Implementing the Global Strategy where it matters most: the EU’s credibility deficit and the European neighbourhood

ABSTRACT

The EU Global Strategy (EUGS) is a broad and ambitious document in terms of its geographic scope and thematic priorities. However, the EU cannot devote equal attention to all aspects of the EUGS; so there is still scope for more clarity regarding the EU’s core strategic aims. This article argues that in addition to fostering internal cohesion, the EU’s strategic priority must involve stabilizing its own neighbourhood. This task has challenged the EU for decades because of an inherent credibility deficit regarding the EU’s own capabilities, yet the EUGS does not diagnose and remedy this problem as effectively as it could have. Therefore much more work will need to be done in terms of reforming EU institutions and developing common capabilities if the EU hopes to achieve its central internal and external security goals as outlined in the EUGS and related policy statements.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• global strategy
• CFSP
• CSDP
• security policy
• European Neighbourhood Policy

Acknowledgements

The research drawn upon in this article, much of which appears in Michael E. Smith, Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). I would also like to thank the editor and referees of Contemporary Security Policy for very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Michael E. Smith is Professor of International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He is a former Fulbright Scholar to the EU, and specializes in international cooperation in security and technology, particularly in the USA and Europe. His publications include Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); International Security: Politics, Policy, Prospects (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Governing Europe’s Neighbourhood: Partners or Periphery? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); and Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). He has also published in the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, the European Journal of International Relations, and the European Foreign Affairs Review (among others), as well as chapters in the State of the European Union, The Institutions of the European Union, International Relations and the European Union, The Institutionalization of Europe, European Integration and Supranational Governance (among others).

ORCiD

Michael E. Smith http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4177-788X

Notes

1. A Secure Europe in a Better World—European Security Strategy (Brussels: Council of the EU, December 2003).

2. ‘Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy—Providing Security in a Changing World’, Doc. S407/08 (Brussels, 11 December 2008).

3. Such as for Russia, Ukraine, and the Mediterranean under Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty on European Union.

4. Christopher Hill, ‘The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualising Europe’s International Role’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1993), pp.305–28.

5. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy: Shared Vision, Common Action, A Stronger Europe: A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (Brussels: EEAS, June 2016), http://eeas.europa.eu/top_stories/pdf/eugs_review_web.pdf (accessed 10 September 2016).

6. From ‘The European Union in a Changing Global Environment’ (June 2015), released by the EEAS (hereafter ‘EUGS Review’), Section 1.3.

7. Sven Biscop, ‘All or Nothing? The EU Global Strategy and Defence Policy After the Brexit’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.

8. Nathalie Tocci, ‘The Making of the EU Global Strategy’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.

9. Jolyon Howorth, ‘EU Global Strategy in a Changing World: Brussels’ Approach to the Emerging Powers’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.

10. Note also that the EU has deployed only one (civilian) CSDP mission to Asia so far, the Aceh Monitoring Mission.

11. Michael E. Smith, ‘A Liberal Grand Strategy in a Realist World? Power, Purpose, and the EU’s Changing Global Role’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2011), pp.144–63.

12. ‘Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy’ (note 2).

13. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), Sections 1 and 2.

14. Ibid., Section 3.

15. A Secure Europe in a Better World (note 1), p.11.

16. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), pp.4, 10.

17. Tocci, ‘The Making of the EU Global Strategy’ (note 8).

18. EUGS Review (note 6), Section 3.

19. One recent example is the European Parliamentary Research Service, The European Council and Common Security and Defence Policy (PE 581.416). Brussels: September 2016.

20. See the sources in Michael E. Smith, Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

21. Conversely, the 2015 US National Security Strategy opens with a long discussion of how the US will exercise leadership to implement it. See the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: February 2015).

22. That is, after experiencing ‘armed aggression’ under the terms of Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty.

23. Article 222 also requires solidarity in the face of a terrorist attack against an EU member state (or a natural disaster), and says the EU ‘should mobilise all the instruments at its disposal’ (including military resources) to respond to the threat.

24. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), pp.32–44.

25. Ibid., pp.23–32.

26. Wolfgang Wagner and Rosanne Anholt, ‘Resilience as the EU Global Strategy’s New Leitmotif: Pragmatic, Problematic or Promising?’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), this issue.

27. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.25.

28. The ‘original’ EU neighbours in the 2003 ENP: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Ukraine, and Tunisia.

29. Wolfgang Mühlberger and Patrick Müller, ‘The EU’s Comprehensive Approach to Security in the MENA Region: What Lessons for CSDP from Libya?’, in Laura Chappell, Jocelyn Mawdsley, and Petar Petrov (eds), The EU, Strategy, and Security Policy: Regional and Strategic Challenges (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

30. Katja Weber, Michael E. Smith, and Michael Baun (eds), Governing Europe’s Neighborhood: Partners or Periphery? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007).

31. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), pp.25–7.

32. Many of these policy sectors are also listed in the original 2003 ENP.

33. Andrea Teti, ‘The EU’s First Response to the “Arab Spring”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity’, Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2012), pp.266–84.

34. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.33.

35. Ibid., pp.28–32.

36. A Secure Europe in a Better World (note 1), p.8.

37. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), Section 3.

38. For more on this point, see the special issue of the European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2013).

39. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.44.

40. Peter F. Cowhey, ‘Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitment: Japan and the United States’, International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 2 (1993), pp.299–326.

41. EUGS Review (note 6), p.1.

42. Through EUNAVFOR Somalia; see Smith, Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy (note 20), Chapter 6.

43. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.47.

44. Article 44, which allows for coalitions of willing EU member states to undertake CSDP-related tasks on the behalf of the rest of the EU. The EU also has failed to make use of the Start-Up Fund facility (Article 41.3) to coordinate EU member state contributions to new CSDP actions.

45. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.47.

46. Smith, Europe's Common Security and Defence Policy (note 20).

47. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), pp.49–51.

48. Non-EU member states can participate in CSDP actions, but EU member states are expected to lead them, as the UK did in EUNAVFOR Somalia (and EUFOR Althea in Bosnia). See the EEAS, ‘EU Concept for Military Command and Control,’ Doc. 5008/15 (Brussels: 5 January 2015). The UK also provides one of the five national EU Operational Headquarters for CSDP military operations, along with France, Germany, Greece, and Italy.

49. On this point, see the symposium on the EEAS in the Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 20 No. 9 (2013).

50. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.50.

51. For recent summaries, see Peter Schmidt and Benjamin Zyla (eds), European Security Policy and Strategic Culture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013); and Chappell, Mawdsley, and Petrov, The EU, Strategy, and Security Policy (note 29).

52. Smith, Europe's Common Security and Defence Policy (note 20), Chapter 3.

53. France's Operation Serval in Mali (followed by Operation Barkhane) was supported by CSDP flanking measures (capacity-building and training); it took just days to organise while EUFOR RCA, the most recent CSDP military peacekeeping operation, required months of difficult debates over force generation.

54. Javier Solana, ‘The EU’s Bold New Strategy’, Project Syndicate, 21 July 2016.

55. Liliana Botcheva and Lisa L. Martin, ‘Institutional Effects on State Behavior: Convergence and Divergence’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2001), pp.1–26.

56. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (London: Little, Brown, 1977).

57. European External Action Service, European Global Strategy (note 5), p.17.

Additional information

Funding

The author was funded for five years (2008–2013) by the European Research Council [grant number 203613] and is currently funded through a consortium for three years (2015–2018) by the Horizon 2020 programme of the EU [grant number 653227].