, ed., National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983). Interview with former EC member state foreign ministry official involved in the Luxembourg Report negotiations, Brussels, 1996. Back.
Note 14: Luxembourg Report, Part II. Section 1. Back.
Note 15: Copenhagen Report, Part II, Section 12. Back.
Note 16: Simon Bulmer, "The European Council's First Decade: Between Interdependence and Domestic Politics," Journal of Common Market Studies 24 (December 1985); and Simon Bulmer and Wolfgang Wessels, The European Council: Decision-making in European Politics (London: Macmillan, 1987). Back.
Note 17: This description is broadly based on William Wallace, "Political Cooperation: Integration Through Intergovernmentalism," in Helen Wallace et. al., eds., Policy-making in the European Community, 2nd edition (Sussex: John Wiley Sons, Ltd., 1983); Wolfgang Wessels, "European Political Cooperation: a new approach to foreign policy," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation; Ginsberg, Foreign Policy Actions, chap 3; Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, chap. 1; and interviews with former EPC officials, Brussels, 1995-96. Back.
Note 18: On the basic reasons for choosing an informal agreement, see Charles Lipson, "Why are some international agreements informal?" International Organization 45 (Autumn 1991), p.501. Back.
Note 19: Intergovernmentalism is the dominant perspective for explaining EPC. See Susanne J. Bodenheimer, "The Political Union Debate in Europe: A Case Study in Intergovernmental Diplomacy," International Organization 21 (Winter 1967), pp.24-54; Paul Taylor, "Intergovernmentalism in the European Communities in the 1970s: patterns and perspectives," International Organization 36 (Autumn 1982), pp.741-766; Wallace, "Political Cooperation," and Alfred E. Pijpers, "European Political Cooperation and the Realist Paradigm," in Martin Holland, ed., The Future of European Political Cooperation: Essays on Theory and Practice (London: Macmillan, 1991). Back.
Note 20: Robert D. Putnam, "Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games," International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp.429-460. The applicability of a two-level games type of analysis to EPC is suggested in Simon Bulmer, "Analyzing EPC: The Case for Two-Tier Analysis," in Holland, The Future of European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 21: As Hill notes, even after ten years of EPC, "public opinion within the member states (was) sadly ill-informed about and remote from EPC. . . In none of the member states is there evidence to suggest that awareness of what EPC entails has percolated very far even into the circles of educated opinion." Christopher Hill, "National interests: the insuperable obstacles?" in Hill, National Foreign Policies, p.188. Back.
Note 22: Interview with Simon Nuttall, who was involved in EPC discussions regarding sanctions against the Soviet Union, Argentina, and South Africa, Brussels, 1996. Conversely, Lisa Martin has argued that EC states did make bargains during some sanctions episodes, such as the Falkiands Islands crisis. See her "Institutions and Cooperation." Nuttall rejects this interpretation: "It is going too far to suggest that a link between the price decisions (on annual EC agricultural prices) and the Falkiands sanctions was ever established, but it is certainly the case that the climate of sympathy which had been created for the United Kingdom which had been created by the Argentinian invasion was in the process of being dissipated by the feeling that in the eyes of Whitehall Community solidarity was a one-way street." Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.212. Back.
Note 23: Wessels, "European Political Cooperation," p.13. Back.
Note 24: Wessels, "European Political Cooperation," p.15. Back.
Note 25: Cooperation at the UN was probably even stronger than statistics suggested. Resolutions adopted by consensus were usually not included in the data, and some have argued that differences in voting more often than not reflected tactical differences rather than fundamental variations on policy. See the discussions in Leon Hurwitz, "The EEC and decolonization: the voting behavior of the Nine in the UN General Assembly," Political Studies 24 (December 1976), pp.435-437; Rosemary Foot, "The European Community's voting behavior at the United Nations' General Assembly," Journal of Common Market Studies 17 (June 1979), pp.350-359; Beate Lindemann, "Europe and the Third World: the Nine at the United Nations," The World Today 32 (July 1976), pp.260-269; Lindemann, "European Political Cooperation at the UN: a challenge for the Nine," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation; and Nuttall, European Political Co-peration, p.28. Back.
Note 26: See Gotz von Groll, "The Nine at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 27: Ginsberg, Foreign Policy Actions, p.59. Back.
Note 28: Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.314. This tendency towards convergence was also confirmed in interviews with other officials involved in EPC, Brussels, 1995-96. Back.
Note 29: Henri Simonet before the European Parliament, 15 November 1977, Proceedings of the European Community, Appendix No.223, November 1977. Back.
Note 30: von der Gablentz, "Luxembourg revisited," p.694. Back.
Note 31: Ginsberg describes some of these processes as "integration" and "interdependence" logics of EC foreign policy actions; see the discussion in his Foreign Policy Actions, pp.20-34. Back.
Note 32: For example, a Commission official formerly involved with EPC recalled that EC political involvement in Central America became a more urgent priority after US Secretary of State George Schultz warned the EC not to interfere with US policy in Nicaragua. Interview, Brussels, 1996. For more on EPC/EC and US relations, see Anastasia Pardalis, "European Political Co-operation and the United States," Journal of Common Market Studies 25 (June 1987), pp. 271-294; Beate Kohier, "Euro-American relations and European Political Cooperation," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation; and Ginsberg, Foreign Policy Actions, chap. 6. Back.
Note 33: Robert 0. Keohane and Joseph Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). Also see their "Transgovernmental Relations and International Organization," World Politics 27 (October 1974), pp.39-62. Transnational relationships also inform much of the recent "epistemic communities" literature; see the special issue of lnternational Organization, "Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination," edited by Peter M. Haas, Vol.46 (Winter 1992). Back.
Note 34: EPC's role in enhancing the stature of foreign ministries in the EC is described in many of the contributions to Hill, National Foreign Policies. Also see Christopher Hill and William Wallace, "Diplomatic Trends in the European Community," International Affairs 55 (January 1979), p.66; and William Wallace, "National Inputs into European Political Cooperation," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 35: See the chapters on small member states in Hill, National Foreign Policies. The quote is by Pierre-Louis Lorenz in reference to Luxembourg, p. 161. Back.
Note 36: The transgovermnental component of EPC is described in detail in Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, pp.14-25; and Wallace, "National inputs into European Political Cooperation." Also interviews with former EPC officials, Brussels, 1995-96. Back.
Note 37: Interviews with member state foreign ministry officials and COREPER officials, Brussels, 1995-96. The quote is from Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.24. Back.
Note 38: See the contributions in Hill, National Foreign Policies; interviews with COREPER officials, Brussels, 1995-96. Back.
Note 39: Also, in at least one case (policy towards South Africa) the EC ambassadors to that country were invited back to Brussels as a group to help EPC form a response to anti-apartheid sentiment. Interview with Simon Nuttall, Brussels, 1996. Back.
Note 40: Wessels, "European Political Cooperation," p.15; the quote is by Ambassador Philippe de Schoutheete, La Cooperation Europeenne (Brussels: F. Nathan Editions Labor, collection Europe, 1980), p. 118. Back.
Note 41: Hill, "National interests," p. 196. Back.
Note 42: On the applicability of transgovernmental links to the two-level games model, see Jeffrey K. Knopf, "Beyond two-level games: domestic-international interaction in the intermediate range nuclear forces negotiations," International Organization 47 (Autumn 1993), pp.599-628. Back.
Note 43: Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.54. Back.
Note 44: Elfriede, Regelsberger, "The Twelve's Dialogue with Third Countries: Progress Towards a Communaute d'action? in Holland, The Future of European Political Cooperation, p.163. Back.
Note 45: The change from informal norms to more binding rules has occurred in other "intergovernmental" EC policy areas as well. Witness the change in the European Monetary System from a vague "zone of monetary stability" to a quasi-fixed exchange rate regime. Back.
Note 46: Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the conditions of practical and legal reasoning in international relations and domestic affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Back.
Note 47: Martin Holland, "Three Approaches for Understanding European Political Co-operation: A Case Study of EC South Mrican Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies 25 (June 1987), p.303. Back.
Note 48: Niels Jorgen Haagerup and Christian Thune, "Denmark: The European Pragmatist," in Hill, National Foreign Policies, p.110. Back.
Note 49: Helen Wallace and Geoffley Edwards, "European Community: the evolving role of the Presidency of the Council," International Affairs 53 (October 1976), pp.535-550. Back.
Note 50: Wessels, "European Political Co-operation," pp.14-15. Back.
Note 51: Cited in de Schoutheete, La Cooperation Europeenne, p.49. Back.
Note 52: Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.12. Back.
Note 53: Maarten W.J. Lak, "Interaction between European Political Cooperation and the European Community (external) - Existing rules and challenges," Common Market Law Review 26 (Summer 1989), p.282. Back.
Note 54: Renaud Dehousse and Joseph H.H. Weiler, "EPC and the Single Act: from Soft Law to Hard Law?" in Holland, The Future of European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 55: Juliet Lodge, "European Political Cooperation: Towards the 1990s," in Juliet Lodge, ed., The European Community and the Challenge of the Future (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989). Back.
Note 56: Article 30.1, SEA, states that contracting parties "shall endeavour jointly to formulate and implement a European foreign policy; and Article 30.2(d), SEA, said that contracting parties merely "shall endeavour to avoid any action or position which impairs their effectiveness as a cohesive force in international relations or within international organizations" (emphasis added). William Wallace argues that a general commitment to a "common foreign policy" was acceptable as an unspecific aim to all member states (except Denmark) by 1980, but this goal of course was watered down in the SEA. See Wallace, "Introduction: cooperation and convergence in European foreign policy," in Hill, National Foreign Policies, p.6. Back.
Note 57: Dehousse and Weiler, "EPC and the Single Act," pp.130-131. Also note that the Irish Supreme Court felt the EPC provisions in the SEA were legally binding, which required a constitutional amendment to change neutrality, and the Danes had similar difficulties with the SEA (and with the Treaty on European Union later). Back.
Note 58: After much disagreement on the issue of voting in EPC, the SEA merely invited contracting parties to "refrain as far as possible from impedeing the formation of a consensus and the joint action this could produce," Article 30.3(c), SEA. Also, Article 30.7(b), SEA, formally demanded that member states participating in international organizations in which not all EEC members are present must take account of EPC positions, already a practice in EPC (though not an uncontested one). Back.
Note 59: Martin Holland, "Sanctions as an EPC Instrument," in Holland, The Future of European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 60: Lak, "Interaction between European Political Cooperation and the European Community," p. 283. Back.
Note 61: Council Regulation (EEC) No.428/89 of 20 February 1989, OJ L 50/1/1989. Also see Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, pp.199-207. Back.
Note 62: Joseph H.H. Weiler, The Evolution of the Mechanisms and Insitutions for a European Foreign Policy, EUI Working Paper No.202 (Florence: European University Institute, 1985), cited in Holland, "Sanctions as an EPC Instrument." Back.
Note 63: For example, see the "Document on the European Identity published by the Nine foreign ministers," (Copenhagen, 14 December 1973); the "Solemn Declaration on European Union," (Stuttgart Declaration, 19 June 1983); and the "Declaration of Principles of Human Rights," European Documentation Bulletin 1986. Back.
Note 64: Wessels, "European Political Cooperation," p.6; and Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, p.147. Back.
Note 65: On regimes of common aversion, see Arthur A. Stein, "Coordination and collaboration: regimes in an anarchic world," in Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1983), pp.125-127. The role of EPC as a means to protect the EC is described in detail in Gianni Bonvicini, "The dual structure of EPC and Community activities: problems of coordination," in Allen et. al., European Political Cooperation. Back.
Note 66: "Report on European Political Cooperation issues by the Foreign Ministers of the Ten on 13 October 1981," (London Report), Part I. Back.
Note 67: Article 30.6, SEA. Back.
Note 68: In this regard Ireland had the most difficulties. For example, see Patrick Keatinge, "Ireland: neutrality inside EPC," in Hill, National Foreign Policies; and Trevor C. Salmon, "Ireland: a Neutral in the Community?" Journal of Common Market Studies 20 (March 1982). Back.
Note 69: Dehousse and Weiler, "EPC and the Single Act," p.136. Back.
Note 70: Greece 5 accession to EC/EPC is discussed in Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, pp. 173-174. Back.
Note 71: Interview with a Commission official formerly involved with EPC, Brussels, 1996. Back.
Note 72: In most EC states EPC was (and the CFSP still is) handled by the political section of the foreign ministry and EC affairs were handled by the economics section. Only Britain and Belgium included European Correspondents in the economics or EC departments. In anticipation of the Treaty on European Union, Denmark also combined parts of its economics and political departments into a unit for Northern hemisphere/EU affairs in 1991. After joining the EU in 1995, Sweden also merged its departments in spring 1996. Back.
Note 73: French foreign minister Claude Cheysson, a former Commissioner, is believed to have played a major role in permitting such involvement of the Commission in EPC. Interview with a Commission official formerly involved with EPC, Brussels, 1996. Back.
Note 74: Regelsberger, "The Twelve's Dialogue with Third Countries," p.169. Back.
Note 75: London Report, section 10; Nuttall, European Political Co-Operation, pp.19-20. Back.
Note 76: "Decision of 28 February 1986 by EC foreign ministers meeting in the framework of European Political Cooperation on the occasion of the signing of the Single European Act." EPC Bulletin, 1986, Doc 86/090. Back.
Note 77: Regelsberger, "European political cooperation," p.277. Back.
Note 78: Richard Corbett, "Testing the New Procedures: The European Parliament's First Experiences with its New 'SIngle Act' Powers," Journal of Common Market Studies 27 (\une 1989), pp. 359-372; and James Elles, "The Foreign Policy Role of the European Parliament," The Washington Quarterly 13 (Autumn 1990), pp.69-78. Also see the "Report on European Political Cooperation and the Role of the European Parliament" (Elles Report), EP Working Document (1981), 1-335/81; and the "Draft Treaty on European Union" (1984), prepared by the EP. Back.
Note 79: This came after two landmark ECJ cases ruled that the EC had a right to engage in international affairs whereever it had internal competencies under the Rome Treaty, and that all matters of international trade were an exclusive EC competency. See ERTA, EC Commission v. EC Council, Case 22/70 (1971); Opinion 1/75 of 11 November 1975, European Court Reports 1355; and Opinion 1/78 of4 October 1979, European Court Reports 2871. Back.
Note 80: Jorn Sack, "The European Communityts Membership of International Organizations," Common Market Law Review 32 (October 1995), pp.1227-1256; Ilona Cheyne, "International Agreements and the European Community Legal System," 19 (December 1994), pp.581-598; Pierre Pescatore, "External Relations in the Case-Law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities," Common Market Law Review 16 (November 1979), pp.615-645; and Inge Govaere and Piet Eeckhout, "On Dual Use Goods and Dualist Case Law: The Alme Richardt Judgment on Export Controls," Common Market Law Review 29 (October 1992), pp.940-965. Back.
Note 81: On the IGC on Political Union, see Richard Corbett, "The Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union," Journal of Common Market Studies 30 (September 1992), pp.271-298; Finn Laursen and Sophie Vanhoonacker, eds., The Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union (Maastricht, NL: European Institute of Public Administration, 1992), and Michael J. Baun, "The Maastricht Treaty as High Politics: Germany, France, and European Integration," Political Science Quarterly 110 (Winter 1995), pp.605-624. Back.
Note 82: For more on these provisions, see Geoffrey Edwards and Simon Nuttall, "Common Foreign and Security Policy," in Andrew Duff, John Pinder, and Roy Price, eds, Maastricht and Beyond: Building the European Union (London: Routledge, 1994); M.R. Eaton, "Common Foreign and Security Policy," in David O'Keeffe and Patrick M. Twomey, eds., Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty (London: Wiley Chancery Law, 1994); and Simon J. Nuffall, "The Foreign and Security Policy Provisions of the Maastricht Treaty: Their Potential for the Future," in Joerg Monar, Werner Ungerer, and Wolfgang Wessels, eds., The Maastricht Treaty on European Union (Brussels: European Interuniversity Press, 1993). Back.
Note 83: Article L of the TEU specifies that the ECJ enjoys no powers in the second pillar. However, thanks to Article M of the TEU, the ECJ could technically have jurisdiction over a CFSP (or JHA) action that runs counter to the first pillar (EC). The Commission has suggested this will eventually happen as the number of CFSP actions grows. See the Commission Report on the Functioning of the Treaty on European Union (Luxembourg: Office of Official Publications for the EC, May 1995), pp.33-34. Back.
Note 84: Interviews with Commission officials, Brussels, 1995-1996. Also see Simon J. Nuttall, "The European Commission's Internal Arrangements for Foreign Affairs and External Relations," CFSP Forum 2 (1995), p.3. Back.
Note 85: "Creation du groupe de conseillers PESC," internal COREPER document, 26 July 1994. This change was based on a decision of the Political Directors on 1/2 July 1994, "Recommendations of the Political Committee to the General Affairs Council," internal Council document, 18 July 1994. Interviews with CFSP counsellors, Brussels, 1995-1996. Back.
Note 86: For a more detailed discussion of the CFSP's institutional problems, see Michael E. Smith, "Achieving the Common Foreign and Security Policy: Collusion and Confusion in EU Institutions," paper prepared for delivery at the 10th International Conference of Europeanists, Chicago, 14-16 March 1996. Back.
Note 87: This argument is developed in more detail in Michael E. Smith, "What's Wrong with the Common Foreign and Security Policy? 'Path Dependency Phobia' and the Politics of Reform," in Pierre-Henri Laurent and Mark Maresceau, eds., The State of the European Union, Vol.4 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming). On path-dependency, see Stephen D. Krasner, "Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective," in James A. Caporaso, The Elusive State: International and Comparative Perspectives (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), esp. pp.86-88; and Paul Pierson, "The Path to European Union: An Historical Institutionalist Perspective," typescript, Harvard University, January 1995. Back.
Note 88: See the "Mode d'emploi concernant les positions communes sur la base de l'Article J.2 du Traite sur l'Union Europeenne," internal Council document 5194/95 of 6 March 1995. Interviews with COREPER officials and officials of the legal services of the Council and the Commission. Back.
Note 89: Again, QMV could have been used to disburse EC funds (as a CFSP action) to Mostar, but unanimity was required. Sanctions against Haiti also led to confusion over whether EC rules or CFSP rules would take precedence; those of the CFSP did. Interview with COREPER official, Brussels, 1996; also see the Commission Report on the Functioning of the Treaty on European Union, p.57. States did not insist on unanimity only on three minor CFSP decisions so far: financial sanctions against Bosnia-Herzegovina, for the prohibition against making payments under contracts caught by the embargo agalnst Haiti, and for the EU's mine-clearing directive. Back.
Note 90: For more on the CFSP/IGC reform debate, see Smith, "What's Wrong with the Common Foreign and Security Policy?" Back.
Note 91: See the Commission Communication on the Challenges Facing the European Defence Industry, released by the Commission's Spokesman's Service, Brussels, 25 January 1996. Back.
Note 92: Eurobarometer surveys since June 1993 consistently reveal that of up to 22 policy areas in which European citizens preferred EU decisionmaking to national solutions, three of the top four areas involved the CFSP or JHA (i.e., political cooperation). In the Standard Eurobarometer of Autumn 1995 (Survey no.43), the three areas where citizens preferred EU decisionmaking were third world cooperation (78%), the fight against drugs (77%), and foreign policy (70%). Back.
Note 93: See the final communique of the North Atlantic Council ministerial meeting in Berlin (NATO doc. M-NAC 1-96-63), 3 June 1996; the "Birmingham Declaration" of the WEU ministerial meeting of 7 May 1996; European Report no.2131, 11 May 1996; and European Report no. 2137, 5 June 1996. Back.
Note 94: Karl Deutsch, et. al., Political Community in the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). Back.
Note 95: For a more provocative discussion of this tendency, see John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations," International Organization 47 (Winter 1993), pp.139-174. Back.
