European Strategic Autonomy: The Test Case of Iran

The ideal of the European Union (EU) as a global peace and security actor is increasingly clashing with the reality of a multipolar world defined by militarised conflict, and a loosening of the formerly close trans-Atlantic relationship with the United States. European policy-makers have identified strategic autonomy as a possible remedy in the face of a growing number of internal and external security threats. This paper adds to the conceptualisation of strategic autonomy by contextualising its current usage and political genealogy. Empirically, European strategic autonomy is examined concerning the efforts to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal after the Trump administration had ceased US participation in May 2018. In particular, the paper assesses the European response to counter the re-imposed unilateral United States (US) sanctions against European individuals and entities by updating the so-called blocking regulation, and setting up a special purpose vehicle (spv) for facilitating trade with Iran. The results show that the European struggle toward achieving strategic autonomy has largely failed, but that it holds valuable lessons to approximate this ideal in the future.

A Challenge to the Liberal Peace? European Union Peacebuilding faces China in Nepal

How does China’s rising presence in Nepal affect the European Union’s own peacebuilding efforts in the country? As a global peace and security actor, the EU has followed the liberal peacebuilding model that promotes peace by strengthening democratic institutions. China’s rise as a “pragmatic” peacebuilder is often called non-conducive to this approach, but how this dynamic plays out has rarely been studied with detailed case evidence. We narrow this gap using the case of Nepal. Drawing on interviews conducted between 2015 and 2020, we find that China’s rise has decreased the EU’s leverage in promoting peace in the areas of civil society, human rights, and constitution-building. But some setbacks in the peace process were unrelated to China. Instead, they were also linked to the EU’s own reform neglects and policy differences, and to local perceptions about peacebuilders, showing how external and internal challenges jointly affect the EU’s role as peacebuilder.

Beyond the Duality of Normativity and Pragmatism

One of the EU’s key foreign policy objectives is to promote the values enshrined in its treaties, such as democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The EU’s self-conception of being a “rule maker” rather than a “rule taker” in international relations, however, is increasingly contested both by internal (e.g., democratic backsliding or a general tendency towards nationalist politics) as well as external challenges (e.g., the return of bilateralism or the rise of new actors). China’s Belt and Road Initiative (bri) is often understood as the most serious opposition on the external side to the EU’s model of international cooperation and global governance, in that it promotes a pragmatic instead of a norm-based approach, at least at first glance. The Chinese foreign policy model that the bri reflects, explicitly favours open membership, flexibility and economic gains over multilateral institutions and norm-based action. By drawing on original interviews and analysing central policy documents, this article shows how the juxtaposition of normativity and pragmatism has shaped the political and academic discourse on the EU’s foreign policy and idea of global governance. It argues that this duality of normativity versus pragmatism is misleading because it overlooks the fact that the EU and China both (a) constitute the framework for a certain practice and (b) are rooted in practice. Drawing on Kagan’s cultural thesis of foreign policy, it questions the real meaning of this juxtaposition and applies a practice-based reading to the EU’s and China’s modes of foreign policy making. The article further shows that scrutinising foreign policy through the prism of practice can provide a more context-sensitive and encompassing understanding of how the EU and China construct their foreign policies as well as of possible conflicts that arise from them.

The European Union as a Security Actor in the Sahel

In the past decade, the EU has significantly stepped up its profile as a security actor in the Sahel. Drawing on historical institutionalism, we conceptualise path-dependencies and lock-in effects as elements of a “foreign policy entrapment” spiral to analyse the EU’s policies towards the Sahel. Specifically, we seek to explain the EU’s increasingly widened and deepened engagement in the region. Hence, this article traces the evolution of the EU’s Sahel policy both in discourse and implementation. We identify a predominant security narrative as well as a regionalisation narrative and show that EU action has followed these narratives. Based on this analysis, we argue that the evolution of the EU’s Sahel policy can be understood as a case of “foreign policy entrapment”. Initial decisions on the overall direction of EU foreign policy have created strong path-dependencies and lock-in effects that make it difficult for EU policy-makers to change the policy course.

Pre-Eminent or Subordinate? An Organisational Environment Perspective on the EU’s Security Cooperation with asean and ecowas

Security cooperation with other regional organisations (ros) has long been a facet of EU foreign policy. The EU’s relationships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) and the Economic Community of West African States (ecowas) illustrate the variety of the EU’s engagement. In West Africa, the EU is a pre-eminent actor, occasionally dictating an agenda and marginalising ecowas. In Southeast Asia, the EU remains subordinate, facing an uphill battle for relevance in the security sphere and a closer relationship to asean. Prevailing explanations focus on the EU’s internal characteristics or bilateral cooperation dynamics, but fail to fully explain this discrepancy. Based on new interview information, this article argues that the organisational environment also affects the EU’s security cooperation with asean and ecowas. The presence of competitive environments limits the EU’s role in security cooperation and relegates it to a subordinate role. In the absence of competition, the EU is allowed to become pre-eminent.