EU foreign policy co-operation: A millstone or a multiplier for the UK? By Ian Bond Submitted to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee Inquiry on the costs and benefits of EU membership for the UK’s role in the world
By participating actively in EU foreign policy co-operation, the UK can get 27 other countries to take co-ordinated actions aligned with British aims. It could achieve even more if it invested more political and human resources in working with EU partners on foreign policy issues. If the UK left the EU, it would gain some freedom of manoeuvre, but at the cost of policy impact. Since the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in 1992, the UK has been one of the most active memberstates in launching European foreign policy initiatives. Successive British governments have clearly seen CFSP as a tool which helps them to achieve national foreign policy goals, beyond what the UK can accomplish on its own. Were these governments right, or does CFSP get in the way of the UK pursuing its national interests? The best way to answer this question is to use the FCO’s published ‘Purpose’ and ‘Priority Outcomes’ for 2014-2015; and to compare them with EU documents on the Union’s foreign policy aims, including the annual report to the European Parliament by the EU’s high representative for CFSP, Federica Mogherini. The EU does not set out
its priorities and objectives in the same format as the FCO, but it is easy to see where the UK and EU are trying to achieve similar results. This submission looks at a few examples of how UK and EU activities interact, and recommends ways in which the UK can ensure that European foreign policy co-operation contributes as much as possible to UK national objectives. One of the FCO’s stated purposes is to “deliver more effective and modernised international institutions, particularly the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the European Union, the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe”. Taking the UN and the OSCE as examples, how do UK and EU aims in these organisations relate to each other?
The UK and the EU at the UN In relation to the UN, it is important to remember that EU foreign policy is decided by unanimity. The UK is only ever obliged to promote EU policies to which it has already agreed, therefore. Moreover, the Treaty on European Union recognises that while member-states who are members of the UN Security Council should defend the
positions and the interests of the Union, they have to do so without prejudice to their UN Charter responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Apart from any foreign policy goals it pursues through the UN, Britain’s aims for the organisation include
EU foreign policy co-operation: A millstone or a multiplier for the UK? October 2015
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