CSFP in the Pre-politicization Stage: The Case of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy has been increasingly subjected to politicization in the last two decades against the backdrop of frequent and rising disparities between EU Member States on matters of security and defense, but also on the divide between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism. Albeit the differences were present long before the Maastricht Treaty put pen to paper on a European foreign policy, there seemed to have been a tacit understanding that these might be consolidated over time. The aim of this paper is to take a step back and analyze the CFSP in the area of international security in which it has remained stuck in a very early phase of politicization. The test case for the CFSP will be the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which entered into force in January 2021 to the delight of some Member States and the discontent of others. With the ultimate goal of totally eliminating nuclear weapons, the TPNW has further eroded the CFSP showcasing the divisions among EU Member States for all to see. The TPNW ultimately prevented the EU from developing a common position on nuclear nonproliferation, as did the past NPT Review Conference, and as the forthcoming most likely will. This paper scrutinizes and juxtaposes divergent positions of Member States on nuclear disarmament. For instance, EU NATO Member States mostly and unsurprisingly ignored the TPNW’s entry into force. EU Member States proponents of banning not only the use of nuclear weapons but also nuclear energy celebrated its entry into force. The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the EU to support a world without nuclear weapons, while the High Representative/Vice President Borrell found himself in his usual position between a rock and a hard place. But why has the CFSP remained stuck in this early stage on the issue, what are the traits of European cooperation on it, and what can this case tell us about the history and the future of European Foreign policy? In order to answer the above mentioned research questions, this paper looks closely at the TPNW and demonstrates how internal divisions and external alliances impact the EU’s capacity to act in the international arena and possibly impede the development of a comprehensive security and defense policy. The paper gathers insight from elite interviews carried out with the EU Delegation and Member States’ Permanent Missions to the UN in New York and Geneva into the modus operandi of formulating a common EU position on nuclear weapons and what it reveals about the history and the future development of the CFSP.