History of EU Diplomacy and European Integration - Article Example

History of EU diplomacy and European integration The diplomatic situation of the EU does not mean that foreign policy of the EU member states remains equal (Mastny, 2002). In certain situations, member states have adopted foreign policy stances which have been counter to the ideas of the EU in which the most immediate example is the US led War on Terror (Keukeleire, 2003). Another situation was the economic relations that were to be maintained with Korea (Anderson, 2001). A further example is the stance taken by Germany on Kosovo which ran counter to the other members of the EU (Cordell, 2000). In fact, since the Schuman Plan was put into action, there have been issues in terms of diplomacy which the EU as well as the member states of the EU continually worked to resolution. As described by Morgenthau (1946) presenting a united diplomatic front for a group of nations is never easy since the objectives of the nations may be quite different as seen in the failed experiment of the League of Nations. The diplomatic integration of EU find its roots in European integration which in turn is based on the many different plans and programmes that had been initiated by various officials, political thinkers and rulers in the region. Coupland (2002) acts as a historian to credit historically significant kings such as the honoured Charlemagne as having given an idea of a united Europe in medieval times. In more recent terms, it was Robert Schuman who first came up with the plan to unite the French and West German coal and steel production that became the first step towards integration and the creation of the entity known today as the European Union (Fontaine, 2000). Diebold (1959) notes that Schuman essentially went rouge since he was, “a foreign minister who took a major foreign policy initiative with little or no consultation with his own ministry (Diebold, 1959, pg. 8)”. Even though the French knew that something had to be done about Germany’s position in Europe, few within the government had any answers. The plan given in 1945 by Monnet gave control of German coal production to France since the French economy needed the help. The other allies did not object to it since they essentially had some semblance of a common foreign policy taking shape. However, this situation also considerably hurt the German agenda (Hitchcock, 1997). A continuation of this situation may have brought Germany to the same point as it had come to in the aftermath of the First World War. In essence, Schuman’s foresight “set in train a completely new process in international relations (Fontaine, 2000, Pg. 1)”. The new process unified the economic interests of countries formerly at war (Diebold, 1959). Schuman seems to have understood that with the unification of economic interests, unification in terms of social and political interests becomes inevitable with time. This is also used as the basic fundamental of unifying European trade diplomacy by Heron (2007). This unification also extends to diplomatic relations but they are complicated by the fact that the EU has to play a role both as a diplomatic actor to prevent and resolve disputes between member states as well as the issues that the EU body may have with states around the world. Undoubtedly, the member states maintain their embassies and their consulates at various locations around the world but just as the member states, the embassies are bound by EU law and EU dictates. In certain situations, member countries are allowed to make their own decisions but in others, the decisions of the EU take precedence. This comes as a result of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) that was created by the decision made by member states to join each other in European Political Cooperation (EPC) in 1970. From an informal process of foreign ministers consulting each other on foreign policy, the CFSP has the aim of getting member states to come to unanimous decisions regarding foreign policy matters which deal with Europe as a single entity (Bruter, 1999). The CFSP was created as a pillar of the European Union and signed on 7th February, 1992 and came into play on 1st November 1993. It was the essential diplomatic result of the Treaty on European Union which is informally known as the Maastricht Treaty. The role of the foreign policy adopted by the EU and the exact nature of its formation was further developed with the Amsterdam Treaty that became effective in 1999. The treaty created the position of a High Representative for EU regarding the foreign policy of the region. Of course the EU still lacked the plans for a common defence of the region but with the presence of a representative, the EU was now able to increase the number of its embassies and appoint more ambassadors around the world for diplomatic situations (Bruter, 1999). As described by Bruter (1999) the European Commission also maintains an external service composed of delegations, permanent representatives and its own offices in many non-member countries. While other bodies such as the United Nations, UNHCR, WHO and other also have such commissions, the EU commissions are unique since they do not represent a state, an international body or even a super-state. Their unique position puts them in a diplomatic grey area even though they are given the status of embassies by the Vienna Convention of 1961. This has complicated the situation to a point where the idea of diplomacy itself is being questioned by analysts such as Bátora (2005) who writes that, “ In the context of the EU, established modes of association of diplomacy with sovereign states have become ambiguous and hence the character of diplomacy as an institution is challenged (Bátora, 2005, Pg. 44)”. At the same time, since one of the prime objectives of the EU is greater integration of member states, the diplomatic stances as well as the viewpoint taken on diplomacy to achieve certain goals has to be unified. The idea of having a unified diplomatic front can only be materialised if the same principles are used which led to greater European integration in the first place. That is to say that the diplomatic decisions and rulings made in Brussels have to hold more power than the diplomatic decisions that are made by member states themselves (Hain, 2003). In fact, this is the basic idea that gives Europe the legitimacy to act as the diplomatic representative of all member countries and not remain an organisation which has little international standing where member states can act on their own. Locally, the European Parliament can make binding decisions much as the European Coal and Steel Community could make decisions for the nations of Germany, France and Belgium in 1951 as described by Diebold (1959). Internationally, the diplomatic face of the EU remains divided into its member states that can make decisions based on the international situations they face (Keukeleire, 2003). When it comes to diplomatic objectives that the EU holds, the Schuman Plan can be referred to since the objectives of EU diplomacy are not very different from what was outlined for Europe in the plan itself. The diplomatic decisions are based on how they improve the living standards of citizens in member countries, the improvement of peaceful achievements and the elimination of decisions leading to war (Fontaine, 2000). However, as the past has shown, the path to a common diplomatic policy of the European Union will certainly not be an easy one since the path to a common market and even the creation of the European Union took a lot of time and tremendous effort on the part of all those who wanted to see a united continent. Word Count: 1,538 Works Cited Anderson, S. 2001, ‘The Changing Nature of Diplomacy: The European Union, the CFSP and Korea’, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 465-482. Bátora, J. 2005, ‘Does the European Union transform the institution of diplomacy?’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 44-66. 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Keukeleire, S. 2003, ‘The European union as a diplomatic actor: internal, traditional, and structural diplomacy’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 31-56. Mastny, V. 2002, ‘Diplomacy and the Legacy of the Cold War: Post-11 September’, Cold War History, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 15-28. Morgenthau, H. 1946, ‘Diplomacy’, The Yale Law Journal, vol. 55, no. 5 pp. 1067-1080. Read More