DÜNYA İLİŞKİLERİNDE AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ - Deneme Sınavı - 5

Europe and European integration are undeniably going through a phase of geopolitical turbulence. Today, some of the European Union’s (EU) most acute crises, such as on Eurozone cohesion and the shortcomings of a common approach to migration, have been managed in the short term, but turbulence has arisen elsewhere. The United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU (so-called Brexit) on the basis of a referendum and the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States have shaken the pillars that support the international and European order.

“… principles that governed the internal life of the liberal states: sovereignty, political freedom, a market economy and strong institutions.”

“… the liberal world order was being challenged by the rise of non-Western countries. Brazil, Russia, India and China (later joined by South Africa, the so-called (BRICS)presented proposals that could be seen as alternative arrangements in certain fields.

A bigger problem in the long term for the European Project is the revolt against liberal democratic principles taking place within the EU. Countries such as Poland and Hungary have made clear departures from the internal rule of law while also challenging supporting principles such as compliance with EU law.

Coined by Ian Manners, the term normative power means the power of the EU is derived from the values and norms upon which the Union was created and that are written into its treaties.

John Ikenberry argues that a stable world order requires three things: support from a strong enough powerbase represented by one or more states; that the rules and institutions of the order must enjoy a certain degree of legitimacy; and that the order must resolve collective problems and/or offer benefits to actors in the order.

Within the liberal world order, it is possible to see a “Euro-Atlantic suborder”, based on a number of geopolitical agreements. Ikenberry describes three such agreements: US security guarantees to Europe within the framework of NATO; US support for European reconstruction and integration after the end of World War II, manifest in the Marshall Plan; and European support for US leadership of the liberal system at different levels and within different policy areas.

Coherence refers to the degree of cohesion between EU member states. As a collective actor for which foreign and security policy decision-making is of an intergovernmental nature, coherence is vital to potential actorness.

The context is the demand for and acceptance of European actorness in the regions and policy areas where the EU aims to act. To some extent, this has been considered above by focusing on the direct effects of turbulence in the order.

First, the EU should strengthen its ability to be a strategic actor, not just an actor. As Engelbrekt has emphasized, it is precisely the interaction between the constituent parts of actorness that give rise to strategic actorness. Coherence should constitute not just consensus, but agreement on overall and long-term goals. Capacity should be seen in relation to these goals, and both objectives and resources should be balanced against the context in which they are to be implemented. Second, the EU should try to minimize both the uncertainty and the loss of capacity resulting from the UK’s departure. There are good reasons to connect the UK as closely as possible in a number of areas, such as intelligence cooperation, crisis management, defence issues and counterterrorism. Third, the EU should prepare to take greater responsibility for the liberal order, both inside and outside of Europe. As this chapter has shown, Europe and the EU are hugely affected by illiberal trends, both globally and locally. Finally, the EU will need to develop  actorness beyond the boundaries of current and future orders in order to maintain international political relevance

The founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) with the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome in 1958 marked a key step in the creation of what is now the EU. At the time, a customs union was created through the EEC among the six original member states: West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Following the creation of the customs union, the EEC also crafted a common external trade policy. The customs union and the trade policy can both be regarded as important components of the US post–World War II goal of promoting economic exchange between the countries in the “free” (western) world. Another important dimension of the European external trade policy was the possibilities it offered countries like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to maintain economic influence over the former colonies in Africa and Asia as well as to uphold the responsibility for ensuring efficient trade with these countries through the establishment of trade and cooperation agreements. In the beginning of the 1990s, the deepening of market integration and the momentous geopolitical shift in guise of the end to the Cold War both contributed to the creation of the European Union (EU) through the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.

The European integration process and the role of the EU in the emerging liberal order were thus entwined from the outset, and in that sense the process of market integration in Europe and the regulation of international trade can be regarded, from a European perspective, as two sides of the same coin. But European integration has obviously not only served a strictly economic purpose. The safeguarding of liberal democracy in Europe has been equally important. The US and the EU have not always seen eye-to-eye on foreign and security policy, and they have tended to put economic and political considerations above their inclination to defend human rights around the world. The EU and the US are thus both essential components of the liberal world order. The question of whether this world order is still viable is therefore crucial, as is the question of what the EU can do to safeguard important advances on the international level.

With the Maastricht Treaty, the Union’s foreign and security policy role was strengthened. In the major geopolitical shift in the early 1990s caused by the fall of the Soviet Union, the EU’s role became more explicitly to promote security and stability in Europe, but this time in relation to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

The EU is therefore expected to assume special responsibility for disseminating values such as human rights, democracy, rule of law, and international law, as well as principles of global governance, such as multilateralism and a rule based international system.

Fägersten develops a framework of analysis that stipulates that a collective actor needs coherence (consensus), capacity (resources for pursuing policy), and context (a permissive setting). He argues that the EU is in some areas being strengthened by the prevailing turbulence.

Cramér describes four trends in international trade that will inevitably be strengthened by Brexit and the Trump administration’s international trade policy agenda. In short, these trends involve higher prioritization of bilateral trade agreements combined with weaker multilateral regulation within the framework of the WTO and accelerated use of trade policy protection measures, which risk leading to a general increase in protectionism.

… changing world order in the form of a new US trade policy, the British withdrawal from the EU, and China’s increasingly prominent place in the international arena. In light of this, the authors consider various possible alternatives for the EU’s external trade policy. In conclusion, the authors present what they consider an important recommendation: the EU should first and foremost take vigorous action to defend the multilateral trading system. In other words, the EU should work to “Make the WTO Great Again,” in harmony with continued initiatives towards ambitious bilateral and regional agreements.

New economic powers have emerged on the scene in recent years and, along with declining economic power and diminishing emissions reductions in the EU, the Union no longer retains the prominent position in international climate change negotiations it had historically. With an increasing number of economic players in the game, it has become more difficult to achieve binding climate agreements that all parties perceive as fair. With the Paris Agreement, the international community has reached a compromise, but at the expense of clear burden sharing of emissions reductions.

The authors argue that a successful integration policy in EU member states must employ several different instruments with regard to aspects including wage formation, social transfers, and investments in education.

In the ninth chapter of the book by Sofie Blombäck, populism -as a challenge to the EU and democracy in Europe- is analyzed.