EU foreign policy innovations in perspective of 50 years of foreign policy cooperation and the EU´s sense of international responsibility

It is 50 years since European Political Co-operation (EPC) was launched. Since then EU member states have developed a sophisticated set of institutions and array of instruments through which to conduct a collective foreign and security policy. EPC has evolved into a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) with an accompanying Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) with the latter now developed into the ambition for an EU Defence Union. These recent developments, underpinned by the aspirations set out in the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy such as PESCO and European Defence Fund, signal an impressive level of ambition. But are they indicative of a collective responsibility to act or do they reflect Henry Kissinger’s argument that the spirt of foreign policy is diametrically opposed to that of bureaucracy? Put another way, for all its institutionalisation in foreign policy, were the EU confronted by Srebenica today, would member states intervene? Building on the extensive and detailed scholarship to-date that has examined EU foreign policy institutionalisation and the development of capabilities and capacities, this paper looks at how collective European expectations in foreign policy have developed across the last half century. In particular, it explores whether EU states today are any more willing to take on more collective responsibility in foreign policy as a consequence of their extensive cooperation over the long-term. To do this, we offer a conceptualisation of a “collective European responsibility to act”. We see this as predicated on the distinctive nature of transgovernmental cooperation in EU foreign policy. Further, we seek to identify the factors that contribute to a collective and reflexive responsibility within an EU diplomatic system. Using this approach we seek to understand to what extent a sense of foreign policy responsibility has developed among the 27 member states. In arguing for this approach we demonstrate that a collective European responsibility to act has been a constant driver of developments in the ambition and practice of European foreign policy. At the same time, the definition of what this responsibility entails for individual member states and how it should be manifest in institutionalization and practice remains contested.