A common foreign and security policy for the EU, a bright future or an unachievable dream - Essay Example

Through the evolution of events and treaties leading up to the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht), The European Union (TEU) emerged in 1992 as the organization encompassing a “three pillar structure” in common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and “justice and home affairs”3. Since 1992, the goal of TEU has been “The onus . . . to develop credibility, expertise the basis for a political power of its own 4.” While it is the combination of the three prong structure that comprises TEU, and without the third prong of “justice and home affairs,” certainly it would be difficult if not impossible for the first two to be pursued; it nonetheless is the first two, or CFSP, that this paper concerns itself with.

As would be expected, the coming together of cultural and political forces which combine to form the EU result in dynamic policy making decisions with respect to CFSP. It is imperative to remember that the council members who sit on the EU come from individual countries with sovereign governing bodies within each of the separate member countries5. Yet the members elected to the EU are attempting to make policy with respect to a “community” of nation-states that have defined borders and a common interest in defense of those borders, while the interests of the countries independently may be very different6.

It would be impossible to make progress if the scope of focus here was not limited to “. . . common policy development, and evidence of convergence, as either a prompt – or a consequence – of involvement in the EU process7.” Likewise, it becomes important to consider, too, that the EU policy cannot realistically be considered within the geographical boundaries of just the present day member countries 8. In other words, while the members states and representatives of the EU were coming together to identify issues of foreign policy and defense for themselves as a community, there were still the considerations of