"The Management of the EU's External Relations: A Case of Overstretch?"

Rees, Nicholas. (1995) "The Management of the EU's External Relations: A Case of Overstretch?". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1995 (4th), May 11-14, 1995, pages 17, Charleston, South Carolina.

Abstract

This paper sets out to trace and examine how the Commission and the Council manage the CFSP, both on a daily basis and in crisis situations. A number of studies have focused on the CFSP in practice over the last eighteen months, particularly in relation to joint actions towards South Africa and Yugoslavia, however, less consideration has been given to looking at the management of the CFSP by the Union's institutions. This paper seeks to look at how the EU has managed to meet the new challenges made on it by the adoption of a single decision-making system and how it has utilised that system to meet the demands being made on it by states, regional and international organisations, as well as by events occurring in the international system. How has it coped with these demands, has it been largely reactlye towards them or has it developed the capability to formulate longer term policy in relation to EU objectives? The paper proceeds by first looking at Title V and the provisions for a CFSP and then focuses on those provisions relating to the management of the EU's external relations, and the division of responsibilities between the institutions: the Commission, Abstracts Council and European Parliament. The following section focuses on what has happened in practice, how the Community's external relations have been managed over the last eighteen months, what problems have arisen and how they have been resolved in the context of the Maastricht Treaty. In particular, the Union's actions towards South Africa and the former Yugoslavia are examined, as examples of how the EU has managed its external relations.