539 Natividad Fernández Sola The proposed reform of the european external actions service and its implications for the european union‘s security policy As the organisations of the Common Security and Defence Policy are included within the European External Actions Service, the deficiencies of the latter will also have their impact on the former. At the same time the weaknesses and inconsistencies in relation to the Common Security and Defence Policy, in an incomplete European Union, cannot be disguised by a “European Diplomatic Corps” at the service of an as yet imperfect policy. Based on the premise that, as is frequently the case in international relations, internal norms and players are as important as the content6, the objective of this study is to analyse the deficiencies of the EEAS that affect the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and determine whether the deficiencies are structural or circumstantial, and to propose guidelines for reform that could deal with these and increase the efficiency of the EEAS and the High Representative as the managers of Foreign Policy, including the CSDP. Such an analysis is timely, given that the European External Actions Service 7 awaits reform to address the necessities observed during its three years of existence and in view of the European Council’s forthcoming review of the CSDP in December 2013. 1. Objective of the Lisbon Treaty in relation to EU external action and the limitations of the European External Actions service in achieving this The objective of the last major reform of the constitutive treaties was to promote the EU’s role as an actor on the world stage. Hence the focus of the Lisbon Treaty on the Union’s external action8, apparently doing away with the former distinction between external relations and foreign and security policy, in other words, between trade and development policies, the traditional content of the first pillar of the community, and the foreign and common security and defence policies (CFSP and CSDP), until then constituting the second pillar of the EU. In pursuit of this new focus, Title V of the TEU resulting from Lisbon lays down a set of general principles that should guide 6 RAMOPOULOS, Thomas, ODERMATT, Jed, “ EU Diplomacy: Measuring Success in Light of the Post-Lisbon Institutional Framework”, in A. Boening, J. F. Kremer and A. van Loon (eds.), Global Power Europe. Theoretical and Institutional Approaches to the EU’s External Relations, vol.1, Springer Verlag, 2013, p.19. 7 Council decision 2010/427/ EU, 26 July, which establishes the organisation and functioning of the European External Action service forecasts in article 13.3 that the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will undergo a review of same. 8 The European Union, which since the Lisbon Treaty has a sole legal international policy, instead of the previous ones corresponding to the European Community, EURATOM and the EU itself; see FERNÁNDEZ SOLA, N, “La subjetividad internacional de la Unión Europea”, Rev. Derecho Comunitario Europeo, vol.6-11, 2002, pp.85-112.
REVISTA IEEE 2
To see the actual publication please follow the link above