Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
The entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in November 1993 turned European Political Cooperation (EPC) into the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The Lisbon Treaty (in force since 1 December 2009) further strengthens the CFSP.While the principle of unanimity continues to apply as regards decision-making (apart from a few limited exceptions), the new institutional framework, with the creation of a European External Action Service, is a major step towards the integration of EU foreign policy.
In recent years the CFSP has developed at an enormous speed. The EU has been and is still engaged in numerous trouble spots in our immediate vicinity and further afield, with both civilian and independent military missions.
Today the EU supports the Bosnian, Congolese, Palestinian and, since June 2007, the Afghan police forces. Europeans train Iraqi justice personnel. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the EU, in its largest military operation to date, is creating security for the people in the Western Balkans. The fact that the first democratic elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 passed off peacefully was in part due to EU military forces.
The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was created by the Maastricht Treaty (Treaty on European Union), which entered into force on 1 November 1993. Some changes in the CFSP’s permanent structures were brought about by the conclusions of the Nice European Council in December 2000. The Lisbon Treaty (LT), however, contains important innovations. While the entry into force of the LT on 1 December 2009 did not mean that the CFSP was communitarized, a declaration attached to the LT states that “the provisions covering the Common Foreign and Security Policy do not give new powers to the Commission to initiate decisions nor do they increase the role of the European Parliament”. However, the creation of the post of EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, who also serves as Vice President of the Commission, now institutionalizes the EU’s ambition to speak with one voice on foreign relations. The first holder of this new post is Catherine Ashton from Great Britain, who was unanimously appointed by the European Council on 19 November 2009 with the approval of the President of the Commission.
The name CFSP says it all: the EU is also a security-policy actor. In recent years there has been much movement in this regard. Whereas, for a long time, external security was not an issue relating to European integration, during the 1990s conflicts and crises in their immediate vicinity forced the EU countries to add a new string to their bow: In 1999 they strengthened the existing CFSP instruments with the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), thus enabling the EU to also undertake conflict resolution and peacekeeping measures using military crisis-management instruments, and to enforce them if necessary. The LT’s entry into force has turned the ESDP into the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).