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As decision-making in European foreign and security policy has remained an intergovernmental process where unanimous decision-making is the norm, this policy field seems a likely case for becoming entangled in the ‘joint-decision trap’. Nevertheless, this chapter reveals that through various mechanisms, the member states have managed to escape the trap to an extent that many analysts had not expected. Besides functional adaptation to changed external circumstances, learning from joint foreign policy experiences — particularly from the failure to address joint problems — is identified as an important mechanism. Additionally, the institutionalization of European foreign policy cooperation has facilitated the emergence of important procedural and substantive EU norms which, through elite socialisation processes, influence the outcome of policy-making. This is illustrated in the case study on the EU's military mission EUFOR RD Congo, which was successfully deployed even though key participating states like Germany and Poland have no immediate defence interests in Africa.

This chapter explores the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on EU external action, including the Common, Foreign, and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The discussion begins by considering the approach taken to external action in the Lisbon Treaty, since this is necessary for an understanding of the more detailed provisions analyzed thereafter. It examines the Treaty architecture that informs this area of EU law, the principles that govern EU external action, the main institutional actors, and the changes made that affect the EU's legal personality. The focus in the second part shifts to those aspects of EU external action that are dealt with by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). It addresses each principal head of EU external competence brought together in what is now Part Five TFEU, to outline the pre-existing Treaty provisions and then to indicate the main changes made by the Lisbon Treaty. The final part of the chapter stands back from the detail and considers broader issues of consistency, coherence, and coordination that have been of concern in this area. These issues are addressed from the perspectives of purpose, institutions, and doctrine.

Looking at the military as an organization, this chapter shows that the EU plays a modest but not inconsequential role in the integration of armed forces across Europe. The most conspicuous efforts on the part of the EU have involved capacity building, especially the creation of political–military bodies in Brussels and the launch of military operations under a twelve-star flag. The EU has also been involved in some regulation by stealth, notably through Council-driven benchmarking that have set new norms for European armed forces. Using a demand-supply framework, it is argued that EU military integration was a response by state actors to tangible organizational and symbolic challenges. Following the end of the Cold War, military planners have looked to the EU as a way to legitimize armed forces reform, while diplomats and elected national officials have pushed for EU military initiatives as a tool of European diplomacy.

This chapter discusses the innovations regarding security and defence envisaged under the EU Constitutional Treaty. It examines the fundamental context of the envisaged Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It also focuses on the three main aspects of the new policy, namely, crisis management, armaments policy, and collective defence.

This chapter analyses how the shortcomings of traditional EU governance in the field of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) have forced the Union to experiment with new governance methods, such as ‘EU capacity goals’ and joint evaluations of Member States’ fulfilment of EU resource criteria. The chapter examines why, how, and with what consequences external partners and bodies are influenced by and affect the new governance architecture in CSDP. It investigates the extension of this governance architecture to NATO through the close relationship between CSDP and NATO in the capacity build-up, and to many EU non-member states which are influenced by the EU’s military battle groups. The chapter also examines the extension that is due to the CSDP’s role as a model for other regional crisis management systems such as that of the African Union.

The field of foreign and security policy reveals the uneven impact of Franco-German bilateralism. The two countries successfully promoted treaty reforms to make foreign, security, and defense policy part of the EC/EU’s remit through establishing a European foreign and security policy regime. They found common ground for instruments for military and civilian crisis management and actively participated in international crisis management activities in the framework of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). However, it was Franco-British leadership, backed by Germany, that led to the establishment of the ESDP in 1999. And Paris and Berlin could not provide strong leadership during a number of post-Cold War international crises: the violent break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the Iraq War in 2003, or the civil war in Libya in 2011. Differences in foreign policy traditions, in geopolitically defined interests, and in strategic cultures and military resources explain France and Germany’s limited impact in shaping this domain of European affairs.

This chapter examines the EU’s development of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It first looks at how European states reacted to mechanisms proposed in the League of Nations and the United Nations charters to deal collectively, using force if necessary, with breaches of charter norms. It then explains how the EU as a multilateral institution has developed since the end of the Cold War. The chapter concludes with some observations on the possible implications of this shift towards what has been called the militarization of the EU, and the interaction between this change and the new post-Cold War global discourse on the broadening of security.

This chapter offers a brief introduction to accountability in the context of the EU’s peacebuilding activities. It first sketches out the institutional and operational scope of EU civilian crisis management (ie peacebuilding activities under the CSDP) and then unveils the central problématique of the book, namely that EU peacebuilding realities no longer correspond to the codified intergovernmental blueprint, so that missions take place in a Europeanized set-up. This de jure–de facto discrepancy, in turn, raises governance issues. From here, the chapter shows, based on insights from peacebuilding practice, that dysfunctional accountability arrangements are not an isolated phenomenon but constitute a common thread across EU civilian crisis management. It argues that the intricate Europeanized governance set-up of civilian CSDP facilitates an accountability deficit. Prior to outlining the structure of the book, the chapter explains how this interdisciplinary study of accountability in civilian CSDP enriches the existing corpus of academic literature.

Since the end of the cold war, Austria and Switzerland have maintained their status of neutrality, but reinterpreted their neutrality policy in pragmatic yet different ways. Both, however, joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative at an early stage. Within the EU and PfP, Austria focused on armed forces interoperability, whereas Switzerland increased its formerly very low contribution to international peace missions. Both alpine republics conducted three major reforms of their armed forces, which entailed a substantial downsizing of overall mobilization strength and weaponry, while maintaining territorial defence as the core mission. Austria and Switzerland both aim at slightly increasing defence expenditures up to the early 2020s as a consequence of widely increased threat perception (owing to mass migration, Islamist terrorism, and a reasserting Russia), yet they will still find it difficult to replace their rapidly ageing main weapons systems. Troop contributions to international operations are likely to remain at at the 2017 levels.

The Treaty of Lisbon has reinforced the role of the European Parliament (EP), strengthening both the supranational and parliamentary elements of the EU. At the same time, the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) maintain a predominantly intergovernmental nature—dominated by the European Council, the Council, and national governments, and scrutinized by national parliaments (NPs). Against this backdrop, the question arises whether the post-Lisbon environment has seen a stronger role for parliaments in EU external action. This chapter examines potential variations of parliamentary involvement, not only in CFSP but in other areas of EU external action. It begins by outlining the idea of a multilevel parliamentary field, which encompasses parliamentary action, interaction, and cooperation. It then shows the various forms of involvement of the EP and NPs as ‘constitutive units’ in three different segments of EU external action: CFSP/CSDP, trade policy, and human rights. The chapter concludes that while the EP and NPs could be deemed ‘resigned’ in view of their formal competences in CSDP/CSDP, human rights and trade, they have been—with variations among parliaments—active in the respective fields and actually show signs of resilience.

European Union foreign and security policy cooperation has expanded since 1992 through the use of pragmatic and informal working methods. This informal approach faced a series of major challenges after 2003, when the EU began to undertake foreign security assistance operations under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Within the space of just a few years, the Union found itself organizing a range of complex CSDP operations involving police forces, rule of law tasks, border monitoring, peace monitoring, and, in some cases, the projection of air, land, and naval forces into conflict zones. This chapter seeks to make sense of these developments and in so doing arrive at a more general theoretical argument regarding the relationship between experiential learning and the new intergovernmentalism.

Chapter 6 illustrates the dynamic engagement of the European Union (EU) in Bosnia since 2002 with the launch of several initiatives: the EU Special Representative (EUSR), the EU Police Mission (EUPM) and a military mission (EUFOR Althea). The EUSR has clearly helped improve the coherence of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) thanks to the establishment of numerous forums for coordination. The position has also increased the visibility of CFSP activities, but only partially its effectiveness. However, similarly to other peacebuilding ventures, the EU confronts in Bosnia the problem of how to promote reforms while ensuring local ownership and the sustainability of reforms. As for the EUPM, it suffered greatly from the EU’s inexperience in civilian crisis management which led to problems with the design of its mandate. Institutional and local politics also affected the mission. Finally, EUFOR Althea has presented high degrees of effectiveness. What is revealing from this third period is the high degree of consensus among the member states vis-�-vis EU policy towards Bosnia, which has facilitated the Europeanisation of the country. There was also an increased consensus concerning the need to use civilian and military instruments.

The defence policy of the Netherlands and Belgium has changed substantially following the end of the cold war. Both countries suspended conscription early on and actively participated in many (UN) peacekeeping missions. Both countries also experienced traumatic events that influenced their defence policy: in Ruanda for the Belgians in 1994 and in Bosnia (Srebrenica) for the Dutch (1995). Drastic budget cuts and the integration of the new, but small, professional armies within new NATO and EU defence structures (CSDP and NRF) are also themes with which both countries struggled. Both countries embraced pooling and sharing and cultivated European defence cooperation, especially within Benelux but also with Germany, the UK, and increasingly with other partners. Simultaneously they also attached much value to their ties with the USA. The Dutch furthermore attach great importance to the development of the international legal order and the safeguarding of the flow of trade by sea.