Dr Eva Gross, who teaches European Security and Foreign Policy at BSIS, has just published a book on The Europeanization of National Foreign Policy – Continuity and Change in European Crisis Management.
With the creation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) member states can rely on more than one institution when it comes to matters of international security. Britain and France, but also Germany, were instrumental in creating ESDP – but experience has shown that these three EU member states do not automatically consider the EU as an appropriate institutional framework for crisis responses. Under what conditions, then, do EU member states privilege European security institutions in their crisis decision-making?
This book analyzes British, French and German decision-making processes in four international crises to delineate transatlantic and European influences that act on policy-makers. Although transatlantic pressures have become less important when it comes to reservation against using the EU as a platform for military crisis management operations, this has not resulted in moves towards more ‘Europeanized’ crisis decision-making. Europeanization, therefore, continues to only partially account for national policy choices.