The Foreign Policy of the EU towards the Arctics and the Western Balkans

Master’s degree in European Studies

7th semester, 2015 University of Aalborg

Anders Hulgreen Jensen Birgitte Bjerge Poulsen

Jonas Brandes Gaarsted Marco de la Rosa Jungersen

Supervisor: Søren Dosenrode

Abstract The purpose of this project is to examine the external role of the European Union, and

how EU foreign policies are developed. The project is developed based on analysis on

liberalism and realism, and by analysing the foreign policy of the EU towards two

specific units; the Western Balkan and the Arctic. The analysis of the foreign policy

of the EU towards these regions are based on each two hypothesis, one from a realist

perspective, and one from a liberal perspective. For the sake of a systematic approach,

choice has been on viewing the EU as a federation, and thus further analysing based

on this perspective. During the project, the foreign policy towards the units are being

described and analysed, by using various sources of empirical data, and theoretical

texts.

On the basis of this analysis, it is the conclusion that the EU has some sort of power,

and various instruments at its hand to exercise this power. However, the exercising of

power varies a great amount dependent on time and place.

Table of contents

1.Introduction....................................................................................................................11.1.Documentingtheproblem..............................................................................................21.2.Problemstatement............................................................................................................2

2. Methodology.....................................................................................................................32.1.Synopsis.................................................................................................................................32.2.Methodology........................................................................................................................42.3.Limitations...........................................................................................................................72.4.Researchcriteria................................................................................................................82.5.Data.........................................................................................................................................9

3. Theories.............................................................................................................................93.1.Liberalism.............................................................................................................................93.2.Realism................................................................................................................................123.3.Actorness............................................................................................................................15

4. The EU as a federation................................................................................................174.1.AnalysingforeignpolicyoftheEUasafederation...............................................204.2.LiberalismandRealism.................................................................................................20

5. The foreign policy of the EU toward the Western Balkans................................225.1.AnalysisofBalkanwitharealistperspective.........................................................225.2.AnalysisofBalkanwithaliberalistperspective...................................................265.3.Subset...................................................................................................................................30

6. The foreign policy of the EU toward the Arctic....................................................316.1.AnalysisofArcticbasedonaliberalperspective..................................................316.2.AnalysisofArcticbasedonarealistperspective..................................................346.3.Subset...................................................................................................................................37

7. EU’s actorness in the Western Balkans and the Arctic.......................................387.1.TheEUasanactor............................................................................................................387.3.Subset...................................................................................................................................43

8.Conclusion....................................................................................................................43

9. Perspective.....................................................................................................................49Bibliography......................................................................................................................53

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1.Introduction Within the past decades, the European Union (EU) has been expanding, in width and

depth, thus expansion is happening vertically and horizontally. Vertically, the EU has

gone from six member states to 28 member states with the newest member being Cro-

atia who joined in 2013. Horizontally, the EU has expanded from the Coal and Steel

Community established in 1951 to now having various policy areas such as economic

and monetary affairs, the single market, environment, social policy, foreign and secu-

rity policy, etc. (Nugent, 2010). The expanding nature of union inevitably has several

spillover effects locally, regionally and internationally. This has created a European

system in which the countries have become very interdependent, and the EU now in-

terferes in membership countries because the member states have to implement the

laws that the EU adopts.

In many ways, it can be said that the European project is one of the most advanced

regional integration projects. In economic terms, the EU accounts for around 20% of

global exports and imports, but only has 7% of the world’s population. Furthermore,

in 2014 the GDP of the EU is now bigger than the US’s (European Union, 2015a).

This means that the EU is now one the most influential economies in world, making

them an actor in economic matters. To secure its place in the world economy, the EU

has both trade negotiations at multilateral level (WTO) and at bilateral level. Moreo-

ver, the EU cooperates with governments, regions and international bodies (European

Commission, 2015c).

However, this increasing collaboration of EU level also calls for a single voice of the

EU, not only when it comes to internal policies, but also within foreign and interna-

tional issues. According to Moravcsik (Moravcsik, 2009), Europe has become the se-

cond superpower of the world. This is due to the EU’s international influence, its in-

tercontinental military powers, the continuing enlargements and neighbourhood poli-

cies, and of course due to the development of an international system in which the

great powers can increase their influence over global outcomes (ibid.).

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According to Moravcsik (2009), the EU possesses soft power due to its idealistic ide-

as. These count stability in the world; economic and social progress; open markets;

rule of law; legitimate political rule. Basically, other nations want what the EU has.

Thereby, the EU has a power of attraction. However, there are still doubts whether the

EU is able to transfer these values to a global scale. Due to this growing role of the

EU, and due to the growth of global security issues, time has come for the EU to

strengthen its voice in international engagements. However, it seems that the EU is

still hesitant on the matter, despite the fact that issues and trends in its own neigh-

bourhood are calling for attention. This leads to the interest of this project, which is to

examine the foreign policy of the EU towards the Arctic and the Western Balkans.

1.1. Documenting the problem

Based on the introduction, the focus of this project will be on the foreign affairs of the

EU, and to analyse the actorness of the EU when it comes to foreign matters.

The EU is currently striving for, and seeking to develop a common and consistent for-

eign security policy. However, it has been difficult to find coherence in this process

(Gebhard, 2011). One of the reasons for this could be that the member states often

have different national interests, thus making it difficult for the EU to develop a

common foreign policy, which all member states can agree on in the Council. Some

member states might have specific priorities toward some regions because they have

close relations with them. In the territorial district of the Arctic region, Denmark and

Finland might have a bigger interest in securing the region and making a strong strat-

egy towards it, since they have strong ties to the region, whereas member states like

Greece and Spain might not have the same interest in the region. This could potential-

ly make it difficult for the member states to agree on a common strategy.

One of the more important questions in this discussion on foreign policy is how the

EU uses its power and in which areas they focus on. Thus, the question is how does

the EU use its power when it comes to foreign affairs and what might be the reason

for the union to act differently in some regions compared with others.

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1.2. Problem statement Based on the problems and interests described above, the problem statement will be:

How does the EU exercise power1 in foreign affairs?

To support the answering of this problem statement, and for the sake of a systematic

approach in the project, four supporting subsets have been made

- Analysing the nature of EU: a federation

- The foreign policy of the EU towards the Western Balkans

- The foreign policy of the EU towards the Arctic

- The actorness of the EU in the Western Balkans and the Arctic

The chosen subsets have been considered to help obtain the necessary knowledge,

leading towards an answer to the problem statement.

2. Methodology 2.1. Synopsis The project consists of nine chapters. In the first chapter, the project and the problem

statement are presented. In chapter two the comparative method and the Most Differ-

ent Systems Design (MDSD) are presented. MDSD refers to the case selection where

cases are selected due to their differences. The foreign policy of the EU has been in-

vestigated, and for this the units of the project are the Arctic region and Western Bal-

kans. Furthermore, the focus of this project is based on critical rationalism. This is

followed by chapter three within which, a presentation of the theoretical framework of

the project. This framework will be based on the international relations theories real-

ism and liberalism. First presented is Francis Fukuyama’s liberal theory. Fukuyama

argues that the liberal democracies are the strongest. He puts emphasis on peace and

democracy building to ensure stable societies because liberal democracies do not have 1Max Weber defines power as ”The probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a

position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability

rests” (Dronberger, 1971: 115). This definition has as its core actor A that tries to change the behav-

iour of actor B. There are several dimensions of power. The first dimension is scope, which is the as-

pect of B’s behaviour affected by A. Secondly, domain refers to the number or importance of other

actors subject to its influence. A third factor is the means, which refer to the means whereby an actor

can influence actor B, i.e. symbolic means, economic means, military means and/or diplomatic means

(Baldwin, 2013).

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an interest in going to war with each other. This is followed by John Mearsheimer

presented as a opponent of the realist tradition. Mearsheimer is an offensive realist

and believes in the struggle for power. He claims that the world system is anarchic

and that states want to maximize its power. Theses theories will be used to analyse the

foreign policy of the EU towards the Arctic region and the Western Balkans. In chap-

ter four, it has been the aim to determine the nature of the EU. It will be argued that

within this project, the EU is a federation. In this chapter the separation of power and

the competencies of the EU and the member states, are also addressed. In chapter five

and six, the foreign policy of the EU towards the Western Balkans and the Arctic re-

gion is analysed. In each section, a hypothesis is developed, which is based on the

previously mentioned theories. This is in accordance with the deductive reasoning

which argues that you propose a hypothesis based on the theory. The last part of the

analysis, chapter seven, there is a focus on the actorness of the EU, and it is suggested

that there should be four requirements to evaluate the actorness of the EU. These re-

quirements are generated from a discussion on three different authors. This will then

lead to chapter eight, which holds the conclusion of the project, in which a broad dis-

cussion on the actorness of the EU will be made. This I followed by chapter nine

where a perspective to the topic is made.

2.2. Methodology The aim of this project is to compare the foreign policy of the European Union to-

wards the Arctic region and the Western Balkans2. It should be noted that the aim is

not to compare the units, i.e. the Arctic region and the Balkans, which are two differ-

ent units. However, the aim is to analyse and compare the foreign policy of the EU

towards the Arctic and Western Balkans. The aim of the project is to analyse how the

EU exercise its foreign policy towards the Arctic and the Balkans. Therefore, the nec-

essary distinction is between units and cases. A classical case study consists of de-

tailed and intensive analysis of a single case. However, within this project, a compara-

tive case analysis has been the method of choice. By using a comparative case study,

it enables a deeper understanding of the issue which the project revolves around.

Comparative case study is an advantage to use, when dealing with complex and multi-

faceted issues. Comparative case study improves theory building, as when comparing

2 Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia together with Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro. Though Croa-

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two or more cases, the researcher is forced to look at the problem from various angles

(Bryman, 2012).

Gerring argues that “a country may function as a case, a unit, a population, or a case

study” (2004: 342), as long as one argues for what reason the cases and units will be

used. To answer the research question, a comparative method is used, as described by

Dickovick & Eastwood, a ”method that reaches its conclusions about cause and effect

through structured and systemic comparing and contrasting of cases” (2016: 14).

Furthermore, they argue that ”if we compare or contrast two or more cases in order to

make a causal argument, we will be looking for similarities and differences between

the cases” (ibid.: 15). This implies that the researcher needs to compare and analyse

the cases in relation to each other systematically, in order for conclusions to be made.

These conclusions will show the similarities and differences and then it will be the job

of the researchers to look for variation between the cases of study. Moreover, this

comparison will be a qualitative study with two cases, i.e. a small-N study (Hague &

Harrop, 2013).

In this project, we will use the Most Different Systems Design (MDSD), which goes

back to John Stuart Mill’s classic study System of Logic from 1872, in which he dis-

tinguished between the most similar systems design and the most different systems

design (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). According to this logic, cases are selected on the

basis of their differences (Dickovick & Eastwood, 2016). MDSD cases are, however,

similar in two ways: the causal variable of interest (X) and the outcome (Y) (Sea-

wright & Gerring, 2008). In this project, the dependent variable (Y) is the foreign pol-

icy of the EU, thus both units, the Arctic and the Balkans, are subjects of the foreign

policy of the EU, and at the same time the independent variable(s) (X) are held con-

stant due to fact that it is the EU which is under investigation. The units differ, e.g. the

population, geography, demography. The Arctic region is a huge territory divided be-

tween several nations, and with a high amount of natural resources, Balkan is an area

of sovereign states with fixed borders. Geographically, they are very different as well;

the Arctic is located in the North of the Arctic Circle, whereas Balkan is located in

South-East Europe. Another difference between the Arctic and Balkan is regarding

the size of the population and the composition of the population. The Balkan states

have various ethnic groups, languages and religions and more than 20 millions inhab-

itants (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015), whereas there are only living about four

million people in the Arctic (Koivurova, Tervo, & Stepien, 2008). The Arctic region

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is covering 13.4 million square kilometres of land, which means that the region is

sparsely populated (ibid.). There are also several other local factors that should be

taken into account, such as GDP, democratic traditions, values, history, etc. also count

when comparing the two regions. However, there are several reasons as to why these

regions are useful for a study of the EU foreign policy, despite the differences. One

argument is that the Balkan countries might become members of the EU within some

years. Albania, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Ser-

bia are all candidate countries (European Union, 2015). It is interesting to investigate

what the EU does towards a region that is so close to become integrated into the EU.

We have an Arctic region which is not in the immediate neighbourhood, and for

which, a membership probably will not be in question, even though Denmark, Finland

and Sweden are members of the EU and the Arctic Council. The EU is in a situation

where it needs to relate to both of these foreign regions and thus it is interesting to

analyse how the EU, if it does, differentiates it foreign policy towards these two dif-

ferent regions.

Through this project, it is the aim to follow a deductive reasoning, which implies

working from an existing theory towards a more specific. In this project, theories of

realism and liberalism are used. From these theories, a hypothesis was developed

which was then tested systematically through data. This is in line with the overall

thinking of the comparative method, as mentioned above, that seeks to compare the

cases under investigation systematically. After the analysis, one can either confirm or

disconfirm the hypotheses. The reasoning to approach this question deductively is

that, when choosing to compare two cases, one have in fact thought about cases and

the differences and similarities which may or may not be. These thoughts will eventu-

ally lead to a hypotheses which can be tested and thus confirmed or disconfirmed

(Klemmesen, Andersen, & Hansen, 2012: 27). Gerring argues that “what one finds is

contingent upon what one looks for, and what one looks for is to some extent contin-

gent upon what one expects to find” (2004: 351). Therefore, the researcher has an

idea of what to expect to find in the cases. These ideas could lead to a more broad dis-

cussion about philosophy of science. In his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery

(1968), Karl Popper rejects the logic of induction because one has to draw universal

statements about reality (Popper, 1968). Furthermore, he argues that theories are nev-

er empirically verifiable, but the criterion of demarcation is a system of falsifiability

7

(ibid.) Thus, this means that one wishes to falsify the theory under investigation and

that a “pure” observation does not exist (Holm, 2012). This implies that when we ana-

lyse our data we already have an idea of what we are looking for. However, one criti-

cism is that we might overlook an important aspect in our data because we might only

be looking for one or two particular aspects. Though, as noted by Savolainen, “the

goal of case-oriented research is to explain particular outcomes” and “the cases un-

der study are considered important in their own right” (1994: 1219), which means

that if we only study one or two particular characteristics of EU’s foreign policy, it is

acceptable because this has its own right.

2.3. Limitations A limitation to the study is that the comparative method only deals with a glimpse of

reality, one reason being the number of cases. If instead several cases had been used,

other conclusion might have been found. Moreover, one could have chosen to use a

statistical method, and thus made a quantitative study instead. However, due to avail-

ability, interests, etc. choice was made upon the described units. Another criticism

which can be made towards the comparative method, is that to what extent these cases

are comparable; which conditions are required to make any comparison meaningful,

and in the worst case this which would lead to asymmetrical comparison (Azarian

2011: 121). The comparative method is also criticised for not being able to give uni-

versal and valid generalizations, and that the researchers tend to have too many varia-

bles and not enough cases (Lijphart, 1971; 1975). Hague & Harrop propose four fac-

tors that make comparison difficult: 1) the same phenomenon can mean different

things in different countries, 2) globalization means that countries cannot be regard-

ed as independent of each other, 3) any pair of countries will differ in many ways, and

4) the countries selected for study are often an unrepresentative sample. Regarding

point number two, it will be interesting to see if the EU’s various foreign policy tools

are interdependent due to the different policy areas the EU can use, e.g. trade, securi-

ty, external dimension of internal policies, etc. Regarding number three, the cases in-

vestigated here are not the countries themselves, but the EU’s foreign policy; still tak-

ing into consideration that this may also differ in many ways. A limitation in this pro-

ject is that we do not focus on economic relations. Rather our focus is on democracy

and security.

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2.4. Research criteria There are three criteria to good research, 1) replication, 2) reliability, and 3) validity.

First of all, ”replication refers to researchers conducting a repeated study of a project

that typically has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or book” (Firmin, 2008:

755). In other words, the question is whether other researchers can replicate the study.

Therefore, it is important to be explicit about which steps that have been taken and

which sources have been used to reach the conclusions, because otherwise other

scholars will not be able to replicate the study. This has been made visible through the

list of references so other researchers will be able to find and read directly from the

sources. Hence, others would be able to do similar research, though keeping in mind

that, ”all research is context specific” (ibid.). This is in line with Gerring’s argument

(2004: 351) “what one finds is contingent upon what one looks for”, this is certainly

right, because every researcher might look for different things according to the con-

text.

“Reliability is about being confident that the way data were gathered could be repeat-

ed without the methods themselves producing different results” (Payne & Payne,

2004: 196). Other researchers also work with reliability as credibility. Finding out

whether the work is credible, includes that he researcher has to put forward how the

research was carried out, which also should contribute to eliminating serious incon-

sistencies (ibid.: 198).

Validity refers to the measurement of the data. Hammersley argues “any measurement

that is not reliable cannot be valid, on the grounds that, if its results are inconsistent,

the measurements it produces cannot be consistently valid” (2008: 43). This implies

that the criteria are interconnected and not all can be in place 100% in every research.

Another area concerning the validity is the generalizability of the findings. As dis-

cussed above, this might become a problem in this kind of research because difficul-

ties exists when comparing, as the chosen cases may not be representative. Hence, the

external validity can be problematic in a project like this, though, as Firmin mentions,

qualitative research possesses external validity, and question is just to what extend

and how much (2008: 757). This means that the validity could turn out to be a prob-

lem in this case. However, we have chosen these cases because they represent two

different aspects of EU’s foreign policy. The fact that the EU possesses various as-

pects in its foreign policy, e.g. trade, association agreements, CFSP/CSDP and the

external dimension of internal policies, means that it could be difficult to generalize

9

the conclusions due these various aspects.

2.5. Data Throughout this project, various documents have been used, which are published both

by the European Union and by scholars. The documents from the EU should be highly

credible, due to fact that the EU must be considered to publish somewhat highly relia-

ble data. The empirical material should thus be close to free from error (Bryman,

2012). However, the data is also a reflexion of the values of the EU, and thus not en-

tirely free of bias. Some of the primary empirical data are found at the EU’s numerous

websites, e.g. draft conclusions from EU meetings and mandates, which the Council

gives to a mission. Moreover, information from the EU’s webpages have been used

for information finding.

This information helped give an overview of what the EU does and how they act in

different regions. Other than the sources gathered from the EU, the research has been

done based on articles published in journals. These articles represent the belief and

meanings of the author. Thus, it has been an aim to remain ritical about the infor-

mation published in these. It can therefore be argued that other scholars could use the

same material and reach the same results, thus given the material a high reliability

(Bryman, 2012).

3. Theories In this section, the theories which are used through the project are described. The fo-

cus is on the international relations theories realism and liberalism. The main focus

will be on Francis Fukuyama’s liberal theory and John Mearsheimer’s offensive real-

ism.

3.1. Liberalism

In this part, the liberal theory of international relations will be explained. Francis Fu-

kuyama’s theory of liberalism and international relations is the theory of choice for

this project, and thus the main focus. This theory will be used to analyse the two cases

and to help explaining one of the reasons why the EU has chosen this specific strategy

towards these two regions.

The fundamental idea in liberalism is that humans in nature are rational actors, who

have the pursuit of happiness and personal liberty as a primary goal. Moral freedom is

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very important to liberals, which means that it is important that people are treated

equally and not treated as objects (Doyle, 2012: 54-55).

The basic ideas of contemporary liberal theory of international relations were estab-

lished in the eighteenth and nineteenth century with a focus on how to prevent inter-

national conflict. Liberals believed that humans had no interest in war and the losses

that follows. The liberals believe that promoting good relations between the states and

common order in the international system could create peace and prevent war. Liber-

als believed that conflict could be prevented; by respecting international law and

building strong international institutions, with the ability to create balance in the in-

ternational order and the authority promote peace and security (Steans & Pettiford,

2005: 21-30).

The liberals believe that a peaceful world could be established through the spread of

democracy, free trade and international negotiations. Liberals argue that the best way

to establish good international relations is through cooperation. Moreover, many lib-

erals also believe that democracies would not go to war with each other. Therefore the

spread of democracy and free trade the most important components in securing peace.

The theory argues that the states are not considered actors themselves, but as repre-

sentatives of the dominant group in the society. Liberal states, founded on individual

rights such as equality before the law, civil liberty and free speech and representative

government, would not have any interest in war and conflict (Burchill, 2013: 60-62).

Fukuyama’s theory is presented in his article The End of History from 1989. After the

end of the cold war and the spread of peace to many regions of the world, Fukuyama

claimed that we were witnessing a new era in world history in which peace and liber-

alism would spread throughout the world and make the world more peaceful. These

ideas led to a flood of articles describing this perspective of the world (Fukuyama,

1989).

Fukuyama partly agreed with them, but believed that they only had a vague sense of

the larger process we were witnessing, a process that gave order and coherence in the

world. He argued that the twentieth century had been filled with ideological violence,

where liberalism first contended absolutism, then bolshevism, fascism and lastly

communism. Fukuyama believed that the end of the cold war showed that political

and economic liberalism was the most consistent ideology and had prevailed as the

11

victor. He argued that the triumph of the Western idea showed that there are no viable

alternatives to liberal ideology in the long run (Fukuyama, 1989).

Fukuyama agued that we were not only witnessing the end of the cold war, but in fact

the end of history. By “The End of the History” he meant that mankind had reached a

point where the evolution of ideology was over. Hence, Western liberal democracy

was the unmatched and final form of human government. He meant that there were

powerful reasons for believing that liberalism was going to govern the world in the

future. Moreover, he argues that over time Western liberal democracy and the univer-

sal right of freedom for mankind are the end of the evolution of ideology and it cannot

be improved. Therefor, it is the end of history and the struggle of ideologies (Fuku-

yama, 1989).

However, he also stated that the world would not be completely peaceful due to the

existence of illiberal countries around the globe. Thus, the Western liberal democracy

is here to stay, but it has not fully developed in all countries (ibid.).

Fukuyama also believed that the end of history and the struggle of ideologies would

have effects on international relations. Fukuyama is an anarchic-idealist, and he be-

lieves that international trade and liberal markets would scale down the major conflict

between the major states. He believed that the world was moving towards a Common

Marketization of world politics and international relations. This would decrease the

possibility of large-scale conflicts between states. Hence, the establishment of com-

mon markets and the liberalization of the economies would stop expansionism and

decrease the incitement for conflict (ibid.).

However, Fukuyama still believes that this would not be the end of international con-

flict because the world would still be divided in two; those who have reached the end

of history and those who have not reached it yet, which would lead to a potential con-

flict. He believed that the ethnic and nationalist conflicts the world had experienced

would not be over, which could lead to an increase in terrorism (ibid.).

In summery, Fukuyama believes that the end of the cold war demonstrated that the

Western liberal democracy has no ideological competitor and that it is the end of the

ideological evolution. Democracy and freedom is the final stage of human govern-

ment and it cannot be improved. Consequently, the end of the cold war is also the end

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of history. He predicts that the Western lifestyle will spread across the world because

the liberal democracy creates an ideal that the rest of the world would like to follow.

Furthermore, he believes that the spread of the Western liberal democracy will in time

eliminate most of the major international conflicts and that liberal democracies would

have the same interests and that the establishment of a common market would pacify

relations between them. Thus, the best way to stabilise international relations would

be through the spread of Western liberal democracy because liberal democracies

should have much less incentive for war an conflict (Burchill, 2013: 57-59).

The reason of choice for Fukuyama is that he is considered one of the

predominant thinkers within the liberal paradigme in international relations.

Moreover, the theories which are developed by Fukuyama are believed to be highly

applicabable in the analysis of EU development processes. Fukuyama’s theories are

considered to obtain some of the core liberal ideas, and can thus be seen as an arch

example of the line of school (Burchill, 2013).

One of the critics of liberalism is John Mearsheimer. In his article The False

Promise of International Institutions (1995) he argues that institutions have minimal

influence on states behaviour and therefore have no ability in promoting stability in

the world and that the theory has little support in the historical records. His critique

mainly focuses on institutions, and he believes that they do not help to prevent war.

Mearsheimer argues that the liberal theories do not accurately explain how the world

really is and policies based on them are bound to fail. He believes that the internation-

al system is strongly shaped by the behaviour of the states and that the states are the

most important players in the international system. Thus, reliance on institutional so-

lutions is likely to create more failures in the future (Mearsheimer, 1995).

3.2. Realism

The other theoretical approach which will be used in this project is realism. This sec-

tion will be dedicated to describing the relevant ideas in realist theory in relation to

the area of study and present how realism will be used in the projects analysis.

At its very core, realist theory in international relations studies revolves around the

principle of the nation-state as the central actor in the international system. The defin-

13

ing trait of the state is the sovereignty it holds within its territorial space, which is the

basis of security within the state and a necessity for the upholding of civil society.

The first priority for the state is to secure power internally and uphold sovereignty,

thus defining itself in opposition to other states outside its boundaries (Dunne &

Schmidt, 2014: 107). States in the international system compete with other states for

power and security with the prime goal of survival, which is the pre-eminent goal in

world politics which needs to be secured before any other national interest can be

achieved (Dunne & Schmidt, 2014: 101). This importance of survival of the state in

the international system means that international politics are based on a self-help sys-

tem. That is to say, that no other state or institution can realize the security of the na-

tion-state but itself. Therefore, a state must rely on itself for securing its national in-

terests (Dunne & Schmidt, 2014: 108-109)

The structural realists are either defensive or offensive (Mearsheimer, 2006). Accord-

ing to Kenneth Waltz, a defensive realist, the international system as anarchic, and the

states are sovereign and are functionally alike in the international structure. Moreover,

the distribution of power is the most important variable of the international system; it

can create changes in the international outcomes and shift the polarity of the interna-

tional system. The defensive realists do not believe that it is a strategic advantage to

be the hegemon; rather the intention is to posit the appropriate amount of power

(ibid.). It is the theory of John Mearsheimer that will be used throughout this project.

Mearsheimer is an offensive realist. He believes that the strategy of the states is to

gain as much power as possible and to pursuit hegemony in the international system.

Realists do not believe that domination in it self is good, but that a large amount of

power is the best way to secure the survival of the state. Offensive realists expect that

the great powers always will be looking for chances to gain advantage over each other

to become the hegemon, i.e. absolute gains. This security competition in this world

could likely lead to great power wars (Mearsheimer, 2006).

Structural realism attributes to the inter-state security competition and conflict to the

lack of an overarching authority above the nation-states; the international system is of

an anarchic structure (Dunne & Schmidt, 2014: 104). Mearsheimer argues that if one

wants to understand the intricacies of international politics, it is necessary to deter-

14

mine the relative power distribution in the international system since the number of

great powers determines the overall structure of the system (Mearsheimer, 2001).

Mearsheimer’s offensive realism theory argues that states, in their attempts to secure

survival, realize that the most efficient way of doing so is to maximize security, and

ultimately strive to become the strongest power in the system; a hegemon. States al-

ways search for opportunities to gain power over each other and do so because the

system is anarchic. The states are forced to rely on themselves because of the anarchic

system and strive for more power in order to secure itself. Mearsheimer focuses on

the great powers in the world since they have the biggest impact on what happens in

international politics. Great powers always look for ways to gain power over each

other, which will eventually lead to conflict and war. Thus, states compete in a zero-

sum game to amass power at the cost of other states’ power. The reason for this is that

being on top of this power-scale is the best guarantee to secure the state’s long-term

survival (Mearsheimer, 2001).

However, this creates an issue since it is not possible for all states to maximize their

security simultaneously. Therefore, the international system is condemned to be inter-

locked in a relentless great power competition without end due to its anarchic struc-

ture. Mearsheimer follows up the ideas of Waltz, by arguing that multipolar systems

are more likely to create conflict and war, than the bipolar systems because multiple

great powers in the international system create a struggle for population and wealth,

which are the building blocks of military power (Mearsheimer, 2001). In a multipolar

system, these blocks will be distributed unevenly among the great powers and this

could lead to conflict, thus creating power imbalances, leading to the stronger powers

to have the opportunity to take advantage of the weaker. It is also possible for two or

more great powers to gang up on the third great power, which is not possible in a bi-

polar system. Mearsheimer thus believes that multipolar systems are the most unse-

cure and dangerous system of them all (ibid.).

Thus, Mearsheimer’s theory focuses on the struggle between the great powers and he

argues that states always strive to gain as much power as possible and to pursuit he-

gemony if the circumstances are right. The system is anarchic and the states need to

protect its own interests and maximize power in order to secure themselves.

15

Legro and Moravcsik criticise (1999) the realist theory, claiming that its own

defenders, especially defensive realists, often undermine realist theory because they

seek to address irregularities by modifying realism in forms that are less distinctive to

realism, less coherent and less determinate. Realist scholars of international relations

no longer embrace the core principles of realism, e.g. that the states are in constant

competition for control over limited goods and they will conflict over these goods.

Furthermore, they argue that defensive realists view realism as the bulwark against

claims about the large influence that democracy, economic integration, ideology law,

and institutions has on world politics. Legro and Moravcsik argue that contemporary

forms of realism lack both distinctiveness and coherence and that many realists argue

against the theory. They argue that contemporary realists have abandoned the core

belief of realism in order to explain their claims (Legro and Moravcsik, 1999).

The reason of choice for Mearsheimer for the realist approach is because his

perspectives are acting as completely opposing point of views to the liberal ideas.

Mearsheimer is considered one of the leading realist thinkers of his generation, and in

addition to this his perspectives are considered arch realist, yet still open for a wide

range of analysis possibilities (Donnelly, 2013).

3.3. Actorness According to Bretherton & Vogler (2006: 30) actorness can be evaluated from four

requirements:

1. Shared commitment to a set of overarching values.

2. Domestic legitimation of decision processes and priorities relating to external

policy.

3. The ability to identify priorities and formulate policies – captured by the con-

cepts of consistency and coherence, where:

a. Consistency indicates the degree of congruence between the external

policies of the member states and of the EU;

b. Coherence refers to the level of internal coordination of EU policies.

4. The availability of, and capacity to utilize, policy instruments – diploma-

cy/negotiation, economic tools and military means.

16

Kelstrup, Martinsen, & Wind (2012: 331) have developed a list inspired by

Bretherton and Vogler. They argue that to have actorness, an actor should meet the

following criteria3:

1. An actor has to have a leader.

2. Be able to have a coherent policy.

3. Posit capabilities to negotiate with other actors.

4. Posit capabilities to intervene militarly and economically in international

actions.

5. Be coherent in the sense that it will not be exposed to internal disputes

following external developments or own actions.

6. An actor has be recognized by the other, important actors in the system.

In her article Beyer (2008) develops a scheme composed by seven criteria to measure

actorness. As can be seen, the three different schemes (Bretherton & Vogler, 2006;

Beyer, 2008; Kelstrup, Martinsen, & Wind, 2012) overlap each other and share some

features, especially a coherent policy and recognization seem to be two criteria that

are important4. Only Bretherton and Vogler (2006: 30) add domestic legitimacy to

their list. They argue that there is a democratic deficit5 in the EU and that this is a

problem for the external policies of the Union. However, as every counntry,

democratic or authoritian, has a foreign policy, it is the argument within this project

that this is not a point which needs to be considered important when evaluating the

role of an actor.

Therefore, the choice has been to elaborate our own list based on the previously

mentioned scholars, thus proposing the following criteria which an actor should meet

to have actorness:

3 Our own translation from Danish-English. 4 1) Coherence, 2) One Voice: Addressability, 3) Common strategies, 4) Capability of action within and without, 5) External Effect, 6) Participation in Global Governance, and 7) Recognition in Interna-tional Law. 5 A discussion on democratic deficit can be found in (Moravcsik, 2004) and (Follesdal & Hix, 2006)

17

1. Be able to have a coherent policy both vertically and horizontally6.

2. Share commitment to a set of overarching values.

3. Be able to and have the capacity to utilize various policy instruments – diplo-

macy/negotiation, economic tools and military means.

4. Be recognized by the other, important actors in the system

4. The EU as a federation In order to develop an understanding of the foreign policy of the EU, it is important to

argue a certain point of view on the European Union system. It is the theoretical

choice during this project to view the union and its foreign policy from a federalist

point of view. Thus, this chapter will contribute with a description and an explanation

of this choice, together with a view on how this perspective affects the actorness of

the EU.

The European Union is a system which has grown to have its own life, and with no

similar systems to explain the life of the beast. However, some theories may cover

more than others, and despite views of the EU project varying from an empire to gov-

ernance, I has been the choice for this project of foreign policy, to view the EU as a

federation. It is important to note that the EU is still under construction, and not yet

finished if one can ever argue that such a system might finish. However, the goal of

the EU has always been to build an economic and political collaboration, and to have

a European response to the issues that have happened and will be happening in the

world. Seeing this development, compared to other federations, helps to remind us

that all federations have been through the same development, which we are currently

witnessing in the EU (Klinkers & Tombeur, 2014).

Being a federation does not mean that there is a homogenous people or a common

culture (Klinkers & Tombeur, 2014: 71). In federations such as Australia, USA, and

Russia the diversity is huge, and that political congruence happens despite these di-

versities.

According to Klinkers and Tombeur (2014: 12) a federation is a political organisation

where members remain autonomous and sovereign, while giving away some powers, 6 This factor refers to what Bretherton & Vogler (2006) call consistency and coherence, what Kelstrup et. al. (2012) have as criteria 1 and 6, and finally what Beyer (2008) refers to as Coherence, One Voice and Common strategies. We have chosen this factor as one because it makes sense to discuss the coherence of the EU through one factor.

18

so that the federation can take care of common interests. An example of this, in the

EU, is the division of powers between the Council and the Commission. Federalism is

different from intergovernmentalism, due to the giving away of sovereignty; sover-

eignty lies within the entire elements of a federation, both sovereignty and autonomy

within the entire federalisation, and within parts of the federation; the states (Klinkers

& Tombeur, 2014: 12). The states within a federation give competences to the federa-

tion to take decisions of common interest, as we see the member states of the EU have

given decision about trade and competition policies to the EU. However, some com-

petences remain within the states, where examples could be taxation and the educa-

tion systems. There is a control of the federation’s government with strong member

states (ibid.: 12-19). This argument is backed up by Kelemen (2007) who has argued

in his article that any federation needs to be able to balance the power of the federal

government, not to overreach its competences, and the states have to make sure that

they do not undermine the constitution, or treaties in the case of EU.

Moreover, the division of power is also an important part of understanding the nature

of a federation. Firstly, the vertical division of power is an essential part of the federa-

tion, and one federal body cannot make decisions itself, without agreement from one

or more, of the other bodies; this is also true for the EU system, with the various legis-

lative and decision making procedures, where the Council, the Commission, and the

Parliament each has a role (Klinkers & Tombeur, 2014: 31-36). In addition, Klinkers

and Tombeur (2014) argue that the horizontal division, or the trias division of power,

with the legislative, executive and judicial parts is a power, which, in a federation, is

applied at the level of the federal level as well as at the member state level.

Kelemen (2007) has put up some very specific points which can be used in order to

further define the federal nature of the EU. Kelemen (2007) argues that a federation

needs to have a judicial enforcement, which is very present in the EU in the form of

the Court of Justice, and which is currently growing day by day. Moreover, a federa-

tion needs structural safeguards in the form of states, which are also present in the EU

through the Council. A federation grows due to motivation from external threats,

which is also the case of EU. Kelemen (2007) points out that a federation needs to

have a party system, and a shared political culture through the member states, two as-

pects which are not yet present in the EU, according to Kelemen (2007: 5). However,

as previously argued, the EU is far from finished, and keeps growing, thus no one can

say how it looks tomorrow, and if the system will one day fit all the demands.

19

Yet, much point towards the EU growing further towards fitting all the demands of a

federation. However, the EU system is rather unique, and with the Maastricht treaty

new areas of intergovernmentalism were applied, and thus again making it difficult to

define the system. On the other hand, the development of the Court of Justice is push-

ing further towards federalism. It might not be a complete federation, but it holds the

characteristics and minimal necessary attributes.

The argument, which is set by Klinkers and Tombeur is that, the foreign policy is an

inevitable next step for the EU, and according to Klinkers and Tombeur (2014: 117)

the EU should soon start to execute foreign policy and to respond quicker towards

what is happening in the world.

In order to understand the global actorness and the international role of the

EU, it is necessary to understand how the internal institutional framework has been

part of building and shaping this actorness. This point of view is argued by Koehler

(2010) who states that it is in fact the new laws and regulations, together with institu-

tional framework that have enabled the union to start developing in the field of for-

eign policy. In the past years, there has been a growth in the institutional innovation

of the union and with the Lisbon treaty giving new powers to the Council regarding

foreign issues, together with the role of the high representative’s collaboration with

the Council (Koehler, 2010), it seems like this federal framework has been an im-

portant part of in fact being able to institutionalize and strengthen the foreign actor-

ness of the union, build on internal coherence and federal-like structures. What pushes

forward and shapes these developments are partly the community interests of the EU

member states. There is a balance going on between intergovernmental bargaining

and perspectives of national interest (Söderbaum & Langenhove, 2005: 252). There-

fore, a region or a federation like the EU can only hold internal actorness if it devel-

ops its own presences, it can aggregate its interests, if it formulates common goals and

policies and those policies are implemented (ibid.: 259). Thus, it is the argument with-

in this project that understanding the global actorness and the international role of the

EU is highly dependent on how we view the internal structure of the EU, as this point

of view enables a specific understanding of the development of the policies. Needless

to say, the federalisation of the union is not only growing and expanding due to inter-

nal needs, as it is also an answer to what is going on globally, and the new world or-

der is inevitably part of restructuring nation states

20

4.1. Analysing foreign policy of the EU as a federation It is important to find out whether the EU is in fact an external actor, or at least be-

coming one. Having actor capability is understood as being able to behave actively in

relation to other actors within the international system (Bretherton & Vogler, 2006).

To be a global actor some traits need to be present, such as the shared European

commitment to shared values, like human rights and democracy. The actor needs to

be able to negotiate effectively, to identify policy priorities, and to have policy in-

struments, which should all be the next steps in order for the EU to develop a com-

mon international voice. Currently foreign security issues are within intergovernmen-

tal decision making, however, due to the current global and regional challenges, there

is growing demand for the union to take further steps towards integrating foreign pol-

icy issues as a common strategy.

There are many ways to exercise and hold foreign political power7, and there are

many ways in which the exercising of power can be viewed. It has been established

that the EU holds the institutional capacity to exercise foreign political power; it is,

however, still a challenge for the EU to formulate a coherent foreign policy. It is nec-

essary to interpret this condition from multiple angles given the complexity of the is-

sue and the ways in which it can be understood. The following section will look more

closely at how the two theories liberalism and realism can be used to describe and

analyse the development of the EU foreign policy, based on the descriptions of the

two theories presented earlier in the project.

4.2. Liberalism and Realism From a liberal perspective, the EU foreign policy will have a strong focus on liberal

values, such as democracy, rule of law, and liberal market economy. These values are

the base pillars in international cooperation and are the key to establishing a more

peaceful world system, which is ultimately the goal of international cooperation. Ac-

cording to Fukuyama, the EU will focus on these values exactly because it adheres to

them itself. That is to say, the EU has reached the ‘end of history’ with its liberal set

of values and policies; e.g. free market economy and democracy (Fukuyama, 1989).

7 Foreign policy is to be understood as a set of behaviour from one state towards another, moreover foreign policies are acting as a systematic approach for a state to deal with issues that may arise within the collaboration with other countries (Mouritzen, 1998)

21

The member states will choose to cooperate because it can be beneficial to the com-

munity in addition to the individual member states. Promotion of liberal values

through its foreign policy will be of interests to both the overall union and the indi-

vidual member states because it will facilitate further international cooperation and

opportunities for beneficial international agreements such as trade agreements. In

stark contrast to this perhaps optimistic liberal approach, stands the more “EU-

pessimistic” approach of realism.

In a realist perspective, EU foreign policy will always face challenges since member

states will be reluctant to surrender sovereignty. When sovereignty is surrendered, the

execution of the foreign policy will still be at the mercy of the willingness of the

member states. This is especially true in regards to foreign policy since foreign policy

is the essential channel through which national security is to be insured (Dunne &

Schmidt, 2014: 108-109). Should the member states choose to cooperate fully on a

specific piece of foreign policy, it will be because cooperation is the best way to en-

sure national interests and security. The main goal will, so to say, not be to fulfil the

interests of the EU as a whole but the interests of the member states. Taking into ac-

count Mearsheimer’s offensive realist perspective, it is possible that the EU can be

caught in an internal power struggle since the member states cannot be sure of the

other member states’ intentions (Mearsheimer, 2001). This is due to the fact that each

individual member state will in theory act as a power maximizer in an attempt to en-

sure its own security and interests, sometimes at the cost of other member states’

power and/or interests. (Toft, 2003: 5) That is not to say that the EU as whole cannot

have common interests, these interests, however, will not be made to strengthen the

union, but instead to secure power for the member states. While this power is ob-

tained in unison between the member states, it is still power that is intended to ensure

security for the individual state.

The ‘character’ of the potential foreign political power that the EU holds is another

point on which the two theories are in disagreement. According to the liberal ap-

proach, the EU’s greatest tool is its high degree of soft power and strong focus on lib-

eral values that gives it an innate power of attraction (Moravcsik, 2009). Realist theo-

ry, however, attributes greater value to hard power, which the EU seemingly lags

since it is very much subject to member state willingness to endow the union with

22

such an empowerment. It is clear that the theories represent two very different ap-

proaches to EU foreign policy, the nature of the power it holds, and the overall posi-

tion of the EU within the world system. This underlines the necessity of a multifacet-

ed approach to the analysis of EU foreign policy. Therefore, in the following analyses

of the EU’s foreign policy in regards to the Western Balkans and the Arctic region,

the views of both theories will be used to broaden the scope of the analysis and hope-

fully strengthen the conclusion of this project.

5. The foreign policy of the EU toward the Western Balkans The Western Balkans has always been an important area in the international struggle

for power due to its geography (Merlingen, 2013). After the end of the Cold War, war

broke out in Yugoslavia and in 1991, both Slovenia and Croatia went to war for inde-

pendence. In 1992, Bosnia-Hercegovina became a conflict zone. Theses conflicts last-

ed until 1995 where the Dayton Peace Agreement ended the wars (Braniff, 2011).

Yet, five years later, war broke out in Kosovo. This means that armed conflicts was a

reality for several years in the neighbourhood of the EU. The region has thus always

been considered to have a necessary strategic value for the EU due to the political in-

stability (Richter, 2012). In 1999, the European Union established the Stabilisation

and Association Process (SAP). The SAP was the groundwork for the EU’s policy

towards the Western Balkan, and the aim of it was to transform the new states into EU

members (European Commission, 2012b) and in 2003, the European Council reiterat-

ed at the Thessaloniki summit that the future of the Western Balkans was in the EU

(European External Action Service, 2015b).

5.1. Analysis of Balkan with a realist perspective Hypothesis – Realism and Balkan: The main focus of the EU is to establish security in

the Western Balkans to secure its own survival.

In this part, it is described how the EU has acted in the West Balkan, and an analysis

is made, upon how its foreign policy towards the region. Some of the major decisions

and missions towards the region will be described and analysed with a realist perspec-

tive on foreign politics. As described in the theoretical framework, the realist theory

and Mearsheimer’s analysis of realism is based on the assumption that the interna-

tional system is anarchic and filled with conflict and inter-state security competition.

23

The main interest of the states is to secure their own survival and the most efficient

way of doing so is to maximize its security.

In 1991, when the war in Yugoslavia broke out, the European Union played an im-

portant role in the region. In 1992, the EU recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia

and Slovenia as sovereign states, with pressure from Germany, Austria and Italy. As

the conflict was ongoing, however, the EU did not send any troops to Yugoslavia to

try to deescalate the civil war because the member states could not agree on a com-

mon approach to the war (Saunte, 2013). This shows that the European Union since

the early 1990s has been involved in the region. At the same time, it also shows that

member states are the most important players and that they have different interest in

the region, which supports a realist assumption.

One of the first moves the European Union made towards the Western Balkans was in

1999 where the Council established the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP).

The main goal of the SAP was to create stability and security in the region, but also to

spread democracy, which eventually should lead to membership of the EU. However,

the EU, to reach its goals in the region, also used the promise of membership as an

instrument (Richter, 2013; 508). Since 1999, EU has been largely engaged in democ-

racy promotion in the region with the focus on the Copenhagen Criteria8. These were

a set of guidelines to help potential new member states to reach the goal of member-

ship, but also to help the EU to determine whether a state was ready for membership

or not. These criterias were established by the member states of the European Coun-

cil. The formal goal of these criterias was to promote democracy in the region

(Richter, 2012: 508)

The European Council continued its support for democracy promotion and was fully

determined to help them on their path towards European integration and eventually

membership (European External Action Service, 2015d). In 2003, the Council contin-

ued its negotiations with the states in the region, by hosting the Thessaloniki summit.

The Thessaloniki declaration had ten goals aimed at the development and the coop-

8 The Copenhagen Criteria are stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities; a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces in the EU; the ability to take on and implement effectively the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union (European Commission, 2015a).

24

eration with the member states of Western Balkan (ibid.). The goals of the declaration

are established by the EU member states, in this case through the intergovernmental

institution, the European Council. This is a good example of how the realist theory is

evident in the development of a common strategy towards the region because it is the

member states’ interests which are the most important aspect and this has been evi-

dent throughout the negotiations, e.g. the fact that Greece has vetoed the accession

negotiations with Macedonia since 2006 (Kmezic, 2015).

One of the main arguments in realism is that the survival and security of the state is

the most important thing. This is evident in some of the points of The Thessaloniki

declaration. The main goal of The Thessaloniki declaration was to start the democrati-

sation of the region and to show the states that their future was within the European

Union. The member states wanted Western Balkan countries to fulfil the Copenhagen

Criteria, thus to secure that they were ready to enter the European Union. This line of

thought undermines the realist theory because the overall goal of EU was to spread

democracy and not to secure its borders and states. However, if one looks at the decla-

ration it is evident that the realist thought has influenced the development of it. The

first point of the declaration states the importance of respecting international law and

the inviolability of international borders. It also states that conflicts need to bee re-

solved peacefully and it is important to have regional co-operation. Lastly, it con-

demns all sorts of terrorism, extremism and violence (European Commission, 2003).

This strengthens the hypothesis that the main focus of the EU is to establish security

in the Western Balkans because it shows that the EU puts a lot of attention on secur-

ing borders and disabling terrorism in the region to spread to the member states.

As argued earlier, the main goal was the spread of democracy and to prepare the new

states of the Western Balkan to become full members of the EU. This line of thought

undermines the hypothesis because it favours the democracy promotion over the sur-

vival of the state. However, since 2003 only Croatia has joined the EU and this could

possibly strengthen the hypothesis, because the focus of the EU has been on security

building rather than sponsoring democracy in the region. Since, the Thessaloniki

summit and the development of the Copenhagen Criteria as the main goal for the re-

gion, the EU has shifted its approach towards the region and developed the “Copen-

hagen Plus Criteria”. Whereas the Copenhagen Criteria are linked to democracy-

building, the Copenhagen Plus Criteria are linked to security-building (Richter 2013;

509).

25

This additional set of criteria can strengthen the hypothesis since they focus on securi-

ty, whereas the Copenhagen Criteria’s focus is on democracy-building.

The general approach of the EU towards the region is built on a strong security di-

mension. This dimension has a great variety of actions, which include political and

peace agreements in the framework of the SAP and in the 2008 Regional Cooperation

Council. These politically sensitive and additional sets of conditions are part of the

‘Copenhagen Plus’ criteria (Bieber & Kmezic, 2014). This new set of criteria, which

focuses on the security dimension, includes the implementation of peace treaties, and

the return of refugees (...) the resolution of bilateral standoffs (such as between

Greece and Macedonia over the name issue) or of statehood dilemmas (most notably

for Serbia and Kosovo), regional cooperation and reconciliation (ibid.) It also includes

full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

(ICTY). These additional criteria need to be fulfilled by the new countries of the

Western Balkan before they are allowed any agreement with the EU and to be consid-

ered as a potential new member state in the EU (ibid.) The ‘Copenhagen Plus’ criteria

are thus considered to be of EU security interest. This strengthens the hypothesis be-

cause it shows that the EU member states value security interest high when it comes

to the foreign policy towards the region.

One of the things that EU has done in the region is the deployment of the EUFOR

ALTHEA mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ALTHEA mission is an EU mili-

tary mission under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The mission

was initiated in 2004 and has contributed to maintaining peace and security in Bosnia

and Herzegovina (European External Action Service, 2015a). In the framework of the

mission, it is stated that “the EU initially deployed 7000 troops, to ensure continued

compliance with the General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP) in BiH and to

contribute to a safe and secure environment” (ibid.). The main objectives of the mis-

sion are to provide Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Armed Forces with training and capaci-

ty building, to support efforts of maintaining a secure and safe environment and to

support the overall strategy of the EU in the country (ibid.). This mission helps to

strengthen the hypothesis, because it seems to be the main goal to secure stability in

the region. Because the CSDP is under jurisdiction of the Council, the operation is

controlled by the member states and is agreed unanimously between the member

states. The Council is the main decision making body of the CSDP and formally con-

26

trols all stages of the policy formulation, from issue definition to implementation and

control. The CSDP therefore remains under the control of the member states and it is

a strictly an intergovernmental issue (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014). Hence, the Coun-

cil and the CSDP plays an important role in determining the interests of the member

states and to the development of a common foreign policy. One could therefore argue

that the ALTHEA mission and the CSDP can be explained by the realist theory be-

cause it shows that the member states act in their own interest and that security is im-

portant for the member states, which thus strengthen the hypothesis.

5.2. Analysis of Balkan with a liberalist perspective Hypothesis – Liberalism and Balkan: The EU focuses first and foremost on establish-ing democracy in the Balkan countries through the use of conditionality.

In this part, an analysis of the EU’s foreign policy toward the Balkan region has been

carried out. As described in the theoretical framework, Fukuyama’s analysis of liber-

alism is based upon the idea that the Western democracies came successful out the

Cold War and that the Cold War showed that political and economic liberalism was

the most consistent ideology.

According to Schimmelfennig & Scholtz (2008: 190), political conditionality is what

happens when the EU “sets some democratic rules and practices as conditions that

the target countries have to fulfil in order to receive financial assistance and member-

ship”. This means that the EU can set up conditions which the candidate countries

have to comply with before becoming a member state.

The strategy of the EU towards the candidate countries is to secure democratic rule

before accession to the EU, as stated in the Copenhagen Criteria and in article

49(TEU). To get the candidate countries to apply to more democratic reforms, the EU

has used political conditionality. However, Marko Kmezić (2015: 14) claims that

there exists a paradox regarding the Western Balkans because these countries, which

“have experienced the most difficult democratic and economic transformation

process as a consequence of the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s and authoritarian

regimes need to overcome higher hurdles in order to join the EU than countries from

earlier enlargement rounds”. The EU thus has proposed new, specific rules on the

Western Balkans. These rules are the Copenhagen Plus Criteria, together with two

27

new chapters in the accession negotiations, chapter 23: Judiciary and fundamental

rights and 24: Justice, freedom and security, which is another “obstacle” to integration

(Kmezić, 2015). Schimmelfennig and Scholtz (2008) argue that there exists an

asymmetrical relationship between the EU and the candidate countries. This

asymmetrical relationship is in favour of the EU because the EU can, through the use

of conditionality, get other countries to do what the EU wishes, however, only if the

EU is credible with the promise of membership. One of the arguments of liberalism is

that regional cooperation is good and beneficial. This makes the countries more

interdependent, which would help in prevention of war. For example, the EU

facilitated the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, which ended in 2013 with the

14-point agreement that ”intended to end Serbia’s contestation of the boundaries of

Kosovo and the extent of Pristina’s authority over the territory” (Economides &

Lindsey, 2015: 1035). Moreover, with this bilateral agreement Serbia, has de facto

accepted Kosovo’s seperate EU integration process (ibid.). This process has been due

to EU’s committment to foster regional cooperation. Already in 2011, the

Commission recommended that Serbia shuld be given candidate status, but thisdid not

heppen until 2012. The negotiations between EU and Serbia could not go any further

until Serbia’s relationship with Kosovo had improved. Thus, the EU used its

conditionality towards the two parties, stating that if Serbia wanted to become a pos-

sible EU member and if Kosovo wanted the Stabilisation and Association Agreement

(SAA) with the EU, Serbia and Kosovo would have to sign an agreement (European

External Action Service, 2013). In fact, the EU had the power to change the behaviour

of the two governments. The governments followed the logic of consequence, which

means, “that governments behave rationally, calculating the cost and benefits, and

reforms are induced by the EU’s use of carrots and sticks” (Richter, 2012: 513).

Hence, the carrot or benefit [membership] was better than the cost [accepting a deal

with Kosovo-Serbia]. If they had not agreed, the process could not have continued.

Richter explains this further, “thus, if the SEE countries perceive EU membership as

beneficial to them and this benefit exceeds the costs of reform (for example, the risk of

loss of political power for the incumbent government) they will comply and pursue

democratic reforms” (2012: 514). This demonstrates that the EU can use its power of

attraction, which is the soft power Fukuyama says the Western democracies have, to

get Serbia and Kosovo to do what the EU wants them to do. In sum, this has led to

more regional cooperation, which the liberal theory would argue is a positive thing

28

(Dunne, 2014). Consequently, the EU has spread its model of cooperation to non-

member states. This also relates to Max Weber’s definition of power, which includes

several dimensions. Hence, the EU has not used military power, but its economic

power.

As analysed above, the crebility of the EU was high when Serbia and Kosovo signed

the agreement, and otherwise they would likely not have signed it. Hence, the

advantage of membership was credible to the countries. This tool of conditionality is

of great importance to the EU. According to liberalism, regional integration will lead

to more peace. To obtain this, the EU could have integrated the SEE countries into the

EU, which would create less violence, but on the other hand, this would also imply

that the EU would no longer be able to enforce resolutions after an accession (Richter,

2012). Having this in mind, it is interesting to look at Croatia, who joined the EU in

2013. According to Freedom House, Croatia scored 3.64 in 2011 and in 2015 it scored

3.689 (Freedom House, 2015a). In the case of Hungary, even though not being a

Western Balkan country, its democracy score was 2.00 in 2006, but had exceeded to

3.18 in 2015 (Freedom House, 2015b). However, now that hey have become mem-

bers, it is difficult for the EU to use the politics of conditionality because the most

important tool of the EU is the promise of membership. This also demonstrates that

EU membership does not in itself lead to increase of democracy. Richter (2015: 525)

concludes in her article that ”the original Copenhagen criteria should play an en-

hanced role at an early stage, even in cases in which the EU has a profound security

interest”.

Another perspective of the liberal theory is the fact that democracies do not go to war

with each other. The more democratic two countries are, the less is the possibility that

they will act violently (Dunne, 2014). This argument could be the best argument for

the EU to spread democracy in its neighbourhood. Question is whether the EU has in

fact spread democracy as its first priorit. According to Sonja Grimm and Okka Lou

Mathis (2015: 930), this has not been the case. Based their analysis of various EU

programmes, they argue that the EU has spent more money on stability and

development, than on democratic promotion in the Western Balkans between 1991-

9 The democracy scores and regime ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the high-est level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest.

29

2010 (Figure 110). This argues against the hypothesis since it can be suggested that the

EU does not promote democracy as it first priority. Furthermore, Sonja Grimm and

Okka Lou Mathis find that from 2000 and onwards the democracy assistence

provided by the EU has increased. They thus conclude that institution-building and

capacity-building only represents a relatively small share of total EU expenditure in

the Western Balkans (ibid.: 942).

Isabelle Ioannides and Gemma Celador (2011: 425) argue in their article that EU’s

police missions in the Western Balkans sometime prioritise ”hard policing, e.g.

countering organised crime rather than soft policing, e.g. developing inter-ethnic

relations, strengthening the respect for human rights and embedding in good

governance”. This is also an argument against the hypothesis, because the soft

policing dimension is a part of the institution-building of a country so that the

population will trust the police. However, they also point to the fact that the Romania,

Moldova, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia signed the Police

Cooperation Convention for South East Europe agreement in 2006, facilitated by the

EU (ibid.: 424). This points towards the EU having tried to spread regional

cooperation in the field of policing, in line with the liberal argument. Though, they

overall conclude that the EU in Macedonia has demonstrated ”an over-emphasis on

crime fighting rather than long-term police reform” (2011: 437). Regarding the EU-

LEX mission in Kosovo, which is the largest civilian mission under CSDP, the man-

10 Sonja Grimm and Okka Lou Mathis (2015) have collected data through the various EU programmes, i.e. ECHO, PHARE, CARDS, IPA and thus calculated the funding. The authors mention that the in-formation is scattered across many websites and that the numbers sometimes are detailed but at others not. Though, we have used the figure because it demonstrates well how the EU has spent its assistance to the Balkan countries.

Figure1

30

date of the mission is to “assist the Kosovo institutions, judicial authorities and law

enforcement agencies in their progress towards sustainability and accountability and

in further developing and strengthening an independent multi-ethnic justice system

and multi-ethnic police and customs service, ensuring that these institutions are free

from political interference and adhering to internationally recognised standards and

European best practices” (Council of the European Union, 2008). This output seems

on the surface as the EU promoting democracy, however Ioannides and Celador

(2011) criticise the EU for not sharing intelligence with local instutitions and for

failing to build local crime fighting capacity, and thus not prioritising the institution-

building dimension enough.

The EU supports the Western Balkans through the Instrument for Pre-accession As-

sistance (IPA II), which is the main financial instrument the EU possesses to support

reforms which could move the target country closer towards the EU (European

Commission, 2014b). This argument demonstrates what the EU wants: the EU wants

the countries to implement reforms which have an aim of moving the countries closer

to the EU. To join the EU, a country has to comply with the Copenhagen Criteria. The

EU states that ”in order to increase its impact, EU financial assistance shall be con-

centrated on the areas where reform and investment are most needed to meet Copen-

hagen criteria” (European Commission, 2014b: 3) Through the IPA II-programme,

the EU supports the Western Balkans and Turkey with €2.9 billions from 2014-2020

(European Commission, 2014b: 28). This strenghtens the hypothesis since the money

is allocated to the reform process. This is also in line with the Weberian defintion due

to the fact that the EU has the ability to influence the behaviour of another country,

without the use of military might.

5.3. Subset Looking at the evidence and empirical material presented above, then it could be con-

cluded that the overall intentions of the foreign policy of the EU towards the region

focus on democracy building and securing good relation with the Western Balkans.

This will then challenge the realist hypothesis because the main goal is not to estab-

lish security in the region to secure the survival of the member states. However, dig-

ging deeper into how the European Union really acts in the region, then there is evi-

dence supporting the hypothesis because much of the action towards the region has

31

security as the main goal, since the member states want to avoid organized crime and

refugees to enter the EU. The member states do not have an interest in conflict in its

neighbourhood. This has been the case here, which makes the member states interest-

ed in sending military personal to the region. According to liberal hypothesis, it was

thought that the EU in the first place would promote democracy through

conditionality. The EU has done so, which supports the hypothesis. However, as it has

been presented in the analysis, Grimm and Mathis (2015) argue that the EU has spent

more money on stability and development than on democratic promotion in the

Western Balkans between 1991-2010. This of course weakens the hypothesis. But in

general, the EU has used political conditionality towards the region to move the states

closer towards EU membership. It was also found that membership in itself, does not

lead to more democracy. Therefore, a suggestion here is that the EU could put more

emphasis on democratic promotion in cases where there is a secuirty threat, in

accordance with Richter (2015).

6. The foreign policy of the EU toward the Arctic The arctic region is a complex region, due to geography, environment and the many

stakeholders of the region. The Arctic region counts Canada, Alaska (USA), Russia,

Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark (Greenland), and thus is a platform

with potential partnerships as well as potential conflicts. Just like many others, the EU

is seeing the Arctic as an area of growing strategic importance (European External

Action Service, 2015b). According to the EU itself, this is due to the EU wanting to

be a strong proponent within the international system to fight against climate change,

and because three of the Arctic council states are members of the EU.

The analysis of the EU foreign policy regarding the Arctic region is based on two hy-

potheses; one based on a liberal perspective and one based on a realist perspective.

The first section of the chapter will deal with the hypothesis of the liberal perspective.

Following this, the realist perspective will be taken up.

6.1. Analysis of Arctic based on a liberal perspective

Hypothesis – Liberalism and the Arctic: The EU is developing a foreign policy to-

wards the Arctic region, because the establishment of markets and trade with the re-

gion will support the establishment of peace and end conflict, as common markets

pacify conflicts.

32

In 2012, the Commission and the High Representative (HR) made a joint communica-

tion to the Council and the European Parliament (EP) about the development of the

EU policy towards the Arctic region (European Commission, 2012a). The communi-

cation outlines the main areas the Commission believed should be the main focus of

the joint Arctic policy. The communication underlines a prioritization of cooperation

and dialogue between the EU, Arctic states as well as the indigenous peoples of the

Arctic. The areas of focus include addressing climate change in the Arctic by channel-

ling knowledge and supporting research and acting responsibly to ensure economic

development in the Arctic based on sustainable use of resources (ibid.: 1-5). With the

strong focus on dialogue, cooperation, and economic development the liberal charac-

ter of these policy areas seems clear. The priorities hint at a long-term goal of benefit-

ting common interests between all the relevant actors, i.e. the EU, Arctic nations, and

the indigenous peoples, and the overall aim of which in a liberal context can be de-

scribed as peace and stability through promotion of liberal values. This becomes es-

pecially clear when one notes that the economic development must be done responsi-

bly; it is not only about economic development at any cost, it is about making sure

that the development in economic areas does not damage the environmental situation

in any way, but instead helps alleviate the environmental difficulties which the Arctic

region is facing (European External Action Service, 2015b). In this context, exactly

the issue of climate change is important to note. For a federation like the EU to have

as its aim the solution of such an issue is evidence of the liberal logic of international

politics, that international cooperation is necessary to tackle global crises and create a

stable situation to the benefit of common interests. Furthermore, the communication

also called for continued efforts for the EU to obtain observer status in the Arctic

Council (European Commission, 2012a: 2). This is an endeavour that began in 2008,

but still by December 2015 has not been realized (Depledge, 2015). This further sup-

ports the intention of the EU to ensure cooperation and to increase its influence

through dialogue of various means.

It does, however, also show a certain degree of ‘resistance’ against a EU presence in

the Arctic region, since the observer status in the Arctic Council has yet not been

granted. Canada has in the past objected the EU’s entry into observer status due to

import prohibition of seal products in the EU (European Parliament, 2014). This pro-

hibition has since been lifted though, but the observer status has yet to be reached.

Combined with the somewhat tenuous relationship with Russia, it seems that the EU

33

might not be granted the observer status any time soon (Depledge, 2015). The EU

does, however, to a certain extend have an indirect observer status through Denmark,

Finland, and Sweden who all hold permanent seats in the Arctic Council and other

member states including France, Germany, and the Netherlands who have official ob-

server status (European Parliament, 2014).

In March 2014, the EP adopted a resolution on the EU strategy for the Arctic region.

The resolution is a 57-point list that outlines mostly the same intentions as the Joint

Communication of the Commission and HR of 2012. The first point of the resolution

specifically states that the EP welcomes the Joint Communication as an (…) im-

portant building block in ensuring the continuous development of the EU’s Arctic pol-

icy (European Parliament, 2014). Like the Joint Communication, the EP’s resolution

focuses on establishing and maintaining constructive dialogue between the EU, Arctic

countries, indigenous peoples, and other relevant actors, as well as the importance of

ensuring sustainable economic development in a responsible manner paying close at-

tention to resource management. Furthermore, it urges that the Commission has to

continue to pursue the observer status of the EU in the Arctic Council and maintain

good relations and strengthen the dialogue with all Arctic countries. Following only a

few months after the EP’s resolution was adopted, a foreign affairs Council meeting

was convened in May 2014, resulting in a 15-point conclusion being published

(Council of the European Union, 2014). Like the EP’s resolution the first point of the

conclusion presents the Councils welcoming of the Commission’s Joint Communica-

tion of 2012, in addition to stating that the Council takes note of the considerations

put forth by the EP in its resolution. The conclusion also expressed the Council’s

agreement with the existing policies and the activities that had been conducted thus

far. Overall, the conclusions focus areas are in line with the publications of the Com-

mission and the EP; maintain close dialogue with all relevant actors in the Arctic re-

gion, ensure economic development responsibly, continue efforts to combat climate

change and environmental challenges, and take into account the interests and well-

being of the indigenous peoples (Council of the European Union, 2014).

When looking at these publications, it becomes clear that the three institutions are all

agreeing on the same focal points for the EU’s policy towards the Arctic region. This

high level of coherence between the institutions can be regarded as an expression of

the liberal idea of international cooperation in world politics within the EU itself. Es-

pecially when considering that a supranational institution such as the Commission can

34

formulate a coherent policy with the Council. This underlines the liberal idea of states

being willing to cooperate and lend a certain amount of political ‘weight’ to a supra-

national organ in order to reach a set of common goals and interests.

The hypothesis of this section seems to have been verified. The EU has a coherent

policy agreed upon by all three of its core institutions, a policy with a strong focus on

promoting liberal values in the Arctic region. Moreover, its broader aims likewise

seem liberal; combat climate change and ensure that economic development is im-

plemented responsibly to ensure proper resource management, further develop the

EU’s dialogue and cooperation with relevant actors in the Arctic region, and continue

to work towards the EU’s observer status in the Arctic Council. Dialogue and cooper-

ation are two core principles in the liberal approach to world politics, as an efficient

way to promote and spread liberal values to ensure peace and prosperity for all, and

these two principles are definitely to be found in the three publications mentioned

above.

6.2. Analysis of Arctic based on a realist perspective

Hypothesis – Realism and the Arctic: The EU is developing its foreign policy towards

the Arctic due to the threat of instability in the region, and in order to thus maximize

security by striving to be the strongest.

The realist perspective is based on Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism, and

deals with the EU foreign policy towards the Arctic region as an issue of states seek-

ing to maximize their power with security, and by matters of sovereignty of the con-

cerned parties in the regional conflicts.

According to an article in the Arctic journal (Østhagen, 2015) the military threat in

the region is at its highest since the Cold War and the issues in the area have become

yet another obstacle in the relationship between the EU and Russia. This trend was

already foreseen by Mearsheimer (Toft, 2003) as within his theory he argues that se-

curity competition would inevitably re-emerge within post-cold war Europe. Despite

what many people may think, the conflicts in the Arctic are not so much concerned

about natural resources, as most of the interesting resources have location and acces-

sibility within already economic zones of the Arctic coastal states, thus the riches of

the Arctic is already more or less divided between the parties (Østhagen, 2015). In

addition to this, another conflict which has been going on has been that between Can-

ada, Greenland (Denmark) and Russia over the North Pole seabed, however, most

35

points towards this conflict being settled in the diplomatic scene (Østhagen, 2015).

Thus, there are likely no conflicts over the Arctic and its resources, but what is the

potential of conflict in the Arctic then are actually the imbalanced relationship be-

tween Russia and the west, and the conflicts are usually escalated (…) in incidents

involving resource management when an Arctic coastal state is protecting its sover-

eign rights in areas that have been subject to dispute (Østhagen, 2015). According to

a realist perspective, this lastly mentioned point is at the core of a realist approach to

international relations, as it becomes a core issue to protect the sovereignty of one's

territory, in order to uphold the security for the civil society.

Another interesting point which Østhagen (2015) is making is that due to the sheer

size and inaccessibility of the region, the spillover of security issues between the vari-

ous parts of the Arctic is limited. Indeed some of the growing security issues in the

Arctic may only be due to security spillovers, and maybe not so much due to actual

conflict escalation, when one of the conflicting parties are escalating their security the

opponent is forced to make a counter move. However, this might also be exactly what

is making the Arctic conflict a ticking bomb, because where Østhagen argues that

spill-overs within the Arctic region itself, might be limited, however present, it should

be taken into consideration that spill-overs may also come from other areas and

brought to the Arctic, as argued by Olesen and Rahbek-Clemmensen (2014) Conflicts

elsewhere on the globe, most prominently the Ukraine crisis, may spill over into the

Arctic and threaten the benign state of affairs that has otherwise characterized the

region. According to Mearsheimer’s realist theory, this may be seen as a case of na-

tion-states maximizing their powers by expanding security and searching to become

the strongest player in the game (Toft, 2003). Olesen and Rahbek-Clemmensen also

mention another potential escalation of the conflict, which is that the climate changes

might cause the opening up for the Northeast and Northwest passages, and also ques-

tions about jurisdiction are emerging.

Thus, there are various on-going and rising conflicts over the Arctic and within the

Arctic region itself, and there are a number of players around the table whom, accord-

ing to a realist perspective, all are going to make decisions based on a self-help point

of view, and with a goal of securing each their own power.

What is then interesting is to look into what has been the answer from the EU towards

the Arctic. In June 2015 the European institute for security studies (ISS) published a

report called Arctic Security Matters (Jokela, 2015). With this report, further steps

36

where taken towards putting Arctic security issues on the agenda of the union. The

report argues that Arctic states and local communities have a vested interest in foster-

ing peace and stability in the Arctic region (Jokela, 2015: 75). According to the re-

port, the Arctic conflicts are an area of privileged interest to the EU (Jokela, 2015:

59), and in addition what is happening in the Arctic will increase the relevance of the

EU taking security policy to the next level, and for the EU to act upon its growing

conflicts with Russia. The 2007 cyber attacks on Estonia, the short Russia-Georgia

war in 2008, and most recently the crisis in Ukraine/Crimea have all contributed to

the periodic deterioration of relations between Russia and the West (Jokela, 2015: 61)

all have been conflicts which have had possible spill-over security effects into the

Arctic, both from the Russian and the European side. However, the question is wheth-

er the EU can control these trends when the union still has issues developing its over-

all foreign and security policies, as according to the realist perspective of Mearsheim-

er this is at the core of the issue; security issues are occurring due to a lack of over-

arching powers above the states, the international system is anarchic and thus there is

potential of conflicts spinning out of control with an endless power competition as the

result (Toft, 2003). So far, the Council, which is the main institution of European

Common foreign and security policies (CFSP), and Common Security and Defence

policies (CSDP) (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014), have not reached any substantial

goals concerning these growing Arctic security challenges. From Mearsheimer’s of-

fensive realist perspective, it may be unlikely that the union could ever develop in this

area, as the member states will always take their own interests into consideration be-

fore that of the union altogether (Toft, 2003), thus given the EU a somewhat ambiva-

lent role when dealing with security in the Arctic. However, on the other hand it

might be that the member states will grow to realize that their own security is highly

dependent on the strength and security of the union, and thus the question will be

whether the states would be willing to give up parts of their sovereignty in order to

maintain overall security. Emerging issues are calling for a European response, geo-

strategically issues; regional security and maritime challenges (Jokela, 2015: 65-67),

combined with global issues pushing for the previously mentioned security spill-over.

Thus, it seems to becoming necessary for the CFSP and CSDP decision makers to

find a way towards responses that can fulfil the demands of both nation-states and the

EU.

37

It seems that the hypothesis in this section is challenged, due to lack of a coherent

strategy and overall policies between the EU institutions, towards the Arctic region,

and it does not seem that there will be any in the near future. This may be due to the

realist perspectives being upheld within the member states, and thus their unwilling-

ness to give up any sovereignty, despite their formal collaboration in the Council. Se-

curity, power and sovereignty are core principles in the realist perspective, and these

principles rarely go hand in hand with supranational collaboration.

6.3. Subset The policy lines, which are laid out by the main institutions of the EU, towards the

Arctic region, are mainly of liberal character. Yet despite this liberal approach it is

important to argue that there are certain realist considerations, maybe due to the ne-

cessity of doing such consideration. It seems that the EU needs to take into account

that despite its liberal values and efforts, it is dealing with a realist world, and to gain

influence and create stability in the Arctic region, the EU needs to create a balance

between a liberal and a realist approach. Russia holds a strong presence in Arctic poli-

tics and with the weakening relationship between the EU and Russia; the EU may

need to take Russia’s increased threats into strategic considerations.

The characters and history of the EU make it somewhat easier for the union to have

congruence and policies when it comes to dealing with the liberal issues, such as

trade, democracy and international collaboration. However, if the union is in fact

gaining a shape more like a federation, time might also be for the union to increase its

foreign and security policies, the current issues in the outside regions are certainly

calling for it; yet, the final steps have to be made by the Council who is the power

holder of the area.

However, it is important to note that had this analysis contained a different realist per-

spective than Mearsheimer, another conclusion might have been revealed. According

to Waltz’ defensive realism, states are not power-maximizers, as they are according

the Mearsheimer, they are instead security-maximizers (Dunne & Schmidt, 2014:

104-105). The EU could in light of this idea be interpreted as an attempt made by

smaller states to band together, to collectively expand their security in opposition to a

larger, more powerful entity, such as Russia or the USA. This approach might help

serve as a bridge between the liberal approaches made by the EU to realist issues in

the Arctic. Since the security of the individual member states is best assured through a

38

certain degree of cooperation, and relinquishing a limited amount of sovereignty may

prove useful. In the specific case of the Arctic region, this means that the EU wishes

to formulate coherent policies and band together since this equalizes the ‘sizes’ of the

voices between the independent actors in the Arctic. EU Arctic policy would in de-

fensive realist terms not be about maximizing influence in the region, i.e. to shape the

‘dominion’ of the EU, but to prevent instability in the region and ensure that it will

not pose a threat to European security.

7. EU’s actorness in the Western Balkans and the Arctic In this chapter there will be a discussion on the actorness of the EU based on the pre-

viously mentioned requirements set up in section 3.3. and secondly a discussion

where it is determined to what extent the EU is an actor, according to the established

criterias.

7.1. The EU as an actor The first criterion is that the EU should be able to have a coherent policy both

vertically and horizontally towards the two regions, which has been the units within

this project. Horizontal coherence refers to the cooperation at the union level, with the

coordination between the supranational and intergovernment levels and the main

institutions, thus creating the ”inter-pillar coherence”. With the foreign policy being

separated between various actors in the EU, the horizontal coherence plays an

important role when one is to discuss the foreign policy of the EU (Gebhard, 2011).

The most important decision-making body in the EU, when it comes to foreign policy,

is the Council. The Council decides unanmiously in the areas of CFSP and CSDP

(Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 66-70). However, the Commission also has an im-

portant role in the shaping and creating of common foreign policies of the EU. The

Commission can create joint communications to present for the Council and formulate

ideas for foreign policies. The Council can also ask the Commission to take initiatives

and to purpose legislation. Therefore, when it comes to external matters the Commis-

sion has the power of initiative. Moreover, the Commission plays an important role in

securing that the EU has a coherent foreign policy (ibid.: 72-76). The last institution

which can affect the foreign policy of the EU is the Parliament. The EP can formulate

reports, pressure the member states and they have the ability to veto decisions, e.g.

international agreements (ibid.: 85-88).

39

On the other hand, vertical coherence refers to the coorperation between the member

states and the EU. Within this, it is important to discuss whether the member states act

in accordance with or against the foreign policy of the EU (ibid.). Regarding the level

of coherence toward the Western Balkan countries, it seems that the EU has a

relavtively coherent strategi. Since 1999, the EU has had as its aim to transform the

new states into EU members (European Commission, 2012b), which has been the

overarching strategy within the entire EU. The EU has been active in the region by

sending CSDP missions to enhance the security in its negihbourhood. The use of

conditionality has also been extensive. The overall strategies from the Stabilisation

and Association Agreements set out the advantages of membership and since the 2007

The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) and from 2014-2020 the IPAII is

”the main financial instrument for providing EU support to the beneficiaries in im-

plementing reforms with a view to Union membership” (European Commission,

2014b: 3). Thus, the overall strategy has been to promise membership after the candi-

date countries have implemented reforms. However, this vertical coherence has been

challenged due to the veto of Greece in the accession negotiations with Macedonia

and the fact that Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Spain and Romania not have recognized

the independence of Kosovo (Kmezic, 2015). Making it a challenge for the EU to act

as a united actor. The promise of membership still has to be credible. Thus, the EU

has since 1999 promised membership if the conditions are met, but the President of

the Commission, Jean Claude Junker, said in his opening speech that no further en-

largement would take place over the next five years (Juncker, 2014: 11). Hence, the

promise seems to be real, but the process is going somewhat slowly. Though, it seems

that the consistency of the EU’s CSDP missions have been a succes because the

member states have had national security interests in fighting organized crime and

they have thus given the missions some clear mandates (Merlingen, 2013: 156).

Taking a look at the points which were presented in chapter 6, it is evident that the

EU is capable of formulating a coherent and common strategy towards the Arctic re-

gion. In 2012, the Commission and the High Representative made a joint communica-

tion about the development of EU’s policy towards the region. This was then present-

ed to the Council and the Parliament (European Commission, 2012a). This joint

communication was then adopted in 2014 in a European Parliament resolution on the

EU strategy towards the Arctic region. This resolution outlines mostly the same inten-

40

tions as in the joint communication of the Commission, showing that the two institu-

tions have agreed on a coherent policy (European Parliament, 2014). Later in 2014,

the Council followed the initiatives taken by the EP and the Commission, and they

agreed on a 15-point conclusion. This conclusion showed that the Council agreed with

the joint action communication of 2012 from the Commission, and it also take the EP

resolution into consideration. The conclusion was that the Council agreed with exist-

ing polices and activities that had been concluded thus far (Council of the European

Union, 2014).

This points towards that in the Arctic region the EU has the ability to create coherent

policies, and that the three major institutions have the ability to work together and

creating the same line of thought when it comes to ensuring economic development,

protecting the environment and fighting climate change and protecting the indigenous

people.

However, when it comes to security policy the European Union does not seem as co-

herent in its policy towards the Arctic region. So far the Council has not developed

any sustainable goals concerning the security aspect of the Arctic region and the secu-

rity challenges. It may be difficult for the EU to develop a coherent security policy

towards the Artic region because security matters falls under jurisdiction of the CFSP

and CSDP, which means it is an intergovernmental matter and thus could potentially

make it difficult because the member states might have different opinions and inter-

ests in the region, making the EU rather ambivalent. Maybe therefore, the three major

institutions have not been able to develop common security policies towards the re-

gion so far (Jokela, 2015).

The second criteria is if there exists a commitment to a set of overarching values.

According to Bretherton and Vogler (2006: 30), this requirement is unproblematic

because the treaties are already establishing what the values of the European Union

are. Article 2(TEU) states that ”The Union is founded on the values of respect for

human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human

rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are

common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination,

tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail” (Treaty of

Lisbon, 2008). These are the values on which the EU should act upon, which makes

41

this criterion rather straight forward to conclude that the EU has a common set of

values.

The third requirement is that the EU should be able to and has the capacity to utilize

various policy instruments – diplomacy/negotiation, economic tools and military

means. The Council is the strongest institution when it comes to the capacity to utilize

various policy instruments. It is the main decision making body of the CFSP and

CSDP and it has the ability to it impose sanctions towards third parties, launch both

civilian and military EU crisis management actions, and make joint-actions to insure

EU’s ambition to promote security and peace (The Council, 2014).

The CFSP and CSDP is an important part of both the Council and the overall EU ca-

pacity to utilize its policy instruments. The aim with the CFSP and the CSDP is to

bind the member states to a common policy in foreign matter. They have the ability to

act externally through civilian and military missions in order to assist in conflicts.

They also have the ability to influence policies that violate international law or human

rights, through sanctions of an economic or diplomatic nature (European External

Action Service, 2015c)

Regarding the EU’s actorness in the Western Balkans, it is clear that EU has been

willing to use various instruments, such as negotiation, e.g. the Belgrade–Pristina ne-

gotiations. The EU has also had various CDSP missions in the region, e.g. in Bosnia,

Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo (Merlingen, 2013). Furthermore, the EU has used

its political conditions and economic strength to get the countries to implement re-

forms. The economic strength of the EU is important for the Balkan countries due to

the internal market. As also discussed earlier, the EU allocates a great amount of

money to the Western Balkans, which also demonstrates the economic power of the

EU. However, the capacity to utilize its policy instruments of the EU within the Arc-

tic region is still not evident. The main focus has been on promoting sustainable use

of Arctic resources, protecting the people who live in the region and trying to create a

more efficient environmental policy. Therefore, the main focus in the Arctic has been

on diplomatic cooperation.

The fourth requirement on the list is that the EU has to be recognized by the other,

important actors in the regions and systems. In the Western Balkans, Russia and

Turkey are two other actors in the Balkans, which is mainly due to historical reasons.

42

Russia actively works against the integration project of the Western Balkans into both

the EU and NATO (Blank & Kim, 2014). Moreover, Russia tries to oppose the EU

model of democracy and western values, thus presenting the Putinist model of

authoritarian statism and crimnalized elite rule (Blank & Kim, 2014). Hence, the two

approaches and models are complety different from one another. Antoher instrument

which Russia is usesing is its energy. Russia wants to extend the pipelines to the

Balkans, and thus export gas to the countries which would lead to a high level of

dependence of Russia (ibid.). Turkey, on the other hand, uses a Neo-Ottoman

approach toward the Balkan states since they were part of the Ottoman Empire. There

are a high number of Muslims in the Western Balkans and Turkey supports the

cultural aspects such as language teachning, Turkish universities, and in Bosnia

students can study Turkish language in schools (Chang, 2014). This Neo-Ottoman

approach also demonstrates that Turkey argues based on common history, which

legitimates Turkey to be active in the area (Demirta, 2015). Besides Russia and

Turkey, another actor is the US. The US has been active previously in the region with

bombings during the Yugloslav wars in the 1990s, but the Obama administration has

not prioritised the Western Balkans and has instead supported EU initiatives (Blank &

Kim, 2014). This shows that there are several actors in the region, but it seems that

the EU most the actor who is the most influential due to its economic power and

values.

To measure if the EU is considered and actor in the Artic region it would be benefi-

cial to look at its status in the Arctic Council. The EU has applied for observer status,

but has not yet reached it. The EU has met some resistance against its presence in the

Council. Canada previously has objected to its status as an observer, and today Russia

is opposing. However, the EU still has an indirect observer status through Denmark,

Finland, and Sweden having permanent seats in the Arctic Council and other EU

member states France, Germany, and the Netherlands having official observer status

(European Parliament, 2014).

However, despite the EU having not yet reached observer status in the Arctic Council;

it could still be fair to argue that the EU is recognized as an actor in the region be-

cause several of the states in the Arctic Council are members of the EU, and therefore

can be influenced by the EU, which gives the EU some indirect power towards the

region. Moreover, the EU plays an active role in protecting the climate and the indig-

enous people (Hossain, 2015).

43

7.3. Subset In this part, the actorness of the EU has been investigated. It was found that the strat-

egy towards the Western Balkans is somewhat coherent, despite the fact that some of

the member states do not recognize Kosovo which makes it difficult for the EU to act

with one voice. The EU has also acted coherently towards the Arctic region with the

institutions being able to agree on the protection of the environment and indigenous

people, and responsible economic development. However, when it comes to security

matters the EU has not been able to develop unified policies. In the Western Balkans,

the EU has been present with various military and police missions, which shows that

the EU can act in these situations, when it wants to do so. The EU possesses various

foreign policy instruments, which it uses differently towards the regions. In the Arc-

tic, the EU focuses more on the diplomacy, and strives to get a seat in the Arctic

Council, whereas in the Western Balkans the EU has used several of its instruments,

such as civilian (EULEX) and military missions (ALTHEA), conditionality, and de-

velopment aid. In both regions there are several actors, however, in the Western Bal-

kans the EU is by far the strongest. In the Arctic region, Canada, Russia, and some of

the member states of the EU seem to be more important, and influential than the EU.

From the four requirements it is evident that the EU has actorness. Hence, its actor-

ness is dissimilar in the regions. In the Western Balkans, the EU is somewhat more

influential than in the Arctic region.

8.Conclusion The continuing enlargement process both vertically and horizontally of the EU has

made it more interesting to examine the EU’s foreign policy. Since the establishment

of the ECSC in 1951, the EU has grown into a federation of 28 member states with

foreign political competencies. It was established from the beginning of this project

that the reseach question was How does the EU exercise power in foreign affairs? To

reach a conclusion to this question, the analysis was carried out in four sections. To

answer this question, it was important to define how power was understood in this

project. Using the defintion by Max Weber, he argues that power is ”The probability

that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own

will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests”

(Dronberger, 1971: 115). There are several dimensions of power (Baldwin, 2013).

44

The first dimension is scope, which is the aspect of B’s behaviour affected by A. For

example, the EU has more power regarding economic issues than military issues.

Secondly, domain refers to the number or importance of other actors subject to its in-

fluence (Baldwin, 2013). As analysed, Russia and Turkey are two other actors influ-

encing the Western Balkans, and regarding the Arctic region, the EU is faced with the

influence of the USA, Canada, and Russia at the same time, thus there are several

other important actors. A third factor is the means, which refer to the means whereby

an actor can influence actor B, i.e. symbolic means, economic means, military means

and/or diplomatic means (ibid.). The EU has various instruments in its foreign policy,

e.g. economic tools, diplomacy, and civilian and military missions. In this project, all

instruments that are available to the EU have not been investigated, e.g. the economic

instruments i.e. trade agreements and economic sanctions. On the other hand, the fo-

cus has been on the security and democracy dimension of the EU in the Western Bal-

kans and the promotion of liberal values in the Arctic region, to combat climate

change and ensure that economic development is implemented responsibly. However,

as presented in the theory, the realists argue that the states are the most important ac-

tors and that the national approach of power in IR is still the most prominent one.

Scholars such as Waltz and Mearsheimer claim that military means are the most im-

portant factor, thus the realists reject the relational power (several dimensions of pow-

er) (Baldwin, 2013). To conclude, in this project, power is an important factor to un-

derstanding the foreign policy of the EU and the focus has been on Max Weber’s un-

derstanding of power.

Another important understanding of foreign policy and how the EU acts, it is

important to establish how one sees the EU, it is an institution, an international organ-

ization, a state or a federation. Within this project, it is argued that the EU is a federa-

tion. The member states of the EU have given sovereignty to the federal level so that

the federation can take decisions of common interest. However, some competences

remain within the states, examples could be taxation and the education systems. It is

argued that any federation needs to be able to balance the power of the federal gov-

ernment, not to overreach its competences, and the states have to make sure that they

do not undermine the constitution, or treaties in the case of EU. The above-mentioned

factors, power and the EU as a federation, are important to have established before an

analysis of the foreign policy of the EU. These factors are also important in under-

45

standing the problem statement. This leads to the analysis of the two units under in-

vestigation, i.e. Western Balkans and the Arctic region. These two units were selected

on the basis of the MDSD case selection and were chosen to present a part of the for-

eign policy of the EU.

Regarding the foreign policy towards the Western Balkans, the EU has used

various instruments in its foreign policy. Since 2003, the EU has been very active in

the region and has had several civilian and military missions in the region, such as

ALTHEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and EULEX in Kosovo. This high interest in

the region is due to the fact that the Western Balkans is situated closely to the EU and

its borders. These are examples of how the EU exercises its powers in the region. The

EU has also, through the political conditionality, exercised its power of attraction. The

EU has since the SAP began and membership was promised to the countries in the

region influenced the countries a great amount. The political conditionality has been a

tool to get the counties to implement reforms and to be in accordance with the Copen-

hagen Criteria. However, the process towards membership has been slow. Croatia is

the only country that it now an EU member. There are several disputes in the region

which has to be solved before an accession to the EU. Greece has vetoed the acces-

sion negotiations with Macedonia and the fact that Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Spain

and Romania have not recognized Kosovo’s independence makes it difficult for the

EU to speak with one voice. The use of conditionality is a great tool of the EU due to

it can affect the behaviour of the other countries without using military means, but

only through the use of soft power. One the most influential ways the EU has exer-

cised its power in the region is through the focus on the spread of democracy. Via the

IPA II-programme, the EU supports the Western Balkans and Turkey with €2.9

billions from 2014-2020 (European Commission, 2014b). All these instruments show

how the EU has influenced the region through its power.

To analyse the problem statement, two hypothesis were developed on the basis

of the theories. The first focused on realism, being: The main focus of the EU is to es-

tablish security in the Western Balkans to secure its own survival and the second be-

ing focused on liberalism The EU focuses first and foremost on establishing democra-

cy in the Balkan countries through the use of conditionality. Overall, the conclusion is

that the realist hypothesis is challenged and the liberal hypothesis is verified. Howev-

er, it can be concluded that the EU has in the past had a lot of focus on the security of

46

the region, whereas in the recent years the democracy building has increased. Even

though the realist hypothesis was challenged, there is still some evidence that the EU

puts a lot of emphasis on the protection of the borders and the fight against organized

crime to prevent this to enter the EU. The fact that the EU emphasises the security

dimension could potentially challenge the liberal hypothesis. However, because the

overall framework of the EU’s foreign policy towards the region is on creating liberal

democracies, it is then concluded that the realist hypothesis is challenged and the lib-

eral verified. In sum, the EU has actually been capable of having a coherent policy

toward the region with a mixture of security and democracy building.

Regarding the foreign policy towards the Arctic region, the EU has acted differently.

The EU is not member of the Arctic Council and is not capable of using the same for-

eign policy tools towards the Arctic region. The countries that have an interest in the

Arctics, such as Russia, Canada and the US, are somewhat more influential in the re-

gion than the EU. The EU has applied for observer status in the Arctic Council, but

this has not been granted because Canada has objected it. This shows that the Arctic

Council is very much intergovernmental. However, the EU has an indirect saying in

the Arctic Council due to the fact the Finland, Greenland (Denmark), and Sweden are

members of the Arctic Council. Even though the EU is not member of the Arctic

Council, it still has to be considered an influential part of the region, especially when

it comes to climate change. The EU acts responsibly to ensure economic development

in the Arctic based on sustainable use of resources. Moreover, the main focus is on

dialogue, cooperation, and economic development. When it comes to liberal values,

the Commission, the Council and the EP all agree on the same focal points for the

EU’s policy towards the Arctic region. However, it seems that the EU has not reached

the same amount of coherence when it is to deal with security challenges. As it is ana-

lysed, there is a chance that the conflicts in Europe will spillover to the Arctic region,

e.g. the conflict in Ukraine with Russia. Russia is a key player in the Arctics and this

threat can be necessary for the EU to take seriously, thus taking the security policy to

the next level. It can then be concluded that the EU mainly uses diplomacy and eco-

nomic strength, i.e. its soft power toward the region. The instruments that the EU uses

in Balkans are not the same in the Arctics. Where the EU deployed civilian and mili-

47

tary missions to the Balkans, this it not likely to happen in the Arctics. This shows

that the EU acts differently in relation to different regions.

To analyse the problem statement, two hypothesis were developed on the basis

of the theories. The first focused on liberalism, stating that The EU is developing a

foreign policy towards the Arctic region, because the establishment of markets and

trade with the region will support the establishment of peace and end conflict, as

common markets pacify conflicts and the second focused on realism The EU is devel-

oping its foreign policy towards the Arctic due to the threat of instability in the re-

gion, and in order to thus maximize security by striving to be the strongest. It can be

concluded that the liberal hypothesis can be verified because the EU uses its liberal

values to promote peace, economic development, protecting minorities and the cli-

mate. The EU has a strong coherence when it comes to non-security matters since the

institutions agree on this strategy. On the other hand, the realist hypothesis is chal-

lenged due to the fact that the EU does not operate in the way the offensive realism

describes. The EU has not been able to develop a security strategy towards the region.

The last part of the analysis was chapter seven in which the actorness of the EU was

discussed. Bretherton & Vogler, Kelstrup et. al., and Beyer’s requirements were

discussed, and then four criteria were identified to be the best ones to analyse the

actorness of the EU. In any case, the EU is regarded an actor, but the discussion is on

to what level and what extent the EU is an actor. The EU is regarded an actor in both

cases. The EU has a rather coherent strategy towards the Balkans, whereas in the

Arctics the coherence is only coherent in non-security matters. The history of the

Balkans and the importance of region make it an important area for the EU. Among

the other actors in the system, it was shown that the Russia and Turkey try to

influence the region. The EU, however, was the actor with most power in the region.

In the Arctics, Russia, Canada and the US are by far more influential than in the

Balkans. Their interests are more prominent in that region, however, the EU is still

considered an actor. The EU is committed to the same values, which are described in

the treaties, such as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule

of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to

minorities. Moreover, the EU has the capacity to utilize various policy instruments in

its foreign policy. These include inter alia civilan and military missions, economic

tools, such as impose sanctions on third parties, make joint actions, diplomacy

48

through EU delegations and the High Representative, and conditionality. These

instruments show that the EU is capable of exercising power in foreign policy, which

could affect the policies of third parties.

It can thus be concluded that the EU has the power and instruments to exercise

power in foreign policy and it also shows that the EU uses its power both the in

Western Balkans and the Arctic region. It should be noted that there is a difference on

how the EU uses this power.

The comparative method applied in this project was chosen because the aim has been

to compare the foreign policy of the EU in two different regions to examine how it

exercises its power in foreign affairs. The units of comparison have been very differ-

ent from one another, i.e. the Arctic region and the Balkans. However, an important

requirement, which has to be in place when carrying out the comparative method, is

the fact the same should be measured in both cases. This has been a limitation to this

study because the spread of democracy through the use of conditionality in the West-

ern Balkans has not been investigated towards the Arctics. Therefore, this is a critique

of the method because it is not the same aspects that are under investigation and

thereby it is difficult to compare it. However, the fact that a country or a federation

have two completely similar foreign policies is not very likely towards two complete-

ly different regions. Moreover, the problem statement was to investigate how the EU

exercises its power in foreign affairs therefore it was never the intention to compare

the units, but rather to show how the EU exercises its power in different regions.

Another limitation to this study is that no local sources have been used, i.e.

sources written in Serbian or other local tongues. This could have strengthened the

analysis because it had been possible to examine EU’s power from another angle.

Furthermore, it may have strengthened the analysis if it had been possible to interview

the EU delegations in the respective countries and areas of interest; however, this was

not possible due to access and time. Furthermore, a critique of this method is also that

it is difficult to generalize since it is arguable that there are not enough cases and if

the cases are representative.

The deductive reasoning of this project meant that it was necessary to make hypothe-

ses that should be based on the theories applied in the project. If other theories had

been chosen, the hypotheses would have been differently. If the focus had been on the

49

economic relations of the EU rather than democracy and security, the conclusion

would have been different. But also if other theorists had been chosen in the same

field of study, the conclusion would might also have been different. For example, if

Kenneth Waltz and defensive realism had been selected, other hypothesis had to be

made, which would lead to different conclusions. Mearsheimer claims that the nation-

states are the most important actors and that the EU is of minimal importance in the

international system because the member states only have their national interest in

mind, which is the survival of the state (Mearsheimer, 2001). This leads to a lack of

coherence in the foreign policy of the EU. Therefore, it could be argued that Waltz’s

theory would have been better to use because he states that one should only pursue

only as much security to secure the survival of state because the EU is not a military

federation and the interest is not to be the hegemon. Another theory that could have

been useful in explaining the EU’s focus on the spread of democracy and liberal

values could have been Jospeh Nye’s thoughts on soft power. His thoughts are that

other countries want to be like the EU because of the their values and high living

standards. The EU has a high level of attraction, which could be used to influence

third countries to adopt the same values (Nye, 2004).

These suggestions could be used in further research to investigate the foreign policy

of the EU. It would be interesting to get a better understanding of the instruments

avaiable to the EU to and to how the EU exercises power in other regions.

9. Further perspectives If this project should develop further, additional and different issues could have been

discussed. To clarify this, the aspects of which could affect the foreign the EU other

areas could be investigated. Within this project, focus has been on the development of

foreign policy towards two very nearby areas of the union; the Western Balkans and

the Arctic, yet other issues are asking for attention as well. And these issues could

have led to another conclusion and another perspective of the foreign policy of the

EU.

The relationship between Russia and the EU is one issue, which could have an effect

on the development of the foreign policy of the EU. The relationship has declined be-

tween the EU and Russian since the Russian aggressiveness in Georgia and the an-

50

nexation of Crimea are just part of contributing to the poor relationship between the

two (keukelarie). These events could have an impact on the foreign policy of the EU

because the EU might have to consider Russia as a potential threat to the stability in

Europe. Šimečka (2015) argues that the future of the EU-Russia relations is rather un-

stable For parts of the European political and intellectual elite, a non-democratic

Russia will always represent an existential threat: an archetypal enemy bent on ex-

ploiting the weaknesses of open societies (Šimečka, 2015). These points lead back to

what has been previously argued in this project; globalization process is able to cause

relations between nations in one area to spillover and have an effect on the policy in

other areas. Therefore, the relation between Russia and the EU in one area could have

consequences for the collaboration between the two in other areas as well, thus push-

ing European development forward, for better or for worse. Thus, it could be interest-

ing to examine this relationship further to get more knowledge about these spillover

processes, but at the same time it would enhance the perception of how the EU acts in

foreign affairs. If it would be examined how the EU acts and uses its power towards

Russia, it could be interesting to conduct research in the EU’s availability to use eco-

nomic means in foreign affairs. In the response to the Ukraine crisis, the EU has sanc-

tioned Russia. The EU has focused its sanctions on the banking sector, and towards

energy and defence companies (European Union, 2015c). Theses are instruments,

which the EU can use to influence Russia’s behaviour against Ukraine. It could have

been interesting to have Russia as a case due to the major influence Russia has in

World Politics and European affairs. Some of the member states were part of the So-

viet Union and therefore has a special, however, somewhat critical link to Russia. The

geopolitics of Europe makes it impossible to ignore Russia when it comes to foreign

matters, and somehow Russia could have an effect on how the EU behaves in its for-

eign policy. Moreover, it would be interesting to consider the effect that NATO may

or may not have on the development of the foreign policy of the EU. 22 out of 28

member states of the EU are member of NATO (NATO, 2015). This could potentially

make it difficult for the member states to agree on a common and coherent foreign

and security policy because some member states might consider NATO to be more

important when it comes to security and defence policy. Therefore, it could be inter-

esting to examine whether NATO shapes the foreign and security policy of the mem-

ber states more than the EU can affect it. If this was investigated, the conclusion of

this project might have been different.

51

Another current issue, which is pushing for further development of the EU, is the ref-

ugee and migration crises. The refugee and migrant crisis has already caused for new

developments of the union, e.g. the resettlement of refugees. In December 2015, the

European Commission has proposed to give Frontex a stronger mandate to protect the

external borders of the EU new with an increase of border and coast guard forces.

(BBC, 2015). This is an example of another way the EU uses a foreign policy instru-

ment. The fact that the EU can intervene in member states even though they have not

given permission to it is rather controversial (BBC, 2015). This shows that the EU

tries to become more influential when it comes to protecting it external borders. How-

ever, this proposal has met a lot of resistance from some member states, saying that it

interferes with the territorial sovereignty of the state (BBC, 2015). This could be an-

other way of researching how the EU uses its power in foreign affairs and the chal-

lenges it faces when some member states reject the means of the EU.

The current refugee and migrant crises has also led to another way to where the EU

has shown its power in foreign affairs is its expanding relationship with Turkey, by

contributing with both finances and further collaboration to stop the migrant flows

(European Commission, 2015b). Thereby, the refugee and migrant crisis is becoming

yet another example of challenges which are causing spillover for further develop-

ment of the EU. Turkey is another interesting case to investigate when it comes to

foreign policy. It could be investigated if the EU has the possibility to use its political

conditionality in Turkey, as was the case in the Western Balkans. Hence, a compari-

son between the use of conditionality in Turkey and Western Balkans could be ap-

plied to strengthen the conclusion.

It could be further analysed whether the EU is a liberal dream, and that the EU

acts in and deal with a realist world. Currently, this realist world is showing its face as

the refugee and migrant crisis, thus forcing the union to develop its foreign and exter-

nal policies, expanding both vertically and horizontally. Inevitably, there are also

challenges rising, together with these crises, and currently one challenge for the EU

could be that national interest are splitting nations and making decisions difficult to

reach, thus highlighting the importance of the common voice of all institutions, to

challenge, support and collaborate with each other. It might be that the EU is now in

a situation where, whether the various institutions like it or not, are being forced to

develop a common foreign policy due to the issues which is happing in its neighbour-

52

hood; The EU is part of the international system, and thus the impact of the two is

mutual and interdependent.

It is difficult to say where the European development will be heading in the future,

will it be towards more integration, or will the nationalist interests take over, and de-

molish the entire system. Are the outside issues enough for the nation-states to keep

giving their sovereignty to a federation-like system, or will the nations find their own

ways of dealing with the global challenges. There are possibilities of the European

Union developing into a strong foreign actor, and international voice, to either cause

the union to grow ever closer, and to become a robust, unified power. Or, on the other

hand, it may cause for the unravelling of the union, and the nation-states to take back

their sovereignty, thus forcing other answer to be made for the global challenges.

53

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