"The Limits of Convergence: EPC in Crises"

Hill, Christopher. (1991) "The Limits of Convergence: EPC in Crises". In: UNSPECIFIED, Fairfax, Virginia. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[From the Introduction]. As the twentieth century moves to its close the peoples of Europe, satiated by collective violence and perhaps anxious to distinguish themselves psychologically from the United States, seem determined to feel badly about any war they beome involved in. No matter that in the recent conflicts over the Falklands and Kuwait the outcome was swift and relatively painless (for the victors), and that the causes being fought for were more obviously just and more clear-cut in their character than in many past disputes, when outpouring of nationalistic self-righteousness were commonplace. Certainly a major side-effect of the Gulf War has been a crisis of conscience over the purposes and effectiveness of Europe's would-be foreign policy, understandably given that the low profile of European Political Cooperation (EPC) in the crisis contrasted uncomfortably with the ambitious proposals launched during the Italian Presidency of the Community in the second half af 1989 and intended to shape the outcome of the imminent Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union. The failure of EPC to whip (in the British Parliamentary sense) memberstates into line during the pre-war diplomacy, and the consequent loss of initiative to the United States over coalition policy, and to the Soviet union over efforts at conflict resolution, seemed to have demonstrated conclusively the finite limits of convergence for the national foreign policies of western Europe

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