European realism in the EU's common foreign and security policy

Abstract

Many authors analyse EU foreign policy in the post-Lisbon era as following a one-dimensional (stop-and-go) spill-over logic. European foreign policy is assumed to become, sooner or later, a truly supranational policy with broad competences held by the Commission and the European Parliament. This chapter proposes the idea that such expectations are misguided. European foreign policy does not follow the logic of ever-closer integration but is better understood as an intergovernmental opportunity structure for uploading national policies, for institutional forum-shopping and for strategically using the EU's political resources for national interests. The theoretical literature on the EU's foreign policies is in need of putting more emphasis on the interaction between the CFSP institutions and individual Member State policies. Realism is the proper candidate for theoretical guidance. Recent attempts to apply realism to the EU have used either an offensive or a defensive variant, speculated about the re-emergence of the unified Germany as a European hegemon (Mearsheimer, Int Secur 15(4):5-56, 1990) or explained why exactly this is unlikely to happen (Grieco, Br J Politics Int Relat 11(2):192-204, 2009). This project develops an innovative theoretical approach, which combines classical Realism with multi-level analysis. It explains both the fragmented institutional structure in European foreign policy-making. This chapter analyses the decision-making processes that underpin Europe's foreign policy in the 'post-Lisbon era'. It is built on the idea that European foreign policy should be understood as a fragmented intergovernmental opportunity structure.