"The CFSP at Maastricht: Old friend or new enemy?"

Nuttall, Simon. (1997) "The CFSP at Maastricht: Old friend or new enemy?". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1997 (5th), May 29-June 1, 1997, pages 7, Seattle, WA.

Abstract

Is the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) which has developed from the Maastricht Treaty (TEU) an old friend or a new enemy? Does it merely carry forward the procedures and ethos of European Political Cooperation (EPC)--an old friend, predictable in its functioning and threatening no interests--or is it so interwoven with Community procedures that it alarms both the neo-Gaullists, determined to keep foreign policy intergovernmental, and the integrationists, equally determined to safeguard Community procedures? Is it the new enemy of both orthodoxies? This paper describes the features that made EPC work, and the drawbacks to that process. It suggests that the negative features of EPC persist in the post-Maastricht period, while the positive ones are being eroded. It chronicles the development of "consistency" and the genesis of the Maastricht Treaty, and shows how the TEU’s inability to grasp procedural mettles has left a clear field for rival bureaucratic groups representing rival foreign policy cultures to contend for power. The old foreign policy establishment appears to be losing out in this struggle. Finally, through an examination of the concept of legitimacy, it suggests that the on-going institutional debate in the Intergovernmental Conference is ultimately sterile, and that only a reevaluation of the nature of the Union’s foreign policy can prevent the CFSP from falling victim to an argument which neither side can win.