The Europeanization of France's foreign policy towards the Middle East conflict – from leadership to EU-accommodation

Abstract

France's prominent role in Europe's policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict represents an interesting case study for the evolving research on Europeanization. While France's involvement in the CFSP is frequently described as a case of national projection through the EU, this view needs qualification. Proposing a novel conceptual categorization of different member state approaches to European foreign policy cooperation, this article shows that France's involvement in Europe's Middle East policy has gone through different phases. Guided by de Gaulle's politique arabe, France assumed a ‘leadership’ role in Europe's common foreign policy, leaving a strong mark on its collective diplomacy. Since the 1990s, however, a number of complementary changes have weakened France's capacity for leadership, challenging well-established French foreign policy positions. France's response to the mounting constraints of EU-level cooperation has oscillated between ‘re-nationalization’ and efforts to ‘facilitate’ a common European approach, displaying a considerable degree of pragmatism and tactical adaptation.

Keywords:

• Europeanization
• France
• Middle East conflict
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• CFSP
• European foreign policy

Notes

1. Some scholars have identified ‘cross-loading’ as a third dimension of Europeanization, understood as the transfer of ideas and procedures among EU member states outside EU-institutions (Major 2005, Wong and Hill 2011). However, as cross-loading per definition takes place outside the EU foreign policy framework, the question seems warranted if cross-loading processes should indeed be conceived of as Europeanization dynamics.

2. However, an absolutely sharp separation is not always possible or useful as these different dimensions are often interconnected in practice.

3. By calling on Israel's withdrawal from ‘the’ territories occupied during the 1967 war, the Schuman Paper removed ambiguities in UN Security Council Resolution 242 concerning the specificity of the territories from which Israel should withdraw.

4. Interview by the author with a French representative in Brussels, May 2006.

5. Interview by the author with Interview with a French official in Paris, October 2006.

6. The Middle East Quartet called on the Hamas leadership to abide by three major principles: the acceptance of Israel's right to exist, the renunciation of violence, and the endorsement of past Palestinian agreements with Israel (Middle East Quartet 2006).

7. Interview by the author with a senior EU official of the European External Action Service, December 2011.