Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy: Facing Crises in Ukraine and Syria

Abstract

This paper outlines the institutions which form and implement the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU CFSP) and examines the history of the EU CFSP. Descriptively, it explains the increasing cohesion of the CFSP as a reaction to past failures. Prescriptively, it recommends ways in which the CFSP can focus European will to attain desirable objectives of peace, prosperity, and protection of human rights. It compares the current conflict in Syria to the past failure of the EU to manage a similar conflict in Yugoslavia. It argues that the EU is contributing to the resolution of conflicts in Ukraine but it is unlikely that the EU can contribute to the peaceful transition of power in Syria as mediator between the U.S. and Russia or Assad and Rebels. Unlike Ukraine, paralysis, incapacity, and disintegration of the failing state are likely outcomes in Syria. EU CFSP institutions and instruments are well considered and consensusoriented but are slow and even indecisive in consequence. The crisis in Ukraine will likely focus the political will of European elites to attain decisive, coherent foreign policies adapted to the challenges presented in Ukraine and Syria. The death of Syria and the agony of Ukraine are bad for business and even worse for peace and human rights. The EU has suasive and dissuasive soft-power mechanisms (education, sanctions), and NATO has hard power instruments (soldiers, aircraft). In concert with EU trading partners a resolution of these crises will be found but the cost in blood and lost business is yet to be accounted for. http://dx.doi.org/10.18060/7909.002