The European community’s response to the central European challenge the Genesis of a European common foreign policy

Abstract

This MA thesis deals with the European Community's response to the Central European challenge. The lack of explanatory and normative theories to explain the European integration process as a whole demonstrates that it has been driven by Member States' interests and could be heavily influenced by external aspects. Despite the different political models of organisation (i.e. federation, confederation or international organisation) at the disposition of several states to organise themselves to tackle international problems, West European member states did not completely subscribe to any of these and that makes the European Union the political invention of this century. The politico-administrative model of the European Union is the result of a original and unprecedented bargaining to preserve national interests and supranational efficiency both at the same time. This process is both the source of its originality and the reason of its relative inefficiency when compared to the United States of Germany. However the European Union survives and proves the relevance in the international scene when confronted to external effects. Our argument is that Central Europe could be considered as one of the external factors that might push the European Union to strengthen its decision making process and to render its action more efficient and responsive to Central European needs. This thesis deliberately limits itself to the economic and political sides of European external policy and shows the evolution of the methods, structures and concepts that the European Union used to build up a Common Commercial Policy and to set up the Common Foreign and Security Policy.