Some consequences for the Union’s common foreign and security policy of the EU-enlargement with the former Soviet bloc countries

In this era of multilateralism with strong monolithic, global political actors such as the US, Russia and China the European Union (EU) should coordinate its foreign and security policy, if it wants to play a role in the global political arena. In recent treaties however, the Union has not succeeded in developing a coherent structure in the field of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The Constitutional and Lisbon treaties have provided more space to create more coherence in the Union’s foreign and security policy. A Union’s coordinator is being appointed for foreign policy and security, although the intergovernmental structure in foreign and security issues will remain largely unaffected. With the accession of the Central and East European countries (CEECs) even greater diversity in foreign and security policy issues has been introduced in the Union. This is caused by the regional, conventional issues that have been dominating the foreign policy agenda’s of CEECs after the fall of communism, although EU leverage has succeeded in deescalating local conflicts. In this paper, the involvement of CEECs in two international crisis, namely the Iraq intervention and Kosovo’s independence will be investigated in more detail. In separate case studies it will be argued that CEECs have not supported a CFSP in these cases because of structural deficits within the EU itself but also because these countries have been allowed to join the Union without a strict interpretation of the 1993 Copenhagen criteria. As a result, member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have become in a position to pursue their own agenda making a common foreign and security policy impossible. The Kosovo conflict shows that even if the Big Three, France, Germany and Great Britain take a similar position an effective foreign and security policy of the Union cannot be guaranteed.