European foreign policy since the Cold War: How ambitious,how inhibited?

Abstract

The European Union has declared ambitious objectives for a common European foreign policy since the end of the cold war. Through successive revisions of its constitutional treaties, it has built may of the institutions that might support such a common policy. Incremental changes and adaptation through experience of successive crises have strengthened practices of cooperation and consultation. Yet the retention of sovereignty over foreign and defence policy by national governments, and the unwillingness of national governments and parliaments to engage in any EU-wide reconsideration of strategic needs and objectives has left these common institutions without the permissive consensus needed to support effective shared action. National inhibitions about subordinating particular interests and assumptions to a wider European consensus have left the EU institutions without the ability either to promote shared European interests or to act effectively when those interests are threatened.