The Solana process in Serbia and Montenegro: coherence in EU foreign policy

Abstract

At this nascent stage in EU foreign policy development, the focus must be on the near abroad, on the civil instruments at the EU's disposal, on setting the political agenda and on providing real added value in the field of civilian crisis management. The EU needs to be more forthcoming in setting out a coherent EU foreign policy agenda. Such foreign policy coherency necessitates greater synergy between internal EU foreign policy bodies. What has being missing to date is full coherency between the EU political agenda and EU civilian-based activity on the ground, as exemplified in the case of the Solana-brokered Belgrade Agreement in Serbia and Montenegro.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the European Community's Human Potential Programme through the ESDP democracy project for the research and writing of this article.

Notes

Ernst Gellner, Civic Society and Its Enemies, Harmonsworth: Penguin, 1994, p.103.

Interviews with European Commission ICG Convention experts Kristin De-Peyron and William Sleath, and interview with Agnieszka Bartol, Council of the European Union, Directorate for General Policy Questions, Brussels, 3 Nov. 2003.

European Commission Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management Unit, ‘Report on Civilian Instruments for EU Crisis Management’, April 2003, p.5.

Interview with DGE IX representative Kim Freidberg, 25 Nov. 2003.

See Council of the European Union Report, ‘Implementation of the EU Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts’, 9991/02, Brussels, 18 June 2002.

See Gisela Muller Brandeck Bocquet, ‘The New CFSP and ESDP Decision-Making System of the European Union’, European Foreign Affairs Review, No.7, 2002, p.266.

See Brian White, Understanding European Foreign Policy, London: Palgrave, 2001, p.14.

International Conference on Conflict Management and Conflict Prevention, ‘Lessons Learned and Best Practices from the Western Balkans’, Stockholm, Folke Bernadotte Academy, 8–9 Oct., 2003.

Javier Solana, ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy’, European Council, Thessaloniki, 20 June 2003, p.6.

Rory Keane, Reconstituting Sovereignty: Post-Dayton Bosnia Uncovered, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998, p.6.

Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War, New York: Columbia University Press, 1959.

Linklater (see n.12 above), p.7.

Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations, London: Atlantic Books, 2003.

Interview with high-level Montenegrin government official.

Ivo Andrić, The Days of the Consuls, Belgrade: Dereta, 2000, p.9.

The question of Montenegrin independence is not a new phenomenon. See Whitney Warren, Montenegro, the Crime of the Peace Conference, New York: Brentano, 1922.

Between 1991 and 1996 the UN Security Council imposed a set of sanctions on former Yugoslavia in accordance with its resolutions comprising an arms embargo. After the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord, all UN sanctions were lifted in October 1996.

Jolyon Howorth, ‘Saint-Malo Plus Five: An Interim Assessment of ESDP’, Groupement d'Etudes et de Recherches Notre Europe, policy paper No.7, Nov. 2003, p.22.

The Commission also strongly linked the successful implementation of the Solana Agreement as a necessary precondition in order to begin a feasibility study on the Stabilization and Association Process. Interview with European Commission Desk Officer for Serbia and Montenegro, Michael Karnitschnig, Brussels, 3 Nov. 2003.

Sven Biscop, ‘In Search of a Strategic Concept for the ESDP’, European Foreign Affairs Review, No.7, 2002, p.480.

Ibid., p.483.

The ESDP to date ‘shows only limited signs of being structured in any specific fashion around enhancing the political-level weaknesses in the EU's implementation of proactive security policies’. See Richard Youngs, ‘The European Security and Defence Policy: What Impact on the EU's Approach to Security Challenges?’, European Security, Vol.11, No.2, summer 2002, p.122.

This lack of coherency is present not only in the field but also at headquarters. Given the bureaucratic and structural obstacles to developing an integrated planning and support capability within the current institutional framework for civilian crisis management, both a SG/HR's recent report and the Commission's responses to it are relatively open to new institutional solutions involving the creation of a flexible mission support service under Solana's direction, while the Commission proposes an inter-institutional agency. See European Security Review, ISIS Europe, No.20, Dec. 2003, p.7.