The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action: A Practice Approach (Contributions to International Relations) 3030907953, 9783030907952

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Contributions to International Relations

Julian Stueber

The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action A Practice Approach

Contributions to International Relations

This book series offers an outlet for cutting-edge research on all areas of international relations. Contributions to International Relations (CIR) welcomes theoretically sound and empirically robust monographs, edited volumes and handbooks from various disciplines and approaches on topics such as IR-theory, international security studies, foreign policy, peace and conflict studies, international organization, global governance, international political economy, the history of international relations and related fields.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16658

Julian Stueber

The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action A Practice Approach

Julian Stueber Bonn, Germany

ISSN 2731-5061 ISSN 2731-507X (electronic) Contributions to International Relations ISBN 978-3-030-90795-2 ISBN 978-3-030-90796-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

[T]he existence of several practices and their combination create the puzzle. Friedrich Kratochwil 1

1

Friedrich Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, in: Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), eds., International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 54 (emphasis in original).

Acknowledgements

This book began life as my doctoral dissertation at Goethe University Frankfurt. There are many people without whom I could not have succeeded in writing it. My first thanks go to my doctoral supervisor Gunther Hellmann. Always approachable, responsive and unassuming, he asked the right questions at the right time and made me think hard about what it is that I want to analyse. He has opened my eyes to new theoretical and methodological approaches to studying IR that have changed the way I look at the world. He is a truly remarkable teacher. I could not have wished for a better Doktorvater. I would also like to express my deeply-felt gratitude and appreciation to Christian Lequesne (Sciences Po Paris) for readily assuming the task of second supervisor (Zweitgutachter). I am very grateful to Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft and its Klaus Muhrmann Fellowship for a generous scholarship, which allowed for optimal work conditions, and in particular to Friedrich T. Anders and Juliane Nikoleit for accompanying me along the way. The team of the Brussels Office of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Dušan Relji´c, Nicolas Lux and Sarah Henkel, deserve a special measure of thanks for warmly welcoming me for a very productive six-month research stint in Brussels and for providing an excellent network of contacts. I am deeply indebted to all interviewed EU officials and member state diplomats who wished to remain anonymous. Without their willingness to share their experiences and grant me a behind-the-scenes look in spite of their busy schedules, this book would have been without an empirical foundation. I spoke with officials at different levels of hierarchy, including desk officers; heads and deputy heads of the unit; heads and deputy heads of division; directors; managing directors; deputy directorsgeneral; deputy secretary-generals; heads and members of delegation. However, to protect their anonymity I will not refer to their specific rank or position and only loosely mention their seniority, where appropriate when quoting. As Members of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok and Bernd Lange granted me insightful interviews for which I am grateful. I would also like to thank the librarians and staff of University and State Library Bonn as well as University Library Frankfurt for swiftly processing my numerous distance loans and helping me find the right literature. Their support has been vii

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Acknowledgements

invaluable. I thank Johannes Glaeser of Springer Nature for a swift publication process. I would like to acknowledge the organisers and participants of the international conference New Developments in the Study of EU External Action at the College of Europe in Bruges on 5 October 2018, including Sieglinde Gstöhl, Simon Schunz, Ian Manners and Chad Damro. I was fortunate to be able to attend this conference and listen to the presentations of some of the foremost experts in EU affairs about the latest developments in EU external affairs research and engage in fruitful discussions with other attendees. Thank you to Fredrik Erixon for a very helpful conversation. Thank you to Alexander Passaro, Benedikt Franz, T. René Weber, Florian Hubert, Jens Bartsch and Mehmet Yalinalp for helpful comments on different draft chapters. Thank you to Alexander Friedrich for stimulating discussions across disciplinary boundaries and for the unlikely feat of sharing three alma maters. I would also like to express my appreciation to all my professors and lecturers at Sciences Po Paris, Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, especially Arvid Lukauskas, Sunil Gulati, Stephen Woolcook, James A. Morrison and Nicolas Coerdacier. They may not know this, and indeed may have long forgotten about ‘that kid’ in their class, but their teachings have been instrumental in developing my research interest. My sister, Joana Stueber, merits a big thank you for tolerating a brother who more often than not was absent-minded and caught up in his research. This book is dedicated to my parents, Julia Grochtmann and Werner J. Stueber, to whom I owe everything in my life. Without their parental love, support, encouragement, patience and tolerance, I would not be where I am today, and this book would not have been written. All remaining errors are my responsibility alone. Bonn, Germany September 2021

Julian Stueber

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Trade and Security in EU External Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Practice Theory and International Relations Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Defining Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Practices, Meaning and Reason-Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.3 Agency and Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Conceptualising the Trade-Security Nexus as a Nexus of Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Reconstructing Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 6 7 12 13 17 23

2 Reconstructing the Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action as a Nexus of Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Institutional Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Trade and Security in the History European Integration . . . . 2.1.2 The Lisbon Treaty Reforms and EU External Action . . . . . . 2.2 DG Trade and the EEAS: Different Bureaucratic Cultures? . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Defining Bureaucratic Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Bureaucratic Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Interview Results: Bureaucratic Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Discursive Evidence of Practices: Documents and Interviews . . . . . 2.3.1 The Trade-Security Nexus in Key Strategy Documents . . . . 2.3.2 Interview Results: Trade Policy in EU External Action . . . . 2.4 Trade Policy and Foreign and Security Policy: Practical Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80 89

3 The EU Trade-Security Nexus and the Ukraine Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 EU Trade Interests Towards Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 EU Foreign and Security Policy Interests Vis-À-Vis Ukraine . . . . . . 3.2.1 Ukraine as the Key State in the EaP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Lack of Geopolitical Awareness? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The Interplay of EU Trade and Security Policy Practices . . . . . . . . .

93 97 100 103 108 113

29 31 33 37 44 44 45 50 64 64 75

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3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 4 The EU Trade-Security Nexus in EU-ASEAN Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 EU Trade and Economic Interests in Southeast Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Economic Interests and ASEAN’s Centrality . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Losing Out on Competitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 From Interregional to Bilateral Negotiations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.4 Trade Versus Non-trade Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 EU Foreign and Security Policy Interests in Southeast Asia . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Regional Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Human Rights and Democratic Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 The South China Sea and Sea Lines of Communication . . . . 4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127 130 132 135 141 145 151 152 156 160 170

5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Acronyms

AA AIDCO ARF ASEAN CCP CFSP CGEA CSDP DCFTA DG DEVCO DG INTPA DG Relex DG Trade EACU EaP EAS EC ECHO ECSC EDC EEAS EEC EEU ENP EPC ESDP ESS EUGS EXCO FAC FONOP

Association Agreement EuropeAid Cooperation Office ASEAN Regional Forum Association of Southeast Asian States Common Commercial Policy Common Foreign and Security Policy Commissioners’ Group on External Action Common Security and Defence Policy Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation Directorate-General for International Partnerships Directorate-General for External Relations Directorate-General for Trade Eurasian Customs Union Eastern Partnership East Asia Summit European Community European Community Humanitarian Aid Office European Coal and Steel Community European Defence Community European External Action Service European Economic Community Eurasian Economic Union European Neighbourhood Programme European Political Cooperation European Security and Defence Policy European Security Strategy EU Global Strategy Group for External Cooperation Foreign Affairs Council Freedom of Navigation Operation xi

xii

FPI FTA GAC GATT GDP HR/SG HR/VP MEP MERCOSUR MFN NATO PCA PSC ReCAAP RED SCR TAC TEEC TEU TFAN TFEU UNCLOS WMDs WTO

Acronyms

Foreign Policy Instrument Free Trade Agreement General Affairs Council General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross Domestic Product High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy/Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Member of the European Parliament Southern Common Market (Mercado Común del Sur) Most Favoured Nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization Partnership and Cooperation Agreement Political and Security Committee Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia Renewable Energy Directive Common Service for External Relations Treaty of Amity and Cooperation Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community Treaty on European Union Taskforce for Accession Negotiations Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Weapons of Mass Destruction World Trade Organization

Chapter 1

Introduction

[T]rade is not only an economic instrument but also a strategic instrument. The European Union is determined to act in accordance with its security interests and to protect its economic investments. Federica Mogherini.1 [T]rade is a powerful foreign policy tool. It must support Europe’s wider international goals. Cecilia Malmström.2

These statements made by the then EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, and then European Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, reveal an understanding of EU trade policy, the Common Commercial Policy, as a policy which is not merely to pursue narrowly-defined economic objectives but also to serve the EU’s larger foreign and security policy interests. At the same time, EU trade policy’s principal task has always been to deliver jobs and growth for EU businesses and citizens by accessing new markets, expanding market share and increasing the volume of trade in goods and services in a rapidly globalising and increasingly competitive world economy.3 The simultaneous use of the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) for trade as well as non-trade objectives raises the question of the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. 1

Federica Mogherini, quoted in: European Parliament (2014), Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearing of Federica Mogherini, Vice-President-Designate of the Commission, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Brussels, 6 October, p. 7; European External Action Service (2018), Remarks by HR/VP Mogherini on the Statement by US President Trump regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), Rome, 8 May. 2 Cecilia Malmström, quoted in: European Parliament (2014), Committee on International Trade, Hearing of Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner-Designate (Trade), Brussels, 29 September, p. 7. 3 See European Commission (2006), Europe in the World: Some Practical Proposals for Greater Coherence, Effectiveness and Visibility, COM(2006) 278 final, Brussels, 8 June, p. 2: “Europe faces strong economic competition […]. The economic balance of power has shifted. […] and there is increasing competition for access to raw materials, energy resources and markets.” © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Stueber, The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_1

1

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1 Introduction

The EU has, since the very inception of the European integration process, sought to gradually expand its own action space in international affairs beyond external economic relations in an attempt to build itself as a foreign and security policy actor in its own right. For lack of a genuinely ‘common’ EU foreign and security policy, the CCP, which has been an exclusive EU competence since the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome in January 1958, has often served as a vehicle for “the Commission’s unacknowledged but very evident involvement in foreign policy under the guise of external economic relations.”4 The original Article 113 TEEC (today Article 207 TFEU), which regulates the CCP, has been called the “most frequently used Treaty provision in the exercise of the European Community’s powers in the field of external relations.”5 Scholars widely agree on the centrality of trade policy for the EU’s presence and actorness in global affairs.6 According to Michael Smith, the EU “can claim with some justification to be a major trade power in the IPE [international political economy, J.S.].”7 The same cannot be said about the EU’s standing and influence in international political and security relations. The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) have remained intergovernmental policies largely under the control of EU member states. In this respect, the EU is a very peculiar animal in that it has a supranational trade policy but an intergovernmental foreign and security policy, which makes it all the more interesting to analyse in the dual light of trade policy and foreign and security policy. It has become something of a cliché in Brussels policy circles to state that due to its sui generis nature the EU is particularly apt at navigating an increasingly complex and contested world.8 This conviction is premised on the idea that the unfathomable complexity of the EU’s polity, politics and policies somehow constitutes the very source of its strength as a global actor, which enables the EU to effectively address

4

Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler (2006), The European Union as a Global Actor, 2nd edition, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 23. 5 Ian MacLeod, Ian D. Hendry and Stephen Hyett (1996), The External Relations of the European Communities: A Manual of Law and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 266. 6 See, for example, Alasdair R. Young and John Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe: 21st Century Trade Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 10–15; Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, pp. 62–66; Andreas Dür and Hubert Zimmermann (2007), Introduction: The EU in International Trade Negotiations, Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(4), p. 771; Jan Orbie (2008), The European Union’s Role in World Trade: Harnessing Globalisation?, in: Jan Orbie (ed.), Europe’s Global Role: External Policies of the European Union, Farnham: Ashgate, p. 35. 7 Michael Smith (2007), The European Union and International Political Economy: Trade, Aid and Monetary Policy, in: Knud Erik Jørgensen, Mark Pollack and Ben Rosamond (eds.), Handbook of European Union Politics, London: Sage Publications, p. 528. 8 See, for example, European External Action Service [EEAS] (2015), The European Union in a Changing Global Environment: A More Connected, Contested and Complex World, Brussels, p. 1: “The very nature of our Union—a construct of intertwined polities—gives us a unique advantage to steer the way in a more complex, more connected, but also more contested world.”

1 Introduction

3

complex global challenges. Yet this view, which equals making a virtue out of necessity, does not adequately consider how the fractured nature of the EU external relations bureaucracy may hamper and stymie a more coherent and consistent EU external action. In a similar vein, scholarly characterisations of the EU as a civilian power, a normative power, a market power, a regulatory power or an ethical power, to name but the most prominent EU-as-a-power concepts, always carry with them the claim of exclusiveness.9 Such accounts, which seek to “construct the Union’s identity and roles as primarily or exclusively a function of its singular character […] fail adequately to capture the complexity of the Union’s multifaceted character”,10 thereby running the risk of turning into “empty signifiers”.11 These EU-as-a-power approaches do not question whether, and if so how, the EU’s undeniable economic power resources as a trade actor actually translate into effective foreign and security policy influence.12 Instead, they implicitly presuppose that it does, thereby assuming that, as a global actor, the EU acts as one coherent, integrated whole and puts its trade policy, readily as the need arises, so to speak, fully at the service of pursuing its foreign and security policy interests. However, as a “multiperspectival polity”,13 the EU’s external action is composed of a multitude of different actors that engage in a panoply of external activities. At the EU level alone, virtually all directorate-generals (DGs) and services deal with the external dimensions of their respective policy domains. The assumption, here, is therefore that rather than forming one unified whole, the EU’s external relations bureaucracy is characterised by various bureaucratic subsystems. As for trade policy and foreign and security policy, the topic of interest of this book, DG Trade and the EEAS is the principal, albeit not exclusive, actors at the EU level.

1.1 Trade and Security in EU External Relations Research on the relationship between EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy is surprisingly sparse. Little is known about how the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP 9

See François Duchêne (1972), Europe’s Role in World Peace, in: Richard Mayne (ed.), Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen Europeans Look Ahead, London: Fontana, pp. 32–47; Ian Manners (2002), Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?, Journal of Common Markets Studies, 40(2), pp. 235–258; Chad Damro (2012), Market Power Europe, Journal of European Public Policy, 19(5), pp. 682–699; Anu Bradford (2020), The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Lisbeth Aggestam (2008), Introduction: Ethical Power Europe?, International Affairs, 84(1), pp. 1–11. 10 Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 44. 11 Daniel Chandler defines an empty signifier as “a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified” which “means different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds”, quoted in: Gunther Hellmann (2016), Normative Powers and European Foreign Policy in a Minilateralist World, EU Studies in Japan, 36, p. 33. 12 See Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 12–13, 206. 13 John G. Ruggie (1993), Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations, International Organization, 47(1), p. 172.

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1 Introduction

interact with each other. While there is a large and abundant corpus of research on both the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, scholarly research on EU external action has thus far paid too little attention to the trade-security nexus. A possible reason for this gap lies in the long-standing non-existence of a genuinely ‘common’ EU foreign and security policy alongside the CCP. The literature is still largely divided into works that focus on foreign and security policy studies, on the one hand, and international political economy, on the other, thereby replicating the institutional separation of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy in practical policy making. Instead, the aforementioned approaches, which seek to fathom out the fundamental character of the EU as a global actor thereby asking inasmuch the EU can be understood as a sui generis actor, are dominant. Only a handful of scholars has engaged in a systematic examination of the relationship between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. The key question in this strand of research has been the extent to which the CCP functions as a substitute for the institutionally weaker EU foreign and security policy. Patrick A. Messerlin, for instance, makes a somewhat unconvincing functionalist argument, when contending that the CCP acts as a token foreign and security policy simply “because the EU has no other way (foreign policy or army) to express its political views.”14 Other scholars have sought to provide analytical and theoretical frameworks for how trade policy is used as foreign and security policy. Stephan Keukeleire proposes the notion of a “structural foreign policy”, in which trade policy assumes a key role, “aimed at promoting a more favourable international environment by pursuing and supporting long-term structural changes, both in the internal situation of the countries concerned and the interstate relations and general situation of these regions.”15 This structural foreign policy transcends the pillar structure, thus distinguishing itself from traditional understandings of foreign and security policy.16 John Peterson, by contrast, finds “little evidence to sustain the arguments that EU trade policy is closely coordinated with the Common Foreign and Security Policy, that it acts as a surrogate for it, or that the EU deploys a ‘structural foreign

14

Patrick A. Messerlin (2001), Measuring the Costs of Protection in Europe: European Commercial Policy in the 2000s, Washington DC: Institute for International Economics, p. 1. 15 Stephan Keukeleire (2003), The European Union as a Diplomatic Actor: Internal, Traditional and Structural Diplomacy, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14(3), p. 47. See also Stephan Keukeleire (2001), Au-Delà de la PESC: La Politique Étrangère Structurelle de l’Union Européenne, Annuaire français de relations internationales, 2, pp. 536–551. The best definition of the concept can be found in Stephan Keukeleire and Jennifer MacNaughtan (2008), The Foreign Policy of the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 25–26, who define structural foreign policy as “a foreign policy which, conducted over the long term, seeks to influence or shape sustainable political, legal, socio-economic, security and mental structures. These structures characterize not only states and interstate relations, but also societies, the position of individuals, relations between states and societies and the international system as a whole.” 16 Keukeleire (2003), European Union as a Diplomatic Actor, pp. 31–32.

1.1 Trade and Security in EU External Relations

5

policy’.”17 Alaistair R. Young and John Peterson moreover argue that in its dealings with similarly-sized economies or economic blocs the EU uses trade policy not as a surrogate foreign and security policy but simply as an instrument to pursue economic interests.18 Instead, trade policy is used as a foreign and security policy tool mostly only in relations with developing countries and for the purposes of promoting development. They conclude that the EU uses trade policy as a foreign and security policy tool only where it involves little costs and is easy to do, highlighting that “the EU’s political ambitions are often impeded by trade politics.”19 Sophie Meunier and Kalypso Nicolaïdis differentiate between the EU as a “power in trade” and a “power through trade” and emphasise that the different guiding principles are often at odds, which makes the EU, in their eyes, a “conflicted trade power”.20 They do not, however, explicitly consider the trade-security nexus in their analysis. The first systematic analysis of the trade-security nexus has been undertaken by Fabienne Bossuyt, Lotte Drieghe und Jan Orbie, who contend that the institutional strength of the CCP is the principal cause of a lack of coherence between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action.21 Guillaume Xavier-Bender identifies “underlying tensions between the EEAS and the Directorate General for Trade when it comes to exercising leadership in defining and implementing EU economic goals abroad” as well as an “organic resistance to use economic power as a foreign policy tool” but does not specify where these tensions and the ‘organic’ resistance stem from.22 The shortcomings of the existing literature on the trade-security nexus in EU external relations are two-fold. For one thing, the theoretical and empirical corpus of literature on the topic is, on the whole, not very extensive. And, for another, the few existing explanatory approaches mostly emphasise institutional factors and tend to dichotomise the ultimate objectives of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy respectively, i.e. welfare and security. As a result, the two policies John Peterson (2007), EU Trade Policy as Foreign Policy: Does Strategy plus Activity = Strategic Action?, Prepared for presentation at the 10th biennial conference of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Montreal, 17–19 May, p. 4. 18 See Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 183–214. 19 Ibid., p. 206. 20 Sophie Meunier and Kalypso Nicolaïdis (2006), The European Union as a Conflicted Trade Power, Journal of European Public Policy, 13(6), pp. 906–925. Meunier und Nicolaïdis identify six such conflicting tendencies: regionalism versus multilateralism, non-discrimination vs. bilateral preferential relations, western hegemony vs. mediating power, internal vs. external objectives, equal partnership vs. conditional opening as well as trade liberalization vs. domestic preferences. 21 See Jan Orbie, Lotte Drieghe and Fabienne Bossuyt (2012), EU Trade Policy and the European Security Strategy: Speaking the Same Language in Different Worlds, Studia Diplomatica, 65(3), pp. 3–23; Fabienne Bossuyt, Lotte Drieghe and Jan Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together: EU Comprehensive Security from a Trade Perspective, European Foreign Affairs Review, 18, pp. 63– 82; Fabienne Bossuyt, Jan Orbie and Lotte Drieghe (2020), EU External Policy Coherence in the Trade-Foreign Policy Nexus: Foreign Policy Through Trade or Strictly Business?, Journal of International Relations and Development, 23(1), pp. 45–66. 22 Guillaume Xavier-Bender (2016), Leveraging Europe’s International Economic Power, German Marshall Fund, Policy Brief, March, pp. 4, 7. 17

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1 Introduction

are said to be characterised by a ‘welfare logic’ and a ‘security logic’. The notion of ‘logic’ is itself problematic as it insinuates an immutable, almost law-of-nature-like characteristic, which does not really reveal much about what this ‘logic’ consists of. Moreover, contrasting welfare and security as two dichotomous objectives does not appear to correspond to how these two issues are dealt with in practice. Both are mutually constitutive, as neither is conceivable without the other, whether in the short, medium or long term. Possible tensions and contradictions between EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy would therefore appear to be less about the pursuit of two seemingly contradictory objectives rather than about the fundamental beliefs and rules for action which structure the conduct of practitioners in each policy domain. For this reason, this book takes a different approach. It analyses the tradesecurity nexus, that is the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy, in EU external action as a nexus of practices.

1.2 Practice Theory and International Relations Theory Building on the earlier ‘practice turn’ in social theory more generally,23 practice theory has become a fixture in International Relations (IR) theory.24 Practice theory is particularly useful when it comes to interdisciplinary research that spans several subfields of the discipline, as focusing on the practices that structure international relations allows for transcending the lines of demarcation of the fields of scholarly investigation that fissure IR. A practice approach makes it possible to reconstruct how the practitioners of international relations make sense of events and developments and use the policy instruments at their disposal to shape the material world.25 In its many variations, practice theory’s theoretical framework enables scholars to account for the complexities of social life while looking for patterns and regularities in social action. It takes into view both the structural conditions prevailing at any given point in time as well as how practitioners deal with real-world developments and ask how both 23

See Theodore R. Schatzki (1996), Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina and Eike von Savigny (2001), eds., The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge. 24 See Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), eds., International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Vincent Pouliot (2008), The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities, International Organization, 62(2), pp. 257–288; Vincent Pouliot (2010), International Security in Practice: The Politics of NATO-Russia Diplomacy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2013), ed., Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, Abingdon: Routledge; Christian Bueger (2014), Pathways to Practice: Praxiography and International Politics, European Political Science Review, 6(3), pp. 383– 406; Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger (2014), International Practice Theory: New Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Iver B. Neumann (2002), Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31(3), pp. 627–651. 25 See Gunther Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, Pragmatism as a Theory of Thought and Action, International Studies Review, 11(3), p. 638.

1.2 Practice Theory and International Relations Theory

7

structures and agents are transformed in the process. “One of the greatest strengths of zooming in on international practices”, Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot highlight, “is being able to explain how the world is governed at particular points in time as well as the transformation of the agents themselves.”26 It is through the prism of practices that practice theorists study the phenomena of international relations. Practice theory thus serves as “a heuristic device, a sensitizing ‘framework’ for empirical research in the social sciences. It thus opens up a certain way of seeing and analysing social phenomena.”27

1.2.1 Defining Practices Practices have been variously defined as “socially meaningful patterns of action” and “competent performances”,28 “a ‘type’ of behaving and understanding”,29 “a temporally unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of doings and sayings”,30 “socially recognised forms of activity”,31 “routinised patterns of action of a corresponding collective”,32 “repetitive patterns”,33 “a standardized, patterned, form of behaviour in which people engage in particular situations, times, or locations”,34 “the right way of getting something done” or “the appropriate way to behave under a given set of circumstances.”35 Although all practice theorists see practices as the “central phenomena in social life”36 and consequently as the core unit of analysis for social sciences, what this overview of some of the more prominent definitions of practices underscores is the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition of practices. Indeed, there is no one theory of practice. Rather, practice theory encompasses a heterogeneous and, at times, contradictory set of accounts and approaches to studying 26

Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), International Practices: Introduction and Framework, in: Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (eds.), International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 12. 27 Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 257. 28 Ibid., p. 6. 29 Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250. 30 Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 89. 31 Barry Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, in: Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina and Eike von Savigny (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, p. 19. 32 Christian Büger and Frank Gadinger (2008), Praktisch gedacht! Praxistheoretischer Konstruktivismus in den Internationalen Beziehungen, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 15(2), p. 279 (my translation), the original quote reads: “routinisierte Handlungsmuster eines entsprechenden Kollektivs”. 33 Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, International Studies Quarterly, 59(3), p. 456. 34 Erik Ringmar (2014), The Search for Dialogue as a Hindrance to Understanding: Practices as Inter-Paradigmatic Research Program, International Theory, 6(1), p. 5. 35 Ibid. 36 Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, pp. xi, 1–18.

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1 Introduction

social phenomena. Even so, two broad lines of thinking can be discerned among the many approaches to practice theory: a critical theory tradition and a pragmatist current.37 Whereas the former, notably including the works of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, puts much of the emphasis of its analytical focus on power struggles and the “stability, regularity and reproduction of practices”, the pragmatist current “aligns the concept of practice closer to action and, as a result, it loses its structural connotations.”38 The two currents are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but rather represent the spectrum’s opposite ends. Whether the focus of analysis lies on the contingency of practices or on their reproduction of structural patterns of action is inherently linked to the scale of the phenomena that scholars seek to analyse by means of a practice approach. Practice theory offers no natural categories of scale, but it is up to scholars to define the scale of the phenomena, from micro-level faceto-face interactions to the practices of global phenomena, such as financial flows and transnational terrorism.39 While in this book I do make use of some of the insights of pragmatist thinking, in particular its emphasis on the inherent linkages between beliefs and action, I lean closer towards the critical theory current when it comes to reconstructing practices as structuring phenomena that arrange the flurry of activity in the realms of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy into relatively stable patterns of action. Semantically, depending on whether practice is used as a countable or uncountable noun, it takes on a different meaning. Practice as an uncountable noun, sometimes also referred to as praxis, denotes the realm of “actual conduct”,40 as distinguished from mere theory and as such encompasses the multitude of more specific practices. By contrast, a practice, as in a particular practice, is simply the singular of practices. Drawing upon the aforementioned definitions, I understand practices as the routinised and patterned ways of understanding and doing of a designated collective based on the shared belief that a certain course of action is the right and appropriate one under a given set of circumstances. Hence, practices embody certain beliefs and rules for action of which they are the enactment. Practices thereby shape polity, policy and politics, as it is recurrent patterns of understanding and doing that stabilise the institutions, programmes and processes of the state and render their continuance possible. Practices are “general classes of action which […] are not limited to any specific enacting.”41 While the action is always specific, concrete and situated in a given time and place, a practice represents the pattern that is filled out and reproduced by the “multitude of single and often unique actions” that constitute the practice.42 The practice of nuclear deterrence, for instance, involves a multitude of actions 37

See Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, pp. 454–455. Ibid., p. 455. 39 See ibid., p. 456. 40 Friedrich Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, in: Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), eds., International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 42. 41 Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 6. 42 Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250. 38

1.2 Practice Theory and International Relations Theory

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ranging from flying bomber squadrons and testing ballistic missiles to issuing credible commitments and threats, all of which could in themselves be practices, in turn, constituted of ‘smaller’ actions. In a nutshell, “[a]ction is always a constitutive part of any practice and yet the reverse is not necessarily true.”43 Hence, a key characteristic of a practice is it’s being repetitive: “[A] practice is a repeated action: the practice of x exists when actions of x-ing have been sufficiently repeated to be recognisable as x-ings.”44 Closely related to the idea of practice as constituted by repetitive actions is their being patterned, that is a practice is not merely constituted by randomly repeated actions, but by actions that are repeated in a patterned and therefore in principle recognisable way. Defining practices as repetitive and patterned does not imply that they are mechanically iterative, as human action never repeats itself in exactly the same way. Rather the notion of practices allows for some variation, which begets reproduction if it is minimal and is the locus of change if it is more significant and sustained. Believing that a certain course of action is the right and appropriate one under a given set of circumstances refers to practices as competent performances. It goes without saying that what is considered ‘right’ and ‘appropriate’ is subject to judgement and such judgement will almost certainly differ depending on the particular situation, time or location; even one and the same situation is most likely judged differently by people with differing beliefs and background knowledge. The performance of a practice is therefore never ‘objectively’ competent, in that there is no Archimedean point against which the competence or incompetence of a practice can be assessed. Rather the appraisal of (in)competence is the result of a complex process of social interaction in which the performer justifies his or her performance of a given practice by seeking to attribute a certain meaning and significance to that practice while an audience appraises the performance and the suggested interpretation, with both sides seeking to claim the prerogative of interpretation upon which further interaction is based.45 When analysing social phenomena through the prism of practices, it is consequently less important whether scholars consider a given performance as competent or incompetent, but rather how the practitioners themselves assess and interpret each other’s practice performances. People who engage in the same practices and interpret practices alongside similar standards of appraisal can be referred to as a community of practice.46 Accordingly, a community of practice is a group of practitioners who share the same beliefs 43

Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 6. On actions as components of practices, see also Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 113. 44 Theodore Schatzki (2017), Sayings, Texts and Discursive Formations, in: Allison Hui, Theodore Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove (eds.), The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 128. 45 See Charles Tilly (2006), Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons…and Why, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 48: “Reason giving has consequences both because it proposes a definition for the relationship and because it justifies the practices of one party toward the other. Reasons, relationships and practices align.” 46 See Etienne Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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1 Introduction

about the world, have recourse to the same background knowledge to substantiate these beliefs, interpret real-world events according to common frames of analysis and for all these reasons see in ‘their’ practices the appropriate and right way to behave under a given set of circumstances. As Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot put it, “practices represent the world in specific ways; they implicitly make the claim that ‘this is how things are’.”47 A community of practice, in other words, holds an idiosyncratic understanding of reality upon which it acts, but which may not be ready, or not at all for that matter, intelligible to members of a different community of practice. Therefore, any given practice is not only constituted by repeated and patterned actions but also by routinised ways of understanding the material surroundings.48 The material aspect of a practice (the repeated and patterned actions) goes hand in hand with its mental aspect, i.e. the idiosyncratic understanding that a community of practice entertains about the material world that is reified through repeated and patterned actions. Single individuals or collectives, then, are the “carrier”49 of practices. Conceiving of practices as being ‘carried’ by practitioners has the advantage that it allows for multiple actors to be the carriers of a practice. For example, the CCP and its practices are ‘carried’ not only by DG Trade but by many other Commission services, the EEAS, the European Parliament, the Council and so on—though DG Trade is arguably the single most important actor in EU trade policy. The nexus of two or more practices is also the point of interaction for the respective ‘carriers’ of the practices in question, i.e. the different communities of practice. It is at the nexus of practices that differences in beliefs and rules for action become visible: [E]very practice distributes its practitioners into different positions with distinct perspectives, thus differentiating them and inevitably pitting them against one another. Neither linguistic communication nor cooperation can bring these disparate perspectives and interests into complete harmony. Moreover, the simultaneity of disparate perspectives […] ‘produces dissonance rather than a canon’. […] It thus becomes clear that the norms defining ‘good’, ‘correct’ or ‘proper’ actions depend on the participants’ different perspectives. Working on a shared objective by no means inevitably produces consensus.50

Accordingly, when analysing the nexus of practices and the interactions of different communities of practice, it is less important for scholars to act as the final arbiter of the ‘correct’ practices than it is to examine how different communities of practice, when interacting with each other, interpret each other’s practices. For instance, it is reasonable to assume that DG Trade has a different view of what constitutes a ‘competent’ performance in the realm of trade policy than the EEAS and vice versa; reconstructing these differences in view will be an essential part of this book. 47

Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 8. See Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250. 49 Ibid. 50 Thomas Alkemeyer and Nikolaus Buschmann (2017), Learning in and across Practices: Enablement as Subjectivation, transl. by Robert Mitchell and Kristina Brümmer, in: Allison Hui, Theodore Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove (eds.), The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 14. 48

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Collectively ascribing meaning to the world presupposes a shared background knowledge that, as Andreas Reckwitz aptly phrases it, both “enable[s] and constrain[s] the agents to interpret the world according to certain forms and to behave in corresponding ways.”51 Several scholars insist on the practical nature of this background knowledge, a hands-on know-how that is skilfully applied to solving problems, instead of a theoretical and bookish know-that.52 Rather than engaging in the necessarily fruitless endeavour of continuing the debate on know-how vs. knowthat, it is crucial to emphasise the function that shared background knowledge, in its different mixes of know-how and know-that, assumes in the context of practice theory. Shared background knowledge provides “frameworks or schemata of interpretation”53 or a “dominant interpretative backdrop”54 that set the yardstick for evaluating the right and appropriate conduct under a given set of circumstances, thereby creating expectations about desired objectives, employable means and defining a horizon of possibilities for social interaction that find their expression in specific practices. Shared background knowledge thus plays a dispositional role in structuring collective practices, yet it “do[es] not create uniformity of a group or community, but organise[s] their differences around pervasive understandings of reality.”55 In other words, individual members of a collective may differ in their very own personal beliefs, but when they act as part of or on behalf of the collective they represent, they do so according to the beliefs and rules for action prevalent in the collective. If they do not, the collective they belong to is likely to distance itself from the trespassing by emphasising that its ‘rogue’ member has acted in his or her private capacity and not as a member of the said collective. Knowledge, moreover, does not need to be true in the sense that it actually corresponds to some property of ‘the world out there’56 ; it does not even need to be fully coherent. After all, more often than not, people act without being able to rely on secure universally-valid knowledge and are still able to go on and solve problems.57 It suffices that people hold their knowledge to be true 51

Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 245–246. See, for example, Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 253–254; Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 8; Anthony Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 57. 53 Erving Goffman (1974), Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Boston: Northeastern University Press, p. 21. 54 Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 16. 55 Emanuel Adler and Steven Bernstein (2005), Knowledge in Power: The Epistemic Construction of Global Governance, in: Michael Barnett and Raymond D. Duvall (eds.), Power in Global Governance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 296. 56 See Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, p. 640; Gunther Hellmann (2017), Linking Foreign Policy and Systemic Transformation in Global Politics: Methodized Inquiry in a Deweyan Tradition, Foreign Policy Analysis, 13(3), p. 583. See also Friedrich Kratochwil (2003), The Monologue of “Sciences”, International Studies Review, 5(1), p. 124. 57 See Friedrich Kratochwil (2007), Of False Promises and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building (the Tartu Lecture), Journal of International Relations and Development, 10(1), pp. 11–13. 52

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1 Introduction

and that possible inconsistencies do not amount to a level fundamental enough so as to prevent them from acting upon it.58 Practices, in this vein, are both material and meaningful since the performance of a practice is the enactment of a belief, the belief that a given practice is the right and appropriate way to behave. As a material act, a practice necessarily engages with and does something in the material world and thus possibly alters it and, in turn, the beliefs that human beings individually and collectively may hold about the material world.59 At the same time, a practice is also the repeated and patterned instantiation of a mental act, of the idiosyncratic understanding that members of a given community of practice share, which is itself informed by their common beliefs and background knowledge.60 Adopting a practice approach to studying international relations enables researchers to capture both the subjective constitution of a given understanding and the material as well as structural forces of international relations.

1.2.2 Practices, Meaning and Reason-Giving The meaning and appraised competence of the performance of a practice are established through processes of social interaction.61 While the beliefs and rules for action that inform a particular practice may be self-explanatory to the community of practice performing it, this may not be the case for outsiders. Since the performance of a practice does not carry any meaning in and of itself in its materiality, or only to members of the corresponding community of practice, practitioners need to provide and explain the reasons for a particular practice in an accompanying discourse for the practice in question to make (intersubjective) sense.62 That is also the reason why (new) policies, which often concur with a change in practices, are usually accompanied by a communication strategy aimed at ‘correctly’ explaining the new policy measure.63 Discourses, however, “do not mechanically or instrumentally produce 58

See Donald Davidson (2001), Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 124–125. 59 See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, pp. 13–14. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a case in point. 60 See Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 250, 251–252. 61 See Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory, p. 57: “Like ‘intentions’, ‘reasons’ only form discrete accounts in the context of queries, whether initiated by others, or as elements of a process of self-examination by the actor. […] The rationalisation of action, as a chronic feature of daily conduct, is a normal characteristic of the behaviour of competent social agents and is indeed the main basis upon which their ‘competence’ is adjudged by others.” 62 See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 14: “Through social interaction, people attribute meanings to their activities and build on these to further interact. In order for practices to make sense, then, practitioners must establish (contest, negotiate, communicate) their significance.” 63 Claims that knowledge often remains tacit and inarticulate in the enactment of a practice are therefore half-true at best, because of the need for practitioners to explain themselves, to articulate the rationale for their practices, to make the implicit explicit.

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practices, nor do practices mechanically or instrumentally reproduce a particular discourse. Rather there is a dimension of indeterminacy or ‘play’ to practices. What they signify is never straightforward.”64 The indeterminate link between practices and discourses allows practitioners to spin their message and read the proverbial tea leaves of someone else’s practices. This process is inherently political in that it constitutes a struggle for interpretative supremacy, bureaucratic power and political legitimacy; and it goes without saying that practitioners may not be able to agree on the meaning of a practice or the assessment of a real-world situation. In the domain of external relations, practitioners from various sub-communities (e.g. security, defence, trade, finance, aid and development, etc.) within the larger external relations bureaucracy seek to bestow legitimacy and validity upon certain practices and not others by making authoritative truth claims based on their appraisal of what is the right and appropriate thing to do.65 To the extent that some practices are incongruous with one another, practitioners seek to enact ‘their’ practices at the expense of alternative practices, which are thus marginalised or silenced.66 The reproduction and transformation of a practice or the superimposing of some practices over others are therefore always indicative of underlying politico-bureaucratic power relations.67 It appears to be the case that DG Trade is no longer able to set trade policy on its own, if it has ever been able to do so. With the expansion of trade policy to new trade issues as well as non-trade issues, including traditional and non-traditional security objectives, an ever-increasing circle of actors has joined the fray of EU trade policy.

1.2.3 Agency and Structure Emphasising the structural connotations of practices does not make practice theory ontologically structuralist, as agency remains a precondition for structures to emerge. Practices can be seen as the transmission belt between agency and structure. It is through practices that agents produce, reproduce or transform the structures that condition their behaviour in the first place. Practitioners are thus the “product as well as the (re)producer” of structure.68 For instance, Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler argue that the development of the CCP and the EU as a trade actor is an example of a process of structuration between agency and structure: “EC agency 64

Roxanne L. Doty (1997), Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory, European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), p. 377. 65 Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 21. 66 See Doty (1997), Aporia, p. 378. 67 See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, pp. 20–21 (emphasis in original): “[T]he reason why a given bundle of practices follows a particular scenario and not others has less to do with how it fits altogether—a functional argument—than with how it is fitted together as a result of political struggles. […] practice is eminently political in that it sustains, or undermines, existing patterns of power relations.” 68 Hellmann (2017), Linking Foreign Policy and Systemic Transformation, p. 581 (emphasis in original).

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1 Introduction

was constructed in terms of the disciplines and institutional setting of the GATT regime, but equally the regime itself was moulded to the requirements of one of its most powerful participants.”69 This “duality of structure”, in Anthony Giddens words, means that “the structural properties of social systems are both the medium and outcome of the practices which constitute those systems. […] Structure is thus not to be conceptualised as a barrier to action, but as essentially involved in its production.”70 By structure, I understand the nature of social relationships as conditioned by rules, ordering principles, customs, conventions, manners, in short, behavioural guidelines that regulate all forms of social life. They allow of, approve of, encourage, enable and thus produce certain behaviour and conversely discourage, disapprove of, restrict, sanction, inhibit and thus suppress other forms of behaviour, occasional transgressions notwithstanding. Behavioural guidelines have to be ‘practiced’ to retain their binding force. By ‘practiced’, I mean that it has to be abided by and possible transgressions are recognised and, more importantly, treated as such. If, however, transgressions become the new normal—and are thus no longer deemed transgressions—then social structures have arguably been altered. Social structures, that is, are fundamentally malleable, although the likeliness and frequency of such change is a contested issue among practice theorists.71 Any given practice is indicative of certain prescriptions for competent state behaviour (i.e. rules for action). To the extent that these are deemed ‘right’ and ‘appropriate’ to cope with a given situation and their previous performance is deemed to have produced satisfactory results dealing with similar events in the past, practitioners are likely to heed them, thus stabilising social interactions.72 Confronted with an unusual event, however, that prompts practitioners to call into question the standard policy responses, they have to look for alternative ways to surmount the problematic situation, thus ushering in a change in a given practice or set of practices: For practice theory, then, the ‘breaking’ and ‘shifting’ of structures must take place in everyday crises of routines, in constellations of interpretative indeterminacy and of the inadequacy of knowledge with which the agent, carrying out a practice, is confronted in the face of a ‘situation’.73

Agency presupposes that practitioners do not simply have knee jerk-like reactions, which mechanically cause the same policy response. While background knowledge and previous experience provide an interpretative filter that pre-disposes practitioners to have a certain understanding of a given situation and come up with a corresponding

69

Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 66. Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory, pp. 69–70. 71 See Theodore R. Schatzki (2011), Where the Action Is (On Large Social Phenomena such as Sociotechnical Regimes), Sustainable Practices Research Group Working Paper 1, p. 5; Jorg Kustermans (2015), Parsing the Practice Turn: Practice, Practical Knowledge, Practices, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 44(2), pp. 180–182. 72 Echoing the popular adage, ‘never change a winning team,’ this behaviour might be dubbed ‘never change a winning practice.’. 73 Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 255. 70

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course of action that promises a solution, there is still a need for conscious reflection. Typing a diplomatic cable may be a routine, even dull activity, but it requires thoughtful reflection about and sustained attention to the contents, so it cannot be unreflective. The same applies to writing a speech, making a presentation, conducting negotiations, cultivating diplomatic relations, taking decisions, drafting strategies, exchanging gifts, making phone calls, holding meetings, evaluating subordinates and so on. All these activities are routine in the sense that as a class of action they are repeatedly performed. But there is nothing mindless in their performance. The notion that “something is routine only when it involves no active calculative intervention and proceeds automatically […] would be a perverse definition,” because, as Barry Barnes justifiably underscores, “[n]ext to nothing of the ‘routine practice’ of a collective could be so described.”74 For George Herbert Mead it was, as Friedrich Kratochwil recapitulates, “precisely the inhibition of an automatic response and the orientation towards the other that constitutes the social action.”75 Consequently, “a distinction must be marked between the automatic/habitual and the routine.”76 Indeed, an unquestioned routine is not the same thing as an unconscious habit. If practitioners perpetuate a given practice, this means two things. First, the practice has thus far not been challenged by real-world events; that is, it works reasonably well to cope with the issues at hand.77 And, second, because of this, practitioners will unquestioningly—but not unconsciously—perform the practice, because they have no reason to doubt that it constitutes the right and appropriate course of action in the situation in question—not unconsciously, because practices are never merely executed but are always performed in a “knowledgeable, informed 74

Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 24. Barnes pointedly argues that as a “collective accomplishment” (p. 23) practices cannot be performed by individuals who are “oriented primarily by their own habits” (p. 24), as these will diverge overtime. A shared practice is not the simple summation of individual habits. The competent accomplishment of shared practices much rather has to be “generated on every occasion, by agents concerned all the time to retain coordination and alignment with each other in order to bring them about” (p. 25). The “constant coordination of actions” (p. 25) required to sustain shared practices presupposes being “sensitive to what other practitioners are doings” (p. 26), it involves the “overriding and modification of routines at the individual level” (p. 23) and it yet even more so depends on the “constant active modification of what comes automatically or habitually” (p. 24, emphasis added). See also Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 15, who make a strikingly similar point when saying that “[n]ot only does practice not trump reflexivity, judgment and expectations, which are core features of social life, but it actually depends on individuals’ reflexive normative and instrumental judgments to remain effectively institutionalized,” and they succinctly note, “[o]f course, people reflexively think about their practices.” 75 Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 49. See also George Herbert Mead (1909), Social Psychology as Counterpart to Physiological Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, 6(12), pp. 401–408; George Herbert Mead (1910), Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning, Psychological Bulletin, 7(12), pp. 397–405. 76 Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 24. 77 William James describes beliefs as living “on a credit system… ‘pass[ing],’ so long as nothing challenges them”; see William James (1995 [1907]), Pragmatism, New York: Dover Publications, p. 80. See also See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 58–59.

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1 Introduction

and goal-directed” fashion.78 Some practice theorists confuse this important distinction when excessively invoking the “‘mindlessness’ of virtuoso performances.”79 A situation is “always in need of interpretation by the involved agents.”80 Practitioners may have seen a similar situation countless times before and yet it is always a new situation in need of apprehension. This making sense of a situation involves “selective and purposeful activity.“81 Practices have patterns, but the reproduction of such patterns presupposes reflection and judgement anew about: [W]hat matters and what does not, what is important and why it is important, what to do and not to do, what to pay attention to and what to ignore, what to talk about and what to leave unsaid, what to justify and what to take for granted, what to display and what to withhold, when actions and artifacts are good enough and when they need improvement or refinement.82

In routine situations, practitioners can safely draw upon the interpretative filters provided by existing background knowledge and their reservoir of experience to decide on these questions (which will result in the perpetuation of previously dominant practices), but decide they still must. In problematic situations, on the contrary, these interpretative filters will fail practitioners. They can no longer unquestioningly use them to guide their reflection and judgement. There is a crucial difference, then, between, on the one hand, unquestioningly using a filter to guide the conscious process of reflection and judgement and, on the other hand, questioning the filter itself because it is based on knowledge that is no longer useful to adequately deal with a given situation. The latter entails deeper more fundamental reflection, but both involve consciousness. In this regard, a practice is produced anew in each of its constitutive actions. If a situation is problematic in that old practices no longer promise to be the right and appropriate course of action to deal with the situation at hand, practitioners must come up with a new way of coping through a “very practical form of inquiry”,83 in which they make use of their creative intelligence to merge past experience, norms 78

Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 21. Ted Hopf (2018), Change in International Practices, European Journal of International Relations, 24(3), p. 3. For an example of a practice theoretical approach that relies almost exclusively on the virtuosity of practitioners to explain both continuity and change, see Jérémie Cornut (2018), Diplomacy, Agency and the Logic of Improvisation and Virtuosity in Practice, European Journal of International Relations, 24(3), pp. 712–736. 80 Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, p. 455. This assertion should, however, not be misunderstood as making the case for either a relativistic or a deterministic view. Rather, with Hans Joas, I “quite readily accept the subjective constitution of a given worldview, but nevertheless regard the emergence of the problems within reality, as subjective as it is, as removed from arbitrary subjective reach.” From a pragmatist perspective, “actors confront problems whether they want to or not; the solution to these problems, however, is not clearly prescribed beforehand by reality, but calls for creativity and brings something objectively new into the world.” See Hans Joas (1993), Pragmatism and Social Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 4. 81 Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 46 (emphasis in original). 82 Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice, p. 81. 83 Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, p. 639 (emphasis in original). 79

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and values, emotions, goals and expectations in the production of new prescriptions for competent state behaviour.84 Yet this process is neither straightforward nor linear, that is, practitioners do not simply invent out of thin air, as it were, a new practice that works better. Rather, they engage in a process of trial-and-error learning, whereby new measures and policies are tested and dismissed again because they reveal themselves not to be useful, practical or appropriate. When dealing with a problematic situation, practitioners may also find the policy ends themselves to be no longer adequate, achievable or even desirable. In sum, such a situation is not only problematic because existing practices no longer promise a solution, but it is also indeterminate in that it is not yet clear which other course of action will work better, which new goals are to be pursued and by which means. Thus, “ends and means are being continuously adjusted until a dominant motive—all things considered— emerges.”85 For this reason, since changes in a practice or set of practices are seldom radical or swift in international relations, it is often difficult to determine a clear beginning or end of a practice.

1.3 Conceptualising the Trade-Security Nexus as a Nexus of Practices Conceiving of the social world and international relations as being structured by manifold practices implies, first and foremost, accepting that there is no allencompassing social order, no single superseding structure, no single organising principle, no superordinate logic that regulates a universal global whole or social totality.86 On the other hand, it does not mean either that practices are discrete social phenomena that eke out an autonomous, isolated existence detached from one another. Practices do not merely co-exist, they intersect and overlap, interpenetrate and interact, create synergies and friction, “form hierarchies and join to compose more complex practices; and a given performance or choice can be governed by 84

See ibid. On emotions, see Janice Bially Mattern (2011), A Practice Theory of Emotion for International Relations, in: Adler and Pouliot (eds.), International Practices, pp. 63–86. 85 Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 47. See also Hans Joas (1996), The Creativity of Action, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 154: “[T]he goals of actions are usually relatively undefined and only become more specific as a consequence of the decision to use particular means. Reciprocity of goals and means therefore signifies the interaction of the choice of means and the definition of goals. The dimension of means in relation to the dimension of goals is in no way neutral. Only when we recognize that certain means are available to us do we discover goals which had not occurred to us before. Thus, means not only specify goals, but they also expand the scope for possible goal-setting.” 86 For a concise overview of the concept of social totality, its proponents and opponents, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, pp. 1–18. For opponents of the concept see Anthony Giddens (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 164–165; Michael Mann (1986), The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.

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1 Introduction

a variety of them.”87 Anthony Giddens therefore fittingly depicts the social world as a “mosaic of interpenetrating, interdependent and shifting practices.”88 In other words, practices form “complex nexuses.”89 This view also parts with the idea of EU external action as forming a uniform and integrated whole. These nexuses and their precise constellations are only as stable or fragile as the practices that form them; changes in any of the constituent practices may affect the nexuses they form. Even if the constituent practices are recursively performed in a largely unaltered fashion, the nexus itself may still be subject to change if, for example, the unaltered performance of the constituent practices makes them drift apart, so to speak. It is, thus, in the enactment of practices that nexuses are instantiated in potentially “everchanging constellations.”90 That the trade-security nexus in EU external action does indeed present itself in changing constellations appears to be the corollary of the multifaceted nature of EU external relations, both in terms of the different policy fields and the different regional approaches. Accordingly, in some instances, the EU uses its trade policy for foreign and security policy objectives, whereas on other occasions it employs its foreign and security policy instruments to advance its trade interests. Even a cursory glance at the literature highlights that “[a]ll too often, practices that belong to world economic processes are studied separately from those of international security and reciprocally.”91 Indeed, to my knowledge, no study has ever approached the trade-security nexus as a nexus of practices. This book intends to address that gap. The object of analysis of this book will be the practices that structure trade policy and foreign and security policy, respectively, and their interactions, their nexuses that is, with each another in the context of EU external action. And while the analysis of the nexus cannot proceed without a comprehensive and thorough analysis of its constituent parts, it is the nexus that shall be of particular interest here. The conventional wisdom about the trade-security nexus, in Kal Holsti’s formulation, is “that governments pursue both security and welfare goals simultaneously and that both are linked in foreign policy action.”92 Referring to both Robert Gilpin, who sees a “reciprocal and dynamic interaction in international relations of the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of power”,93 and Robert O. Keohane, who argues that both are complementary and that neither can exist without the other in the long run,94 Holsti 87

Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 96. Schatzki, here, refers to Michael Oakeshott (1975), On Human Conduct, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 56. 88 This is Theodore Schatzki’s summary of Gidden’s practice theory, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 4. 89 Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 2. 90 Ibid. 91 Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 10. 92 Kal J. Holsti (1986), Politics in Command: Foreign Trade as National Security Policy, International Organization, 40(3), p. 644. 93 Robert Gilpin (1975), U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment, New York: Basic Books, p. 43. 94 See Robert O. Keohane (1984), After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 21–22.

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rightly criticises such and similar statements for their excessively general nature, which offers few insights into what this relationship looks like concretely. Instead, he argues, “[i]t is in states’ pursuit (or protection) of wealth and power that we can distinguish distinct sets of values and analyse how governments assess them.”95 Holsti elegantly rejects dichotomous, antithetical accounts that pit security versus welfare, guns versus butter or power versus plenty: Governments […] do not choose one to the exclusion of the other, nor does one determine the other. They constantly shift priorities to emphasize one or the other. Tradeoffs and ‘satisficing,’ rather than maximization, occur. It is a question of relative preferences.96

If there are tensions between trade policy and foreign and security policy, it would therefore appear that these are less about the ultimate objectives rather than about the fundamental conduct of each policy. Hence, rather than focussing on the ultimate objectives and assuming that states approach situations with permanently fixed objectives, the approach pursued here is rooted in practice theoretical considerations: trade policy and foreign and security policy are conceptualised as structured by sets of distinctive practices and the concrete instantiation of the trade-security nexus pivots on the underlying practices. It is, consequently, in studying how practitioners define and handle concrete situations that one can discern the different beliefs and rules for action at play, analyse how practitioners assess them, whether they understand the interactions and make formal connections and set (or fail to set) priorities for the overall approach to external action if the beliefs and rules for action are incongruous. Further complexity is added when states and their external relations bureaucracies are seen, not as unitary actors, but as a cacophony of bureaucratic subsystems each with their own beliefs, distinctive organisational culture, specific background knowledge and collective role identities, but also agendas, vanities and ambitions as well as history of inter-ministerial interactions and perhaps rivalries.97 Each bureaucratic subsystem is furthermore both embedded in as well as shaping the domestic and international structures that govern the policy domain it is in charge of.98 The political system of the EU can reasonably be conceptualised as being composed of several such subsystems.99 One of the notable insights of practice theory is to embed practices in 95

Holsti (1986), Politics in Command, p. 644. Ibid., p. 645. See also Robert Gilpin (1981), War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–20. 97 On ministerial subsystems as socializers, see Ted Hopf (2010), The Logic of Habit in International Relations, European Journal of International Relations, 16(4), p. 548: “[D]ifferent institutions within a state are sufficiently powerful socializers of its employees that a state’s identity varies from the capitalist identity in the commerce department to the great power identity in the foreign ministry to the Christian identity in the executive branch.” 98 On the multiplicity of domestic and international structures in which states are embedded, see Alexander Wendt (1987), The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory, International Organization, 41(3), pp. 366–368. 99 See Jess Pilegaard (2009), …And Never the Twain Shall Meet? An Institutionalist Perspective of EU Trade and Development Policies in the Context of the EPA Negotiations, in: Gerrit Faber and Jan Orbie (eds.), Beyond Market Access for Economic Development: EU-Africa Relations in Transition, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 264–267. 96

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1 Introduction

particular organised social contexts, in which communities of practice perform ‘their’ practices. The “collective development of a shared practice”100 evokes “a sense of joint enterprise”101 among members of a community of practice, which also brings forth a certain understanding and expectation about their own and each others’ role and positioning within the organised social context they are part of. The formation of such role identities is always relationship-specific, that is, there is no conception of self and other prior to and independent of social interaction. While role identities are relatively stable constructs, for otherwise social order would be impossible, they nevertheless are continuously (re-)constructed in and through “situated activity.”102 A distinction is commonly drawn between one’s own role conception and the conception others have of one’s role, between what George Herbert Mead called the ‘me’ and the ‘I,’ which together constitute the self.103 The ‘me’ is that part of identity defined in terms of the understanding and expectations others have of one’s role. The ‘I’, on the other hand, is the response to that ‘me’, that is, it designates the way the role expectations are taken, adapted and appropriated.104 Social interaction and the formation of role identities, then, are a “tentative process”, one in which the conceptions of self and other are continuously reinforced or challenged, tested that is, by other’s response to such conceptions.105 “The product of the testing process”, in Ralph H. Turner’s phrasing, “is the stabilisation or the modification of one’s own role.”106

100

Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice, p. 209. Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 17. 102 See C. Norman Alexander and Mary Glenn Wiley (1981), Situated Activity and Identity Formation, in: Morris Rosenberg and Ralph Turner (eds.), Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, New York: Basic Books, pp. 269–289. See also Peter Berger (1966), Identity as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge, European Journal of Sociology, 7(19), p. 106: “[P]sychological reality is in an ongoing dialectical relationship with social structure. Psychological reality refers here […] to the manner in which the individual apprehends himself, his processes of consciousness and his relations with other.” See also p. 111: “Identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is always identity within a specific, socially constructed world.” 103 See George Herbert Mead (1965 [1934]), Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 173–177. It is worth recalling that for Mead these are functional distinctions, not metaphysical ones. 104 According to Ralph H. Turner, individuals and collectives do not engage merely in “role taking” but also “role making,” the latter describing the “tendency to create and modify conceptions of selfand other-roles.” Although Turner hastens to add that bureaucracies “restrict the free operation of the role-making process, limiting its repertoire and making role boundaries rigid,” in practice there is a “compromise between the role-taking process and the simple conformity behavior demanded by organizational prescriptions.” See Ralph H. Turner (1962), Role-Taking: Process Versus Conformity, in: Arnold M. Rose, ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes: An Interactionist Approach, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pp. 21–22, 27. See also Ralph H. Turner (1956), Role-Taking, Role Standpoint and Reference-Group Behavior, American Journal of Sociology, 61(4), pp. 316–328. For a more recent overview of role theory, see Ralph H. Turner (2006), Role Theory, in: Jonathan H. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory, New York: Springer, pp. 233–254. 105 Turner (1962), Role-Taking, p. 23 (emphasis in original). 106 Ibid. 101

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Adapted to the case of the EU trade-security nexus, this means that trade practitioners and foreign and security policy practitioners through their interactions assign themselves and each other certain functional roles, attached to which comes a set of role-specific understandings and expectations about self and other regarding technical expertise, bureaucratic competence and consequently the right and appropriate course of action under a given set of circumstances, but also their functional role and responsibilities within the EU external relations bureaucracy as a whole. There is an inherent tension inasmuch as ego’s practices are at variance with alter’s understanding and expectations about ego’s role and consequently role-appropriate behaviour under a given set of circumstances. Part of this is very explicit and official and can be found in the publicly-available organisational chart of any bureaucratic organisation. Yet, since real-world events most of the time do not fall neatly into the separate domains of politico-bureaucratic competence, the framing of a situation, the self-ascription of a certain functional role in coping with the situation and the ensuing performance of certain practices (re-)draws the boundaries of politico-bureaucratic competence and power, thereby also affecting the nexus of policy practices.107 Therefore, since in a world of “complex interdependence”108 it may not be always obvious what pertains to the realm of trade policy and what to the realm of foreign and security policy, practitioners from different communities of practice seek to claim, or relinquish for that matter, competence for certain policy domains and frame problem definitions accordingly.109 If agency and structure are co-determined and mutually constitutive and if practices are the transmission belt between the two, then the properties of both the EU’s external relations bureaucracy and the structures in which it and its constituent communities of practice are embedded are of importance to explain EU external action. Put differently, the organised social context in which practitioners act is conditioned by both the self-other roles between trade policy practitioners and foreign and security policy practitioners as well as the domestic and international structures in which the EU is embedded. Alexander Wendt identifies four such structures in which states and by the same token the EU, are embedded: “domestic-economic”, 107

On “boundary drawing” in foreign policy, see Gunther Hellmann andreas Fahrmeir and Milos Vec (2016), eds., The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. Ch. 1 and 2. On “boundary problems”, see also Michael Smith (1997), The Commission and External Relations, in: Geoffrey Edwards and David Spence (eds.), The European Commission, 2nd ed., London: Cartermill International, pp. 264–265: “Many of the problems faced by the Commission in the pursuit of external relations are effectively ‘boundary problems’. […] A related problem is that of the boundary between ‘economic’ issues and ‘political’ or ‘security’ issues. In the post-Cold War era, it is no longer clear (if indeed it ever was) how this line can be drawn and maintained. As a result, external relations issues increasingly cut across sectors and raise unexpected problems of coordination or action.” 108 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (1977), Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, Boston: Little, Brown and Co, pp. 24–29. 109 One interviewed trade official explained that DG Trade had appropriated the competence for the regulation of conflict diamonds, as the treaties were not entirely clear about the distribution of competence. While he said that DG Trade was not without legal foundation since it was about the regulation of trade, the dossier could also have landed in DG Relex (Interview #2).

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“domestic-political”, “international-economic” and “international-political structures”.110 One could easily think of many more such structures, to wit cultural, religious and sectarian, ethnic, linguistic to name but a few. What all have in common is that “[e]ach structure in which the state is embedded will have its own logic, reproduction requirements and thus prescriptions for competent state practice.”111 Of interest, here, are international-economic and international-political structures. Barry Buzan contrasts the international political system with the international economic system and contends that the former is characterised “much more by its pattern of fragmentation than by what binds it together”, whereas the latter “presents a more balanced structure in which substantial elements of division are matched by powerful forces of integration.”112 The challenge of analysing international economic relations, Buzan elaborates, is that they seem to form a distinct system, while simultaneously being inextricably entangled with the international political relations to the point of being indistinguishable from them.113 On the one hand, the international economy hence appears as a system of its own, with its own structure and dynamics, but, on the other hand, viewed through the lens of international political relations, the international economy becomes less a thing of its own and “more a complex pattern of interaction among national economies.”114 From this vantage point, “economic activity becomes interesting not so much because of its own dynamics, but because it forces states to interact with each other and thus provides a major behavioural force within the international political system.”115 The issue of interactions and linkages, therefore, moves to the forefront. Issuelinkage is a common, if not ubiquitous, feature in international relations. Issuelinkage means tying two or more policy areas together and making progress in one area dependent on progress in other areas.116 Some policy fields are so closely interconnected by nature of the subject matter that they will affect one another whether practitioners decide to issue-link them or not because the actions that are constitutive of the practices in the different policy areas are causally connected.117 The potential difficulty arises when the beliefs and rules for action respectively underlying the two or more policies that are being linked are incongruous in that they require practitioners to engage in different and potentially inconsistent courses of action. In a world that is increasingly interconnected and interdependent, more and more policy domains are linked, which raises the question of how compatible the practices 110

Wendt (1987), The Agent-Structure Problem, p. 366. Ibid. p. 368. As aforementioned, I avoid the word ‘logic’ for the purposes of this book, but I believe that Wendt’s point, here, is similar to my argument that each policy field is characterised by certain distinctive dynamics and rules for action. 112 Barry Buzan (1983), People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, p. 128. 113 See ibid., p. 129. 114 Ibid., pp. 129–120. 115 Ibid., p. 130. 116 See Ernst B. Haas (1980), Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes, World Politics, 32(3), pp. 371–375. 117 On causal connections between different practices, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 89. 111

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structuring these different policies are. In the context of the EU trade-security nexus, this means asking how the beliefs and rules for action underlying the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP respectively relate to each other.

1.4 Reconstructing Practices The approach pursued in this book privileges problem-solving eclecticism over parsimonious theoretical and methodological consistency.118 The goal is not and cannot be to make universally-valid generalisations about the trade-security nexus in EU external action. Rather, the objective is to understand and explain the practices that structure EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy, respectively, by identifying patterns in external action and reconstructing the beliefs and rules for action that make practitioners engage in a certain course of action. Three methods of reconstructing practices are conceivable. The first is participant observation, which Christian Lequesne further divides into “direct observation” and “participatory observation”.119 Direct observation presupposes daily, or at least regular, and continued access to the practitioners in order to observe them in their daily conduct. Participatory observation describes a method of observation where the researcher simultaneously belongs to the group of practitioners he observes.120 However, the problem with observing practices is that they are not readily observable in their meaningfulness.121 In addition, for budgetary reasons or lack of access, direct observation is, many times, no feasible option. A second approach to reconstructing practices is through interviewing practitioners. Various interviewing techniques exist, yet their shared rationale is apparent: “[I]nterviewing ‘informants’ to recover otherwise unobservable behaviour and decisions.”122 Since it is all but impossible to draw conclusions about beliefs and rules 118

See Peter Katzenstein and Rudra Sil (2008), Eclectic Theorizing in the Study and Practice of International Relations, in: Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 109–130. 119 Christian Lequesne (2020), Ethnographie du Quai d’Orsay: Les Pratiques des Diplomates Français, Paris: CNRS Editions, p. 24. 120 Lequesne mentions Iver Neumann’s study of the Norwegian foreign ministry, which he conducted while being himself employed by the ministry. See Iver B. Neumann (2012), At Home with the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 121 See Kustermans (2015), Parsing the Practice Turn, p. 191. 122 Matthew N. Beckmann and Richard L. Hall (2013), Elite Interviewing in Washington, DC, in: Layna Mosley (ed.), Interview Research in Political Science, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 196. See also Martin Hollies and Steve Smith (1990), Explaining and Understanding International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1: “In international affairs and throughout the social world, there are two stories to tell and a range of theories to go with each. One story is an outsider’s, told in the manner of the natural scientist seeking to explain the working of nature and treating the human realm as part of the nature. The other is an insider’s, told so as to make us understand what the events mean, in a sense distinct from any meaning found in unearthing the laws of nature.”

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for action from observing actions and identifying patterns alone, a researcher needs to get some sort of insider’s account in order to be able to reconstruct the idiosyncratic understanding enacted through the repeated and patterned actions. Yet, since practitioners cannot be considered neutral observers of their own practices, one must not uncritically adopt the practitioners’ point of view, but rather engage in a dialectic process of interpretation, which takes the practitioners’ views seriously and puts them into a larger analytical frame in order to make their utterances fruitful. Despite this caveat, interviewing provides invaluable and useful information for the reconstruction of practices. A third approach to studying practices is through textual analysis. Texts, whether official documents, internal reports, non-papers, meeting minutes, diplomatic cables, memoirs or otherwise, all “offer a window onto enacted practices”.123 Many times, the problem for the researcher is gaining access to texts that are not publicly accessible. Internal documents are usually subject to non-disclosure rules. In the case of the EU, internal Commission documents are made available only 30 years after they were produced, with classified documents being made available only when and if they have been declassified. How one uses and mixes these methods also depends on the general approach to practice theory. A pragmatist understanding of practices with its focus on the creative and contingent quotidian unfolding of practices will gravitate more towards participant observation in order to obtain highly-detailed descriptions of practitioners acting in their natural habitat.124 By contrast, a practice approach that stands in the critical theory tradition, which seeks to reconstruct larger-scale formations of practices and their structuring effects, often places more emphasis on interviewing and textual analysis and accordingly adopts a writing style that is “more distant, objectifying and offer[s] less descriptive detail.”125 In order to obtain the necessary empirical material to reconstruct the practices of the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, I relied largely on interviews with practitioners in Brussels about the interactions of trade policy and foreign policy and security policy in EU external action. The interview format I opted for is semi-structure interviews, which “strike a middle ground between the formal standardization of the mass survey and the informant-led anarchy that ethnographic interviewing can sometimes result in.”126 The questionnaire used in semi-structured interviews is usually a combination of open-ended and close-ended questions, which allows the researcher both to gain the insider’s perspective on specific situations as well as to probe assumptions and to cross-check statements made by other interviewees. Asking open-ended questions also takes interviewees seriously and appreciates their explanations and elaborations 123

Vincent Pouliot (2013), Methodology: Putting Practice Theory into Practice, in: Rebecca AdlerNissen (ed.), Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 49. 124 See Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, p. 457. 125 Ibid. 126 Beth L. Leech, Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnackie and David C. Kimball (2013), Lessons from the “Lobbying and Policy Change” Project, in: Layna Mosley (ed.), Interview Research in Political Science, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 210.

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for the benefit of the research project.127 While semi-structured interview formats with their open-ended questions treat interviewees as genuine experts in their field, it must not imply that all answers are uncritically taken at face value. In fact, the general problem with in-depth elite interviews, which are less numerous in number than mass survey research, is that they. may provide great insight, but those insights may not extend beyond the individuals who were interviewed. It is difficult to know whether insights from a handful of interviews represent the typical or the unusual and whether the patterns seen in those interviews would hold true for other individuals or other policy cases.128

One possibility to address this potential shortcoming is to increase the number of interviews. And even though in-depth interviews can never replicate the large-scale numbers of mass surveys, for it is all but impossible for a single researcher to transcribe and make use of the interview material, it is nevertheless helpful to be able to draw on a high number of interviews to cross-check testimonies made by individual interviewees—similar to good investigative journalism. In order to find potential interview partners, I made use of a snowball system, whereby I asked all interviewees whether they could recommend additional people to interview. This approach does, of course, not allow for a randomised selection of interview partners, which is, however, also not necessary for in-depth expert interviews.129 For the purposes of this book, I interviewed 53 EU officials, member state diplomats and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Interviewees were officials at different levels of hierarchy, including desk officers; heads and deputy heads of unit; members, heads and deputy heads of cabinets; heads and deputy heads of division; directors; managing directors; deputy directors-general; deputy secretary-general; as well as heads and members of delegation.130 The variety of positions and seniority allowed for a more comprehensive and nuanced picture. In addition to expert interviews, I used official documents and secondary literature to triangulate the three empirical sources. The process of triangulation allowed me to contrast and critically probe the different source material for their meaningfulness, for example, to compare the mentioning of the linkages between trade policy and foreign and security policy in official EU documents with how the interviewed practitioners see these interactions. My understanding of triangulation hence corresponds to what can be called “triangulation between methods”, that is combining several sources of empirical material

127

See ibid., pp. 210–211: “If we (as researchers) are bothering to interview using open-ended questions and allowing the subjects to answer as they wish, we must think highly of their ability to tell us something we didn’t already know. We are treating them as experts in their field.” 128 Ibid., p. 223. 129 See ibid., pp. 212–215. 130 Except for the two Members of the European Parliament I interviewed, Bernd Lange (S&D), the current chairman of the international trade committee and Elmar Brok (EPP), the former chairman of the foreign affairs committee, all interviewees spoke under the condition of anonymity. To protect their anonymity, I will not refer to their specific rank and only loosely mention their seniority, where appropriate, when quoting.

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with a view to finding possible inconsistencies and increasing the validity of the findings.131 The first step will be to reconstruct the practices that structure EU trade policy as well as EU foreign and security policy, thereby producing a critical analysis of the beliefs and rules for action prevalent inside DG Trade and the EEAS, their different institutional cultures as perceived by the practitioners and their (potentially different) interests and objectives when interacting with each another in implementing EU external action. This book will use these insights as a framework to analyse the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the EU’s external action towards third countries and regions by way of two case studies. The EU’s relations with third countries and regions differ vastly from one another.132 They, of course, differ not only in their political importance to the EU but also in their economic potential as trading partners and their salience as security partners or, indeed, security concerns. Therefore, in order for the case studies to lend themselves to an analysis of the EU trade-security nexus, I looked for obvious examples of where the EU had to address both trade policy issues as well as foreign and security policy issues: EU-Ukraine relations in the run-up to the crisis against the background of Russia’s increasing assertiveness in the post-Soviet space as well as EU-ASEAN relations against the background of China’s increasing assertiveness in Southeast Asia. First, EU-Ukraine and EU-ASEAN relations are comparable in that in both instances the EU has to deal with a great power that likewise seeks to expand its influence in the respective region. Second, although in both cases the EU has both economic and security interests, security issues seem to be more pressing in the case of Ukraine and the Eastern neighbourhood whereas economic interests appear more prevalent in EU-ASEAN relations, which makes for interesting comparative cases as regards the potentially different interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy practices. This book does not attempt to cover the two case studies in a comprehensive manner in the sense of explaining the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis as such or offering an exhaustive analysis of EU-ASEAN relations in all their dimensions. Instead, it selectively focuses on the interplay between trade policy and foreign and security policy from the EU perspective. The objective is to make use of those cases where both EU trade and security interests are at stake in order to reconstruct the practices these cases reflect. Due to the sheer number of EU trade agreements and the vast differences between the third countries with which the EU entertains diplomatic relations, it is all but impossible to generate a universally applicable theory on how trade policy and foreign and security policy interact in EU external action, although it is arguable that there are certain patterns and regularities, which are the object of analysis in the following chapters. 131

See Melvyn Read and David Marsh (2002), Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, in: David Marsh and Gerry Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science, 2nd ed., pp. 237–238. 132 See Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum (2005), Civilian Power or Soft Imperialism? EU as a Global Actor and the Role of Inter-Regionalism, European Foreign Affairs Review, 10(4), pp. 535–552.

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The remainder of this book is structured into five chapters. Chapter Two reconstructs, based on interview data, official documents and secondary literature, the beliefs and rules for action as well as the practices that structure the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, respectively, in a general way, i.e. not in relation to any specific case study. Chapter Three uses this framework to reconstruct and analyse the tradesecurity nexus in the EU’s approach towards Ukraine and the Eastern Partnership in the run-up to the crisis, which broke out in late 2013 and early 2014. Chapter Four does the same for the EU’s approach towards the ten Southeast Asian states forming the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) against the backdrop of China’s rise as a regional and global power. Chapter Five concludes and sketches out further areas of research.

Chapter 2

Reconstructing the Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action as a Nexus of Practices

It is a widely held view among both scholars and practitioners that in the realm of external trade relations the EU has all the characteristics of actorness and speaks with “a single European voice”.1 The same cannot be said about the CFSP/CSDP, which is still defined by its ‘second-pillar nature’. The former Belgian minister of foreign affairs Mark Eyskens coined the image of the EU as “an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm”2 to describe the EU’s limited capabilities in international relations beyond economic issues. The concern of this book is not whether 30 years after it was pronounced this bon mot still accurately describes EU external action. In fact, scholars have criticised this depiction for its reliance on traditional notions of power in foreign and security policy and argued that it consequently misconstrues how the EU conducts its external action. Various alternative concepts have been put forward, including civilian power, normative power, structural power, transnational power, market power.3 What all of these have in common is that they seek to explain the EU’s identity with a single concept. They, furthermore, all emphasise the significance of the CCP for the EU’s wider foreign policy agenda, assuming that the CCP is somehow naturally coherent and consistent with other external policies, in particular with the CFSP/CSDP. But these EU-as-a-power approaches do not question whether and if so how, the EU’s undeniable economic power resources as a trade actor actually

1

Sophie Meunier (2007), Trading Voices: The European Union in International Commercial Negotiations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 21–39; see also Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, pp. 65–66; Loukas Tsoukalis (2003), What Kind of Europe?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–68. 2 Mark Eyskens as quoted in Craig R. Whitney (1991), Gulf Fighting Shatters Europeans’ Fragile Unity, New York Times, 25 January. 3 See Duchêne (1972), Europe’s Role in World Peace; Manners (2002), Normative Power Europe; Keukeleire (2001), Au-Delà de la PESC; Keukeleire (2003), European Union as a Diplomatic Actor; Keukeleire and MacNaughtan (2008), Foreign Policy of the European Union; Fabienne Bossuyt (2007), An Economic Giant, Political Dwarf and Military Worm? Introducing the Concept of ‘Transnational Power Over’ in Studies of (the EU’s) Power in IR, draft paper prepared for the 4th ECPR General Conference Pisa, Italy, 6–8 September; Damro (2012), Market Power Europe. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Stueber, The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_2

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translate into effective foreign and security policy influence.4 Instead, they implicitly pre-suppose that it does, thereby assuming that, as a global actor, the EU acts as one coherent, integrated whole and puts its trade policy, readily as the need arises, fully at the service of pursuing its foreign and security policy objectives. However, as a “multiperspectival polity”,5 the EU’s external action is constituted of a multitude of different actors that engage in a panoply of external activities. At the EU level alone, virtually all directorate-generals (DGs) and services deal with the external aspects of their respective policy domains. The assumption, here, is therefore that rather than forming one unified whole, the EU’s external relations bureaucracy is characterised by various bureaucratic subsystems. For this reason, there are inevitable a multitude of beliefs, views and interests at play in any given policy decision. At the start of my research endeavour therefore lies the seemingly banal, yet understudied statement that trade policy is different from foreign and security policy, not so much in its goals and objectives, which, at a discursive level, can always be brought into harmony, but in its fundamental conduct. In the EU, both trade policy and foreign and security policy each have their very own standard operating procedures, background knowledge, beliefs and rules for action as well as criteria for competence, which give rise to distinctive practices. While it is analytically fairly straightforward to draw a clear distinction between international political and international economic relations, in practice the line becomes blurry. The nexuses are complex: “It’s never black, it’s never white, it’s always grey”, as one interviewed official quipped.6 This raises a particular challenge for researchers who try to disentangle the many strings that feed into EU external action. A practice theoretical approach is a heretofore underexplored avenue to examine the interplay between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. I will argue that the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP are structured alongside sets of distinctive practices, which do not merely co-exist but intersect and overlap, interpenetrate and interact, create synergies and friction and constitute more complex practices.7 Since any given situation or decision potentially lies at the intersection of a multitude of practices, the different practices may exert conflicting pressures on the conduct of EU external action to the extent that they are the enactment of dissimilar beliefs and rules for action. The focus of analysis consequently shifts from the goals and objectives to patterns in the conduct of trade policy and foreign and security policy respectively. This shift in focus makes it possible to scratch beneath the surface of what in declarations and policy papers are two purportedly compatible policies. Indeed, if one were to look merely at the objectives of prosperity and security, both are co-dependent, because in the long run states pursue both prosperity and security. Yet such a view overlooks that trade policy and foreign and security policy function differently insofar as they each are structured by distinctive practices. 4

See Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 12–13, 206. Ruggie (1993), Territoriality and Beyond, p. 172. 6 Interview #9. 7 See Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 96. See also Oakeshott (1975), On Human Conduct, p. 56. 5

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This chapter examines the trade-security nexus in EU external action as a nexus of practices. In doing so it reconstructs the practices that structure the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP respectively by drawing upon and triangulating interviews conducted with EU officials over a period of six months in Brussels, official documents and secondary literature. The approach pursued in this book is innovative inasmuch as it seeks to study both the internal, politico-bureaucratic practices and structures that make up the trade-security nexus as well as their embeddedness in the structures of international political and international economic relations respectively. It thus combines the insights of practice theory with those of the bureaucracy literature on organisational cultures and more traditional IR/IPE literature. While the existence or not of a common Commission culture as well as the persistence of strong DGspecific cultures have been the focus of some scholarly attention,8 differences in organisational cultures and practices across different DGs have never been systematically used to examine the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. This book intends to address this shortcoming in the EU external relations literature. The chapter is structured as follows. First, a concise abstract of the different trajectories of European integration in the realms of trade policy and foreign and security policy is sketched out to foreground the differences in action space, which DG Trade and the EEAS respectively dispose of to develop their practices. Second, the organisational cultures of DG Trade and the EEAS, as the officials themselves perceive them, are reconstructed. Third, the main trade policy as well as foreign and security policy strategy documents are critically scrutinised with regard to the trade-security nexus and crosschecked against the interview material. Finally, the interactions between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP in practical policymaking are examined.

2.1 Institutional Aspects Since the literature on European integration in general and the institutional development of the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP in particular is vast and abundant,9 this 8

On Commission culture in general, see Antonis A. Ellinas and Ezra Suleiman (2012), The European Commission and Bureaucratic Autonomy: Europe’s Custodians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. On subcultures, see Michelle Cini (1996), The European Commission: Leadership, Organisation and Culture in the EU Administration, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 193; Michelle Cini (1996), La Commission européenne: lieu d’émergence de cultures administratives. L’exemple de la DG IV et de la DG XI, Revue Française de Science Politique, 46(3), pp. 457–472; Michelle Cini (1997), Administrative Culture in the European Commission: The Cases of Competition and Environment, in: Neill Nugent (ed.), At the Heart of the Union: Studies of the European Commission, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 71–88. 9 On the development of the CCP, see, for example, Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 48–70; Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, pp. 62–88; Manfred Elsig (2002), The EU’s Common Commercial Policy: Institutions, Interests and Ideas, Aldershot: Ashgate; Stephen Woolcock (2005), European Union Trade Policy: Domestic Institutions and Systemic

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section limits itself to a concise overview, which nevertheless appears necessary in order to sketch out the institutional terrain in which the practitioners of trade policy and foreign and security policy develop and hone their practices. Understanding the institutional arrangements is important for two reasons. First, it is difficult to apprehend the lopsided nature of EU external action with its default bias towards economic issues without at least a cursory reading of the key steps in European integration in the sphere of external relations. Second, although it is reasonable to assume that practices may not always entirely correspond with the legal-institutional setup, EU primary and secondary law nevertheless sets more or less firm boundaries on the development of practices. Indeed, even though the Commission de facto “has on occasion moved well beyond the ‘letter of the law’,”10 such divergences are circumscribed by the European Court of Justice’s view that “a mere practice cannot override the provisions of the Treaty”.11 Therefore, the legal-institutional setup provides both enabling and constraining parameters for the production, reproduction and transformation of practices: [F]ormal organization provides an administrative milieu that focuses a decision-maker’s attention on certain problems and solutions, while others are excluded from consideration. The structure thus constrains choices, but at the same time it creates and increases action capacity in certain directions.12

Bureaucratic organisations are both agent and structure. The action space that the formal legal-institutional setup provides is the realm where practices are produced, reproduced and transformed. To understand the nature of an institution, one needs to study its practices.13 ‘Action capacity’, then, is where practices originate. Key in this respect is also the direction in which practices develop (note: ‘action capacity in certain directions’) while bearing in mind that the boundaries of the action space are blurry. Practices can therefore overstep existing boundaries, and treaty changes may merely codify an established practice. Nevertheless, getting a solid grasp of the institutional setup, its origins and developments is a necessary prerequisite to the analysis of practices. History, in this case institutional history, matters to be able to historicise practices.

Factors, in: Dominic Kelly and Wyn Grant, (eds.), The Politics of International Trade in the Twenty-First Century: Actors, Issues and Regional Dynamics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 234–252. 10 Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 67. 11 European Court of Justice (1994), Judgement of 9 August 1994, France v Commission, C-327/91, EU:C:1994:305, paragraph 36. 12 Morten Egeberg (1999), The Impact of Bureaucratic Structure on Policy Making, Public Administration, 77(1), p. 159 (emphasis in original). 13 See Lequesne (2015), EU Foreign Policy, p. 352: “Institutions are human creations that change and evolve through the interests but also the subjective representations of the agency. To understand rule-making, you must start identifying practices.”

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2.1.1 Trade and Security in the History European Integration At the outset of European integration, it was believed that the path to a political union would proceed more or less simultaneously through the integration of economic markets and the pooling of military resources, as the following quote by Ernst B. Haas exemplifies: “The way toward a European unity, in which sovereignty will inhere predominantly in the central authority, will apparently proceed through military alliance and economic integration to confederation and then on to final full federation.”14 The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, though limited to a single, if critical, economic sector, laid the foundation for a wider economic integration to come. Coal and steel being crucial to the defence industry, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) also responded to a security concern, by seeking, in the words of then French foreign minister Robert Schuman, to make war “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible”.15 The attempt to create a European army, however, floundered when in 1954 the French National Assembly voted down plans to create the European Defence Community. In the wake of this setback, the six ECSC member states, therefore, decided at the conference of Messina in 1955 “to go a step further towards the construction of Europe” and that “this step should first of all be taken in the economic field” through “the gradual merging of national economies” and “the creation of a common market”.16 Thus, the course was set for economic integration prior to political integration. Interestingly, the decision also had an explicit international dimension to it, as the six foreign ministers declared the steps announced to be “indispensable if Europe’s position in the world is to be maintained” and “her influence restored”.17 Consequently, neither foreign and security policy nor defence policy found their way into the Treaty of Rome of 1957 establishing the European Economic Community (EEC). Rather, since creating a common market, as stipulated in the Declaration of Messina, also necessitated a uniform approach of the six EEC member states to trade relations with third countries,18 the EEC was accorded the competence for “a 14

Ernst B. Haas (1948), The United States of Europe, Political Science Quarterly, 63(4), p. 550. Interestingly, in developing his neo-functionalist approach to European integration, Haas subsequently argues that matters pertaining to foreign and security policy are less prone to functional spillovers than economic affairs, see Ernst B. Haas (1961), International Integration: The European and the Universal Process, International Organization, 15(3), pp. 368–378. For a detailed elaboration on functionalism, see Ernst B. Haas (1964), Beyond the Nation State: Functionalism and International Organization, Stanford: Stanford University Press. 15 Robert Schuman (1950), The Schuman Declaration, Paris, 9 May. Joris Larik, however, argues that “‘grand vision’ and trade objectives are not yet explicitly linked to each other” in the Rome Treaty, see Joris Larik (2015), Global Governance Through Trade: Constitutional Moorings, in: Jan Wouters et al. (eds.), Global Governance Through Trade: EU Policies and Approaches, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 46. 16 Resolution adopted by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the ECSC at their meeting at Messina, 1–3 June 1955. 17 Ibid. 18 Article 113 para 1 TEEC reads, “the common commercial policy shall be based on uniform principles, particularly in regard to tariff amendments, the conclusion of tariff or trade agreements,

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common policy in the matter of external trade”.19 Accordingly, the Commission was granted the exclusive competence to propose policies in the matter of external trade and, after authorisation by the Council, to conduct trade negotiations on behalf of the Community.20 The Rome Treaty moreover laid the foundations for what would subsequently become the EU’s external relations by bestowing legal personality upon the EEC and granting it the competence to enter into association agreements with third parties, both countries and international organisations.21 Thus, whereas the CCP has played “an important role in Europe’s foreign policy armory”22 ever since the inception of the European integration process, the failure of the European Defence Community (EDC) in 1954 led to the carve out of the traditional subject matter of international politics—foreign, security and defence policy—from EU competence.23 This gave rise to the somewhat awkward situation that the realm of foreign and security policy was excluded from a project whose principal rationale was guaranteeing peace and security among the six founding states, chiefly among which the former hereditary enemies France and Germany. Nevertheless, the debate about “the need to balance the EC’s growing influence in external economic relations with an explicit foreign policy dimension”24 gained traction throughout the 1960s. At the Hague summit in 1969, the heads of state and government of the six EEC member states agreed “to instruct the Ministers for Foreign Affairs to study the best way of achieving progress in the matter of political unification” in a bid to “paving the way for a united Europe capable of assuming its responsibilities in the world of tomorrow and of making a contribution commensurate with its traditions and its mission.”25 The resulting Luxembourg Report, adopted in 1970, instigated a system of informal, intergovernmental cooperation in the sphere of foreign policy. The so-called European Political Cooperation (EPC), the precursor to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), was thus set up entirely outside the EEC structure, with the Commission at first having only restricted access and later being merely associated with it.26 Thus, the EPC led to a compartmentalisation of foreign and security policy, dealt with in the framework of the EPC, and trade

the alignment of measures of liberalisation, export policy and protective commercial measures including measures to be taken in cases of dumping or subsidies.” 19 Article 111 para 1 TEEC. 20 For a concise overview of the original CCP provisions as laid down in the Treaty of Rome, see Elsig (2002), Common Commercial Policy, pp. 26–27. 21 See Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 164. 22 Elsig (2002), Common Commercial Policy, p. 173. 23 See Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 3. 24 Ibid., p. 164. 25 Final communiqué of the Hague Summit, 2 December 1969. 26 See Simon Nuttall (1996), The Commission: The Struggle for Legitimacy, in: Christopher Hill (ed.), The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy, London: Routledge, pp. 132–135.

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policy, handled by the EEC.27 What is more, the EPC had neither a treaty base nor a permanent secretariat until the Single European Act entered into force in 1987. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 institutionalised the separation between trade policy and foreign and security policy, placing the CCP in the first, the community pillar, and the newly created CFSP in the second, the intergovernmental pillar. This pillarisation has been called “the original sin of overall EU external action”,28 although, as argued above, the origins of this ‘sin’ can be traced back even further to the rejection of the EDC, which was the original birth defect of EU external relations. The Maastricht Treaty furthermore established a Directorate-General External Relations of the Council Secretariat, charged with supporting the formulation of foreign policy, which subsequently in 1994 merged with the EPC secretariat. The diminished role for the Commission in CFSP matters, placed in Pillar II, relative to CCP affairs, placed in Pillar I, “caused considerable resentment among Commission officials and has resulted in delays in implementation of CFSP decisions requiring Pillar I policy instruments.”29 Yet, despite the entrenchment of the structural division institutionalised with the Maastricht Treaty, habits of cross-pillar cooperation developed in the ensuing years.30 In a bid to both strengthen its standing visà-vis the Council Secretariat in external relations and increase its effectiveness, the Commission undertook, throughout the 1990s, several reorganisations of its external relations portfolio, which, mostly limited to trade and development issues, had for a long time been dealt with by DGs I (External Relations) and VIII (Development).31 In 1993, DG I was split into DG I responsible for external economic relations and DG IA in charge of external political relations. DG VIII was maintained and the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) was created. Neill Nugent and Sabine Saurugger argue that the Commission subsequently came to the conviction that the functional separation between external economic and external political relations “did not allow sufficiently for the intermingling of these policies and prevented policies from being dealt with on comprehensive regional bases.”32 Hence, in 1995, another reshuffling saw the reorganisation of the Commission’s external relations portfolio into three DGs (DG I, DG IA, DG IB), this time alongside geographical foci. Further increasing the complexity of the external relations portfolio was the creation in 1997 of the Common Service for External Relations (SCR), responsible for ensuring all 27

See Michael E. Smith (2009), European Foreign Policy as a Research Field: An Historical and Conceptual Overview, Paper prepared for delivery at the April 2009 EUSA Conference Los Angeles, p. 9. 28 Piet Eeckhout (2004), External Relations of the European Union: Legal and Constitutional Foundations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 145. 29 Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 8. 30 See ibid., p. 168, p. 176. On habits of cooperation, see also Michael E. Smith (2004), Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 31 See Neill Nugent and Sabine Saurugger (2002), Organizational Structuring: The Case of the European Commission and its External Policy Responsibilities, Journal of European Public Policy, 9(3), pp. 345–364; for an illustration of the different reorganizations, see pp. 347–348. 32 Ibid., p. 351.

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managerial aspects of EU development aid and the Taskforce for Accession Negotiations (TFAN), which as the name suggests was in charge of dealing with prospective new member states. The 1999 Commission review on the organisation and operation of the Commission found the fragmentation of the Commission’s external relations activities into seven different services (DGs I, IA, IB and VIII, the SCR, ECHO and TFAN) to be the cause of a “‘split personality’ in the Commission’s external relations, a lack of strategic overview for external relations and a tendency to international autonomy and unwillingness to combine efforts.”33 The incoming Prodi Commission consequently consolidated the services and commissioners explicitly dealing with external relations—once again along functional lines—and did away with the number system. Were left after this consolidation (in brackets the commissioner in charge): DG Trade (Pascal Lamy), DG Relex (Chris Patten), DG Enlargement (Günther Verheugen), DG Development and Humanitarian Aid (Poul Nielson), the Humanitarian Aid Office and the SCR.34 The 1999 reorganisation was motivated in large part by concerns inside the Commission that the creation, through the Treaty of Amsterdam, of the post of the High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (HR), a post that was to be assumed ex officio by the Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union (SG), would overshadow the Commission’s own standing in external relations.35 The HR/SG was a Council post, not a Commission post and existed alongside the position of the external relations commissioner. Although the Treaty of Nice introduced some reforms in the domain of external relations, most notably the foundation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and the creation of the Political and Security Committee (PSC), overall it did little to address the issue of coherence and consistency in EU external action, much like the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam. Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler summarise the institutional arrangements on the eve of the Lisbon Treaty reforms as follows: The evident overlap between the economic and political dimensions of external policy has not, however, been reflected in the creation of institutions that facilitate their coordination. Instead, the evolution of the EC/EU has seen the entrenchment of a division between external economic policy and ‘political’ foreign policy that has been formally enshrined in the Treaties and reflected in the parallel development, within the Commission and the Council Secretariat, of two separate, externally oriented and potentially competing bureaucracies.36

33

Ibid., p. 357. The SCR was reformed and redesignated EuropeAid Cooperation Office (AIDCO) in 2001, which subsequently, in 2011, merged with DG Development to become DG Development and Cooperation (DEVCO). The European Community Humanitarian Aid Office later became the DirectorateGeneral for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO). As of 16 January 2021, DG DEVCO is called DG International Partnerships (INTPA). 35 See Nugent and Saurugger (2002), Organizational Structuring, p. 353. 36 Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 163. 34

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Against this backdrop, the desire to improve the coherence and effectiveness of EU external action in order to enhance the EU’s role as a global actor on the international (political) stage was one of the principal rationales for the treaty changes brought about through the Lisbon Treaty.

2.1.2 The Lisbon Treaty Reforms and EU External Action The Lisbon Treaty brought a number of changes to the EU’s external relations bureaucracy, which suggest an a priori strengthening of the foreign and security policy dimension of EU external action. The most notable innovation is the creation of the position of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR), who ex officio also serves as vice-president of the Commission (VP). The double-hatted function of HR/VP results from the merger of the post of external relations commissioner and the previous High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, much like the newly created service the HR/VP heads, the European External Action Service (EEAS), emerged from the fusion of DG Relex and the Council’s DG External Relations. The EEAS is neither a Commission service nor is it part of the Council. Rather it is an independent body with its own separate administrative budget. Its staff is recruited from former DG Relex Commission officials, Council officials and member states’ diplomats, with the latter category making up roughly one third of the total staff.37 The Lisbon Treaty, furthermore, abolished the pillar structure, endowed the EU with legal personality and introduced a new provision stipulating that “[t]he Common Commercial Policy shall be conducted in the context of the principles and objectives of the Union’s external action.”38 The extent, however, to which the de-pillarisation has tilted the balance between trade policy, on the one hand, and foreign and security policy, on the other, towards the ‘political’ foreign and security policy side in the sense of an enhanced overall foreign and security policy steering is questionable. Several scholars argue that there is no hierarchical order between specific trade policy objectives and the general principles and objectives of EU external action contained in Articles 3(5) and 21 to which Article 207(1) refers.39 Instead, the coherence and consistency of EU external action 37

According to Article 6(9) of the Council Decision of 26 July 2010 establishing the organisation and functioning of the European External Action Service (2010/427/EU), Official Journal of the European Union, 3 August, at least one third of all EEAS staff at AD level should be from member states and at least 60% should be permanent officials of the EU. In 2019, member states’ diplomats made up 33.37% of all AD grade staff, see European External Action Service (2020), Human Resources Report 2019, p. 38. 38 Article 207(1) TFEU. 39 See, for example, Markus Krajewski (2012), The Reform of the Common Commercial Policy, in: Andrea Biondi, Piet Eeckhout and Stefanie Ripley (eds.), EU Law after Lisbon, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 294; Larik (2015), Global Governance Through Trade, p. 60; Angelos Dimopoulos (2010), The Effects of the Lisbon Treaty on the Principles and Objectives of the Common Commercial Policy, European Foreign Affairs Review, 15(2), pp. 166–168.

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hinges upon the institutional discretion and political will of practitioners40 and is thus largely left to practices. What is more, contrary to what many foreign and security policy experts had hoped for, these reforms do not seem to have put trade policy under the tutelage of foreign and security policy. In fact, the autonomous nature of DG Trade and the CCP has been left largely untouched.41 Whereas the HR/VP replaced the rotating six-monthly Council presidency as permanent chair of the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC), when the FAC meets in trade configuration to discuss issues pertaining to the CCP, it is still chaired by a representative of the member state holding the sixmonthly rotating presidency.42 Tellingly, an appearance by the then-incoming HR/VP Federica Mogherini at the FAC in trade configuration on 21 November 2014, where she gave the opening statement, caused some to believe that she was seeking to chair the trade ministers meeting too and it “made people very nervous in DG Trade”, one Commission official confided.43 HR/VP Mogherini, the official explained, “clearly wanted to make the point that she is the head of external affairs commissioners and that trade is a part of it.” But, according to this official’s account, commissioner Malmström fended off the potential intrusion: “Ms Malmström is quite clear that she wants to be the boss of trade. I mean, she is quite reluctant to see anyone getting into her files” just like “[DG] Trade doesn’t want anybody to look too closely at what they’re doing.”44 Besides, the European Court of Auditors lamented in 2014 that having the EEAS as permanent chair of the Council’s preparatory bodies had not led to a more strategic approach in EU external action.45 Nor has the Lisbon Treaty overcome the inherent tensions between trade policy practices and foreign and security policy practices and more generally between those aspects of external action managed by the Commission and those put under the

40

See Chad Damro (2015), Market Power Europe and New EU Trade Policies, in: Jan Wouters et al. (eds.), Global Governance through Trade: EU Policies and Approaches, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 30–33. 41 See Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, p. 67. 42 The relevant provisions in the Council’s rules of procedure are indeed curious. Article 2(5), second subparagraph states that “[t]he Foreign Affairs Council shall be chaired by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who may, where necessary, ask to be replaced by the member of that configuration representing the Member State holding the six-monthly Presidency of the Council” (emphasis added). Footnote 8 to Article 2(5), in turn, specifies that “[w]hen the Foreign Affairs Council is convened to discuss common commercial policy issues, its President will ask to be replaced by the six-monthly Presidency as provided for in Article 2(5), second subparagraph” (emphasis added). 43 Interview #15. 44 Ibid. It is questionable whether Federica Mogherini could have chaired the FAC in trade configuration given the relevant provisions in the Council’s rules of procedure (see footnote 285 above). 45 See European Court of Auditors (2014), The Establishment of the European External Action Service, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, p. 23.

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responsibility of the newly created EEAS.46 Despite the institutional innovations, “otherwise everything that is of crucial importance is actually still the same. The EU has not witnessed systemic change”, one analyst opined.47 The paradox of the Lisbon Treaty reforms, Peter van Elsuwege argues, is that “the new Treaty provisions do not solve the complex dichotomy between CFSP and non-CFSP actions and even increase the potential for inter-institutional conflicts.”48 For Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie, the pillar divide “de facto continues to exist despite the formal depillarization introduced under the Lisbon Treaty.”49 Eight years after the creation of the EEAS, the practical experience of EU officials appears to match these claims, as the following quote by a DG Trade official suggests: [W]hen the EEAS was created and we had the Lisbon Treaty, there was a huge expectation [...] that trade policy would be a lot more dominated by the CFSP, by the foreign policy circuit, than before. And that has not really happened. And I would say that has a lot to do with the maturity and the autonomous nature of our trade policy.50

An EEAS official, who had previously worked in DG Relex, commented along similar lines about the creation of the EEAS and insinuated that the ‘Rue de la Loi divide’, Brussels jargon to describe the turf battles between the Commission and the Council, has become the ‘Avenue de Cortenbergh divide’, the name of one of the streets separating the EEAS building from the Commission’s Berlaymont building: [T]he idea of Lisbon was supposed to be: how do you overcome this cultural problem/turf warfare that you get between DG Relex and the Commission, on the one hand and the Council Secretariat, on the other? Well, you create this joint service. But all that does is just shift the border, the boundary to somewhere else. Now, instead of being the Rue de la Loi there, it’s the Avenue de Cortenbergh. You still have this kind of them-and-us thing. That’s inevitable in any bureaucracy.51

A number of interviewed officials stated that cooperation between DG Trade and the EEAS has become more difficult relative to the relations between DG Trade and DG Relex, not least because the latter were both located in the Charlemagne building, which facilitated informal contacts and discussions, whereas the EEAS is not only 46

See Michael E. Smith (2013), The European External Action Service and the SecurityDevelopment Nexus: Organizing for Effectiveness or Incoherence?, Journal of European Public Policy, 20(9), pp. 1299–1315. 47 Stefani Weiss (2010), External Action Service: Much Ado About Nothing, Spotlight Europe 2010/05, June, Bertelsmann Stiftung, p. 2. 48 Peter Van Elsuwege (2010), EU External Action After the Collapse of the Pillar Structure: In Search of a New Balance Between Delimitation and Consistency, Common Market Law Review, 47(4), p. 988. 49 Bossyt, Driegie and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, p. 64. See also Michael Smith (2013), Still Rooted in Maastricht: EU External Relations as a ‘Third-generation Hybrid’, in: Thomas Christiansen and Simon Duke (eds.), The Maastricht Treaty: Second Thoughts after 20 Years, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 20 (emphasis added): “Although the pillar structure in external relations has in principle been abolished, it still exists in many areas, and the practices of policy-making are strongly influenced by it.” 50 Interview #12. 51 Interview #22.

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located in a different building but is a separate service altogether. DG Trade and DG Relex were considered to ‘belong to the same house’, which made that “cooperation was much easier, much faster, more cooperative, more collegial”52 compared to DG Trade-EEAS relations. Contrary to that, an official explained, there now is a distinct sense that the EEAS “really seems far away, as really external, not from within.”53 This is an assessment that is shared by EEAS officials, as the following quote by another former DG Relex official who now works in the EEAS underscores: “[T]he institutional setting which has come out of the Lisbon Treaty is very difficult, because when we were all together and DG Relex was one of the Commission DGs, it was much easier to coordinate, in my opinion. Now, we are a separate body.”54 Another reform introduced by the Lisbon Treaty that aimed at effecting greater coherence and consistency in external action concerns the EU’s diplomatic missions to third countries. Prior to Lisbon, these were officially called Delegations of the European Commission and, as the name indicates, reported solely to the Commission. With the upgrading to full Delegations of the European Union, they were put under the authority of the HR/VP and the EEAS. However, inasmuch as Commission competencies are touched upon, such as trade policy, delegations still report also to the Commission.55 This, several officials explained, has increased the potential for conflicts because “the authority of the head of delegation, who is appointed by the HR/VP, strictly speaking, belongs to the EEAS, his authority or her authority over the trade people working in delegation is not always that clear, because trade people depend on DG Trade and the Commission.”56 In a declared attempt to overcome the silo mentalities, the incoming Juncker Commission re-organised the College of Commissioners in 2014 according to a system whereby seven Commission vice-presidents steer and guide the work of ‘project teams’ composed of the different commissioners in varying configurations clustered around cross-cutting policy areas. The then-new HR/VP, Federica Mogherini, was to chair the re-activated Commissioners’ Group on External Action

52

Interview #8. Interview #19. 54 Interview #29. 55 See Article 5(3) of the Council Decision of 26 July 2010 establishing the organisation and functioning of the European External Action Service (2010/427/EU): “The Head of Delegation shall receive instructions from the High Representative and the EEAS, and shall be responsible for their execution. In areas where the Commission exercises the powers conferred upon it by the Treaties, the Commission may, in accordance with Article 221(2) TFEU, also issue instructions to delegations, which shall be executed under the overall responsibility of the Head of Delegation.” 56 Interview #17. Also interview #12: “The way in which delegations are set up, for example, there is a lot more tension now between the External Action Service and [DG] Trade […] that’s an area of conflict. One of the challenges is that people always think that it’s the EEAS that instructs the delegations. But in areas of its own competence, the Commission actually also instructs the delegations […] So, there is a bit of a clash in that these are EEAS-driven organizations but they also have to listen to the Commission. Whereas before it was simple: it was the Commission.” Interview #50: “Very often, very often those silos are very much present and existent in delegations.” 53

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(CGEA)57 and thus “guide the work” of the commissioners for neighbourhood and enlargement, trade, international cooperation and development and humanitarian aid and crisis management.58 As regards the commissioners for climate action and energy, transport, migration and home affairs, all of which have a strong external dimension, while not having the formal authority to guide their work, HR/VP Mogherini was to “draw on the Commission’s policy instruments and expertise.”59 The interviews reveal that officials’ assessment of the CGEA meetings at commissioners’ level ranges from “shouldn’t be overestimated”, “makes not much difference at all” to “completely useless”.60 The problem is, the interviewees explained, that the CGEA is neither allowed to take formal decisions nor does it pre-cook decisions that will then be nodded through by the College of Commissioners. In other words, the meetings are not operational but are intended merely as a forum to exchange views, thus supplementing the Commission’s regular inter-service consultation procedures.61 The actual CGEA meetings, however, are criticised by officials for being mostly one-dimensional in that what is discussed are Commission files where the HR/VP and the EEAS have an interest in, but not the other way round, i.e. EEAS files in which the Commission may have an interest. This allows the HR/VP to retain her prerogative over foreign and security policy files from Commission intrusion, but it inhibits a comprehensive stocktaking across all services dealing with external relations and it creates a certain amount of frustration among officials, as the interviews revealed: “[F]our out of every five discussions at that level are more or less useless […] and everybody is frustrated.”62 A Commission official summarised that “there is not so much content in these [CGEA, J.S.] meetings.”63 Another concluded bluntly that “at political level, I don’t see where it has made any difference in the policymaking.”64 However, all acknowledged that preparing the CGEA meetings forces the different services to work together, which can help bring about, albeit not convergence, but at 57

See European Commission (2014), Decision of the President of the European Commission on the creation of a Commissioners’ Group on External Action, C(2014) 9003, Brussels, 11 November. The CGEA had already existed under the Barroso commission, but Barroso was accused of not allowing HR/VP Catherine Ashton to assume her steering role, with one Commission official arguing that under Asthon the CGEA was “never really allowed to meet in any meaningful way”, which he qualified as a “concerted campaign to stop it from working” (Interview #42). See also Steven Blockmans and Sophia Russack (2015), The Commissioners’ Group on External Action: Key Political Facilitator, CEPS Special Report, No. 125, December, p. 7. Under the Prodi commission there likewise was a commissioners’ group on external relations. Yet there is not much research on its workings then. 58 Jean-Claude Juncker (2014), Mission Letter to Federica Mogherini: High Representative of the Union for Foreign Policy and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, Brussels, 1 November, p. 3. 59 Ibid. 60 Interviews #33, #22, #15. 61 See Blockmans and Russack (2015), Commissioners’ Group on External Action, pp. 9–11. 62 Interview #22. 63 Interview #17. 64 Interview #15.

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least an approximation of views or at the very least a better understanding thereof at the services level. Thus, the preparatory meetings can help “deconflict”65 between the EEAS and the different Commission DGs. But according to the interviewed officials there is a great caveat to these preparatory meetings. When the CGEA was reestablished in 2014, so-called ‘issues papers’ were to be commissioned that would be discussed in the commissioner level meetings. There was, however, no formal structure for these service level meetings and it was entirely up to the individual services to decide on how they would go about drafting these issues papers in coordination with one another. The range of selected coordination formats ranged from simple coordination via phone and e-mail to convening informal mini inter-service consultations. But eventually services had to have agreed on a paper that could be fed into the commissioner level discussions. Although the interviewed officials acknowledged the positive effect of bringing different services together, they also underscored the increasing bureaucratic burden of having to draft issues papers whose readership turned out to be limited. The drafting of issues papers was therefore abandoned. What is more, over the duration of the Juncker Commission, the meetings of the CGEA, originally slated to meet at least on a monthly basis, became less frequent, and by the same token the number of preparatory meetings decreased.66 To a large extent, the reforms of the Juncker Commission were carried by the strong personal willingness of the political leadership. Federica Mogherini, from the outset, appeared fully to embrace her role as vice-president of the Commission and physically moved her office into the Berlaymont building, which facilitated informal contacts.67 Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström, for her part, seems to have brought with her a much greater acceptance than her immediate predecessor, Karel de Gucht, of the role that trade policy has to play in foreign and security policy.68 Under the new Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who took up office in November 2019, the CGEA has been upheld in unchanged composition as the Commissioners’ Group on ‘A Stronger Europe in the World’.69 Since the positioning of the group outside the formal decision-making procedures of the Commission has been maintained,70 it remains to be seen whether the new HR/VP Josep Borrell and the new trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis can improve the functioning of the 65

Blockmans and Russack (2015), Commissioners’ Group on External Action, p. 10. Interview #22. 67 See Karolina Pomorska and Sophie Vanhoonacker (2015), Europe as a Global Actor: The (Un)Holy Trinity of Economy, Diplomacy and Security, Journal of Common Market Studies, 53 annual review, pp. 218–219. 68 See Cecilia Malmström (2015), An Integrated EU Trade and Foreign Policy, Speech at the Annual of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Brussels, 11 June; European Parliament (2014), Hearing of Cecilia Malmström. 69 See European Commission (2019), Decision of the President of the European Commission on the creation of Commissioners’ Groups, P(2019) 4, Brussels, 1 December, Annex I. 70 See ibid., Article 1: “Without prejudice to the decision-making process of the College and the responsibility of the collegial preparatory bodies, they [the Commissioners’ Groups, J.S.] shall ensure coordination and provide political steer for the development initiatives and implementation of priorities.” 66

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group by their sheer personalities alone. In addition, a new cabinet-level Group for External Cooperation (EXCO), co-chaired by the diplomatic advisor of the Commission president and the HR/VP’s deputy head of cabinet, has been established to bring together members of all cabinets on a weekly basis to prepare all external aspects of College meetings and ameliorate the cooperation and coordination between the Commission and the EEAS. EXCO meetings, which are in turn prepared by meetings at services’ level, do not replace regular inter-service consultations. It appears that EXCO does not prepare meetings of the Commissioners’ Group ‘A Strong Europe in the World’ but rather feeds directly into meetings of the entire College of Commissioners. EXCO and its attendant preparatory meetings will likely help enhance mutual understanding among members of the various cabinets, but it also brings with it an increased bureaucratic burden. Despite the at least prima facie greater coherence between trade policy and foreign and security policy since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and the reshuffling of the College of Commissioners introduced by the Juncker Commission, a closer look reveals that the autonomous nature and insulated institutional setup of the CCP and DG Trade have been left largely untouched. This raises the question of how durable the efforts by the Juncker Commission aimed at greater external policy coherence are. A top EU official fretted that “the bridges are not solid.”71 While strong political leadership undoubtedly matters, it appears that it cannot easily override long-standing and entrenched practices. Practices can indeed be sticky things, especially so if the institutional terrain in which they are (re-)produced does not allow for, or in any case renders difficult, a greater convergence of practices in quotidian policymaking. Ursula von der Leyen announced at the start of her mandate that her Commission would be a “geopolitical” one,72 which suggests that she places greater emphasis on ensuring a strategic foreign and security policy steering in EU external action. However, at the time of writing, it is still too early to render a definitive judgement on how the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy will evolve under her stewardship as Commission president. This tour d’horizon through the history of European integration in the realms of trade policy and foreign and security policy has emphasised that issues of coherence and consistency are neither new nor can they be solved easily, as the many restructurings of the external relations bureaucracy, of which the creation of the EEAS is but the latest instance, highlight. In fact, the design of the EEAS as a hybrid body—neither part of the Commission as the former Commission DG Relex, nor a Council service like the former Directorate-General External Relations of the Council Secretariat— allows member states to retain control over foreign and security policy matters. By contrast, trade policy has been an exclusive EU competence for over 60 years, which has made the CCP one of the EU’s oldest and most established policies and endowed DG Trade, the Commission service in charge of the CCP, with a long institutional 71

Interview #50. Ursula von der Leyen (2019), Speech by President-elect von der Leyen in the European Parliament Plenary on the Occasion of the Presentation of her College of Commissioners and their Programme, SPEECH 19/6408, Strasbourg, 27 November.

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history and a comparatively large degree of bureaucratic discretion. The different institutional set-ups of DG Trade and the EEAS, their respective legal competence and their distinct histories are of relevance to analysing the trade-security nexus through the lens of practice theory inasmuch as they influence bureaucratic culture, beliefs, rules for action and therefore practices.

2.2 DG Trade and the EEAS: Different Bureaucratic Cultures? The nexus of trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action cannot be understood apart from the bureaucratic organisations that deal with the respective portfolios. Practice theory presupposes agency, for without practitioners there would be no practices. Hence, a practice theoretical approach first needs to grasp the basic attributes and characteristics of a bureaucratic organisation in order to be able to explain its practices. It has long been something of a commonplace statement in the literature to say that organisations develop a distinctive culture.73 In view of their different institutional developments, sketched out in the previous section, it can be expected that this is also the case for DG Trade and the EEAS. This section examines to what extent there are differences in bureaucratic culture between DG Trade and the EEAS and how these shape the trade-security nexus.

2.2.1 Defining Bureaucratic Culture Definitions of organisational culture are legion.74 For the purposes of this book, bureaucratic culture is understood as “a pattern of beliefs and expectations shared by the organisation’s members [that] produce norms that powerfully shape the behaviour of individuals and groups in the organisations.”75 This definition of organisational culture is a useful one not least because it allows establishing a link to practice theory. Practices understood as the routinised and patterned type of understanding and doing of a designated collective are the enactment of certain beliefs and rules for action. Bureaucratic culture thus shapes practices and is in turn shaped by practices. 73 See Yvan Allaire and Mihaela E. Firsirotu (1984), Theories of Organizational Culture, Organization Studies, 5(3), pp. 193–226. For the view that not all organizations necessarily develop a distinct culture, see Daniel P. Carpenter (2001), The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in the Executive Agencies, 1862–1928, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 24. 74 While term ‘organisational culture’ suggests a wider field of application than ‘bureaucratic culture’, which refers to the organisational culture of public administrations, i.e. bureaucracies, the two terms are used interchangeably in this book. 75 Howard Schwartz and Stanley M. Davis (1981), Matching Corporate Culture and Business Strategy, Organizational Dynamics, 10(1), p. 33.

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Furthermore, when an organisation has a distinctive culture that finds its expression in certain practices, then its agents can also be said to form a community of practice. Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov call practices “the visible part of cultures” and emphasise “the important role of practices in organisational cultures”.76 Moreover, they point out that unlike national cultures, whose core are values, organisational cultures consist mainly of practices, which in turn prompts them to highlight that “[e]ffective practices are the reason that multinational corporations can function at all.”77 If this is true for multinational corporations, then there is no reason why it would not also hold true for bureaucratic organisations. So what relevance does the concept of bureaucratic culture have for the study of the trade-security nexus in EU external action? A common metaphor often used to illustrate the notion of organisational culture is that of “little societies” or “miniature societies” with “distinct cultural traits”.78 Much like “the uniqueness of individuals is expressed in their personality”, John E. T. Eldridge and Alastair D. Crombie explain, “the individuality of organisations may be expressed in terms of their differing cultures.”79 Bureaucratic culture thus conceived has “differentiating properties”,80 that is, it demarcates one organisation from the other, irrespective of formal organisational structures. What is more, to the extent that bureaucratic culture varies across bureaucratic subsystems, it also demarcates the constituent bureaucratic subsystems of a bureaucratic whole from one another. In other words, it creates a ‘them-and-us’ feeling within the larger bureaucracy, be it a federal government, an international organisation or a private multinational corporation. If distinct bureaucratic cultures are associated with distinctive practices, as practice theory suggests, then variations of organisational culture across bureaucratic subsystems should go hand in hand with varying practices.

2.2.2 Bureaucratic Autonomy The question of how bureaucratic culture and practices interrelate in the relationship between DG Trade and the EEAS, therefore, deserves closer scrutiny. DG Trade has been described as “a highly autonomous subsystem”81 within the EU’s external relations bureaucracy. To the best of my knowledge, no such claim has ever been issued 76

See Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov (2010), Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival, 3rd edition, New York: McGraw Hill, pp. 19, 371. 77 Ibid., pp. 346, 348. 78 Allaire and Firsirotu (1984), Theories of Organizational Culture, p. 193. 79 John E. T. Eldridge and Alastair D. Crombie (1974), A Sociology of Organisations, London: Allen & Unwin, p. 88 (emphasis in original). 80 Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 25. 81 Bossuyt, Driegie and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, p. 66. See also Gorm R. Olsen (2009), The Missing Link: EPAs, Security and Development Interventions in Africa, in: Gerrit Faber and Jan Orbie (eds.), Beyond Market Access for Economic Development: EU-Africa Relations in Transition,

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in the literature about the EEAS, nor about its predecessor DG Relex. The relative strength of DG Trade compared to the EEAS is commonly attributed to the fact that DG Trade manages a supranational policy that is an exclusive EU competence where majority voting at the Council is applicable.82 Contrary to that, the EEAS ‘merely’ manages a policy that is often characterised as intergovernmental and is subject to unanimity voting at the Council, which makes that the CFSP/CSDP occupies a peculiar status amongst all other EU policies. Article 24 TEU unequivocally states that “[t]he Common Foreign and Security Policy is subject to specific rules and procedures”. The difference in relative legal competence was repeatedly mentioned by officials in their considerations of the differences between the two services. These were seen as amounting to more than merely an issue of formal institutional authority, but as something that affects the perception by self and other as well as ultimately beliefs and behaviour. One senior official who has worked in both services well summarised the sentiment that other interviewees likewise expressed: Everybody knows that the EU is united in trade negotiations and you represent the whole EU. When you are in the second pillar or many other policies, everybody plays around you, including the member states. So, the way you are seen, perceived and the behaviour that you receive from others is very different. And this creates gaps and creates differences in the way you see things, in the way you behave.83

Accordingly, formal legal authority alone is insufficient to explain bureaucratic autonomy. If bureaucratic autonomy is thought of as the capacity of a bureaucracy, or a subsystem thereof, to take actions in accordance with its own preferences,84 this presupposes, first of all, the existence of relatively homogenous preferences within the organisational unit of interest. Since this book is interested in comparing DG Trade and the EEAS, two subsystems of the EU external relations bureaucracy, the question is whether each service has developed relatively homogeneous preferences for the conduct of their respective policy domains and how those differ from each other. Preferences, here, can refer both to the ultimate objectives and the employable means to achieve these ends. Abingdon: Routledge, p. 345: “Trade policy has for decades been one of the strongest policy subsystems within the EU which has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. […] ‘a consequence of the fragmented policy structure has been the proliferation of free trade arrangements with different groups of countries that reflect individual idiosyncrasies rather than the application of any general principle or common EU framework’. […] the autonomy of the trade policy sub-system has not been significantly affected over the past 30 years. Rather, the EU trade policy sub-field has displayed a high degree of adaptability towards the significant changes that have taken place in the international trade system.” 82 In practice, member states strive to find a consensus, but the mere possibility of a majority vote is often very conducive to finding that consensus. 83 Interview #5. It is noteworthy that the interviewee still refers to the CFSP as the ‘second pillar’, even though the pillar structure was officially abolished with the Lisbon Treaty. In fact, several interviewed officials attributed a ‘second-pillar nature’ to the CFSP, by which they expressed that the fundamental nature has not changed (see also previous section). 84 On bureaucratic autonomy, see, for example, Ellinas and Suleiman (2012), Europe’s Custodians, p. 6. See also Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, pp. 4–5, 14–17.

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Homogeneous preferences are more likely to emerge if organisations are socially cohesive and there are several factors that are conducive to forging cohesiveness within an organisation. A similarity of past and expected future career trajectories increases the perception among bureaucrats to form part of a professional community of fate.85 Such similarity is by definition higher within any given organisation. In large bureaucracies that are further divided into subsystems, career trajectories are therefore more likely to be similar within those constituent subsystems, such as line ministries in nation-states or directorate-generals in the case of the EU. In addition, bureaucratic organisations, or all organisations for that matter, arguably often attract people with similar educational backgrounds. The concentration of practitioners who have received similar professional training and furthermore hone their knowledge and skills ‘on the job’ further increases cohesiveness, as their way of making sense of the world is conditioned upon similar interpretative frames.86 In other words, people with similar educational backgrounds tend to see and interpret the world similarly. Antonis A. Ellinas and Ezra Suleiman find evidence of this in their study on the European Commission: “[W]ithin DGs one can find people who share a similar understanding of the issues at stake and of possible solutions”.87 Thus emerges a triad between cohesiveness, culture and autonomy. First, as aforementioned, more cohesive organisations are more likely to develop a common culture. Second, a common culture further reinforces the cohesiveness of an organisation. Once in place, an organisational culture can reinforce itself because newcomers are socialised to fit,88 because more often than not only those are recruited who already fit or because mostly only those who already identify with it apply.89 The homogeneity of an organisation is of importance, as “[t]he unity or fragmentation of an organization can be a source of strength or weakness regardless of its formal institutional authority.”90 Therefore, bureaucratic culture also has “enabling properties” because it “can strengthen bureaucracies by the cohesion, coordination and commitment they 85

See Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 24: “Where departments are characterized by a high degree of social homogeneity, and where career similarity leads bureaucrats to perceive themselves as having common pasts and common expected futures, cohesive organizational cultures are more likely to arise.” 86 See Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore (1999), The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations, International Organization, 53(4), pp. 722–723. 87 Ellinas and Suleiman (2012), Europe’s Custodians, p. 148. 88 Carolyn Ban defines socialisation as a “process whereby an individual learns and adapts to the specific culture of a workplace, both through formal training and inculcation of cultural values and an understanding of the requirements of the job and, crucially, through an informal process of socialization into the more unspoken norms and values underlying the culture”, quoted in Ana E. Juncos and Karolina Pomorska (2013), ‘In the Face of Adversity’: Explaining the Attitudes of EEAS Officials vis-à-vis the New Service, Journal of European Public Policy, 20(9), p. 1343. 89 See Liesbet Hooghe (2005), Several Roads Lead to International Norms, but Few Via International Socialization: A Case Study of the European Commission, International Organization, 59(4), p. 869. 90 Ellinas and Suleiman (2012), p. 2. See also Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010), Cultures and Organizations, pp. 355–356, who find in their study that there is a significant correlation between strong organisational cultures, defined as a high level of homogeneity, and an organisation’s effectiveness, defined as results orientation.

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foster among agency personnel.”91 This is why, thirdly, organisations with a strong bureaucratic culture are more likely to be able to act autonomously than those without a homogenous organisational culture.92 Strong organisational cultures moreover often endow its agents with a sense of mission. James Q. Wilson notes in his seminal work on bureaucracy: “When an organization has a culture that is widely shared and warmly endorsed by operators and managers alike, we say the organization has a sense of mission. A sense of mission confers a feeling of special worth on the members”.93 This is reminiscent of the notion of “a sense of joint enterprise”94 that emerges through the “collective development of a shared practice”.95 The mission or the enterprise can be understood as the developing, perfecting as well as protecting from improper interference of a shared practice. Practitioners thus develop a sense of pride to be the experts in a particular domain, because they claim to be the only ones disposing of the required technical knowledge and skills necessary to fulfil certain tasks. Put differently, they claim to be the guardians of ‘their’ practices; a subjective representation that gives meaning to their daily work. DG Trade’s declared self-understanding to be “the EU’s prime negotiator and guardian of an effectively implemented EU trade policy”96 is instructive in this respect. The notion of ‘effectively implemented’ refers to the idea of practices as competent performances, and the appraisal of performance as competent or incompetent is, of course, prone to being contested between the different communities of practice that deal with EU trade policy. Therefore, while the EEAS certainly subscribes to the objective of having an ‘effectively implemented EU trade policy’, it will arguably have a different understanding of what ‘effectively implemented’ means. By contrast, the EEAS makes no analogous claim to be the guardian of an effectively implemented EU foreign and security policy. Indeed, any such claim would run against the legal status of the CFSP/CSDP as a member state competence. The EEAS is precisely not the guardian of the CFSP/CSDP, but the member states are. A sense of mission, furthermore, provides a general sense of orientation and fundamentally steers the thrust of administrative action into a certain direction.97 Reportedly, many EEAS officials lamented that, especially in the early days of its existence, “the EEAS was lacking a ‘sense of direction’.”98 Interestingly, even today the EEAS lacks a formal mission statement. Organisations that display a

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Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 24. See Elinas and Suleiman (2012), Europe’s Custodians, p. 17. 93 James Q. Wilson (1989), Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, New York: Basic Books, p. 95 (emphasis in original). 94 Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 17. 95 Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice, p. 209. 96 European Commission (2018), Directorate-General for Trade: Annual Activity Report 2017, Luxemburg: Publications Office of the European Union, p. 5. 97 See Wilson (1989), Bureaucracy, pp. 95–96, 109. 98 See Ana E. Juncos and Karolina Pomorksa (2014), Manufacturing Esprit de Corps: The Case of the European External Action Service, Journal of Common Market Studies, 52(2), pp. 307–308. 92

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strong mission are, in turn, “likely to attract people who, at least at some basic level, share similar beliefs about the general objectives of the organisation”.99 Another factor that promotes the development and reinforcement of a distinctive bureaucratic culture is if an organisation can claim to be functionally unique. A formal legal mandate that grants an agency the authority to exercise its functions is a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition for any bureaucratic organisation to develop a “functional uniqueness”.100 In addition to being authorised, an organisation also needs to be capable of meeting the responsibilities that it has been entrusted with. This could be described as the ability to fill the action space provided for by the formal mandate with its preferences by effectively acting upon them.101 Or as one official remarked: “It’s not about having legal competence, but about being competent.”102 If an organisation is the only one that—in the eyes of its political principals, peer bureaucratic institutions, interest groups and the general public—can provide such services, then it can claim to be functionally unique. If it moreover does so in a way that is considered effective as well as right and appropriate, it can arguably lay claim to competence. It is important to highlight that any such claim is “not ethereal but socially rooted” and “grounded in actual organisational capacity.”103 Earning an organisational reputation for uniqueness and competence is the result of a process of social interaction, which can take many years. In this respect, it is worthwhile highlighting that interviewees generally viewed DG Trade as competent, whereas the EEAS’ competency and professionalism were repeatedly questioned. Formal legal mandate and policy function suggest that DG Trade benefits from a ‘functional uniqueness’ in that it is the only bureaucratic subsystem in the EU that effectively runs EU trade policy, with national trade ministries merely being in a support position. This ‘functional uniqueness’, on the one hand, owes its existence to EU primary law, which stipulates that trade policy is an exclusive EU competence. On the other hand, it also stems from the unique expertise and practical experience that EU trade officials have. Whereas academics, private-sector lawyers and other nongovernmental actors arguably all have the technical knowledge of trade policy and law (know-that), they have no practical experience of negotiating trade agreements (know-how). The travails of the British government to recruit trade policy experts to be able to negotiate its own trade agreements after the United Kingdoms leaves the 99

Ellinas and Suleiman (2012), Europe’s Custodians, p. 18. For a similar view, see Hooghe (2005), Several Roads, p. 869, who argues that people join those organisations of which they are already supportive. Arguably, people who are generally critical of free trade are unlikely to apply for a position in DG Trade. Unsurprisingly, then, the interviews showed that indeed every single interviewed DG Trade official believed that fundamentally free trade is a good thing ‘if it is done right’. By contrast, at least in the immediate aftermath of the EEAS’ creation, there was uncertainty what the EEAS was to represent and stand for and how it would fit into the delicate institutional balance; see David Spence (2012), The Early Days of the European External Action Service: A Practitioner’s View, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 7(1), pp. 115–134. 100 Ellinas and Suleiman (2012), Europe’s Custodians, p. 11. 101 Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 14, calls this “unique organizational capacities”. 102 Interview #12. 103 Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 5.

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EU suggest that it really is not only about formal legal competence but rather about being competent to conduct trade policy according to one’s preferences by combining bookish know-that and practical know-how.104 The EEAS, on the contrary, has no functional uniqueness in EU foreign and security policy, as member states effectively still run the CFSP/CSDP on their own, albeit with varying degrees of harmonisation at EU level. What is more, Declaration 13 to the Lisbon Treaty makes it unmistakably clear that “the creation of the office of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the establishment of an External Action Service does not affect the responsibilities of the Member States, as they currently exist, for the formulation and conduct of their foreign policy nor of their national representation in third countries and international organisations.” Declaration 14 furthermore specifies that the HR/VP and the EEAS “will not affect the existing legal basis, responsibilities and powers of each member state in relation to the formulation and conduct of its foreign policy, its national diplomatic service, relations with third countries and participation in international organisations”. The two declarations underscore that member states’ foreign ministries are not ready to sacrifice their national diplomatic practices. Lastly, DG Trade does not depend on the EEAS for the implementation of EU trade policy. The EEAS, by contrast, depends on Commission instruments to implement the CFSP/CSDP. Indeed, the Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI), a Commission service, was set up to manage the operational expenditures of the CFSP/CSDP, with the EEAS merely overseeing its own administrative budget.105

2.2.3 Interview Results: Bureaucratic Culture The concern, here, is not whether the Commission as a whole has a cohesive culture, but rather the extent to which DG Trade, as a Commission service, and the EEAS, a service that is not formally part of the Commission, are each characterised by distinctive organisational cultures and how these affect the conduct of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy.

2.2.3.1

Characteristics and Distinctions

The interviews reveal that EU officials do indeed perceive differences in organisational culture between the two services which condition the way policy issues are understood and approached. The interview results suggest, however, that the issue is not so much about two strongly opposing institutional cultures as it is about DG Trade being a well-established, homogenous service with a strong organisational culture, long institutional history and tradition, whereas the EEAS has not (yet) developed a uniform organisational culture and therefore lacks the same degree of 104 105

See, for example, BBC (2016), Brexit: UK Ready to ‘Buy In’ Trade Experts, 29 November. See Smith (2013), European External Action Service, p. 1308.

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cohesiveness. The main reasons for the lack of homogenous culture in the EEAS were deemed to be the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP/CSDP, the composition of the EEAS’ staff, the limited competence it has been granted and the relative newness of the institution. One Commission official, whose comments mirror those made by other interviewees, stated that “there is a homogenous DG Trade with an established culture plus some technical know-how that others obviously cannot easily contest versus a still nascent—and in that sense in a sort of identity crisis, not having the same corporate culture and all that—EEAS.”106 A similar view was expressed by an EEAS official: “DG Trade actually has a worldview and an outlook. I’m not sure the EEAS already have a developed culture […] there is a constant turnover of member states’ diplomats, who will bring their own national views and experiences with them.”107 Another official commented: “In the EEAS, what’s missing is indeed the tradition. And all these people from member states coming in and out doesn’t help create an esprit de corps. It’s not homogenous. It doesn’t work very well as a service.”108 Another official said that DG Trade officials form “a strong community of purpose”, are “pragmatic”, “results-oriented” and “they know what they want”, whereas the EEAS, in his words, has “no uniform culture”.109 DG Trade was generally described as “efficient” (3×), “very effective” (1×), “impressive” (2×), “Cartesian” (1×), “technocrats” (2×), “technocratic” (3×), “a machine” (2×), a “strong” DG (8×), a “very strong” DG (2×), a “very strong and very motivated” DG (1×), a “very dynamic” DG (1×), “one of the best” DGs (1× ), “world class” (1×), a “powerful” DG (4×), a DG that has “power” (4×), a DG with “expertise” (11×), an “expert-led” DG (1x).110 Interestingly, DG Trade officials themselves also used the words ‘technocrats’ or ‘technicians’ to self-describe their work, as opposed to the ‘diplomats’ of the EEAS. Whereas the general public would arguably tend to see all civil servants, whether trade officials, diplomats or otherwise, as ‘technocrats’. Here, ‘technocrat’ had a decidedly positive connotation and was used in a sense largely synonymous with ‘expert’. This is further highlighted by the fact that all interviewees, irrespective of their affiliation, when asked about the differences between DG Trade and the EEAS, emphasised the very technical and complex nature of DG Trade’s work, which requires highly specialised expertise, contrasting it with the more political work done by the EEAS. Curiously, there appears to be an interesting reversal of the common hard policy/soft policy dichotomy in the statements of officials working in DG Trade, whereby trade policy is depicted as the realm of the “really real”,111 made up of “real

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Interview #30. Interview #28. 108 Interview #15. 109 Interview #34. Also interview #21. 110 Interviews #5, #6, #8, #9, #11, #12, #15, #16, #19, #21, #22, #26, #28, #29, #30, #31, #33, #35, #36, #38, #39, #41, #43, #45, #50. 111 Richard Rorty (1991), Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 52. 107

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instruments that have real teeth and are really effective”.112 One trade official pointedly declared that trade policy is about “really real commitments”, making “trade far more important, economically-tangible, than other types of cooperation that the EEAS can provide”, which she classified as “best endeavour and things like that”.113 In contrast to the ‘really hard’ and ‘really binding’ world of trade policy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy was seen as somehow soft, merely involving “the diplomacy of words”114 and resulting in “less responsibility because in the end what is being produced is a statement”.115 The issuance of statements and declarations is, of course, a core practice of diplomacy, which may in fact produce very tangible and ‘real’ consequences. Such and similar statements are powerful images, albeit enormous simplifications. But they fulfil a purpose. Carpenter writes that bureaucratic culture functions as “a metaphor or set of metaphors that constructs an analogy between the actual organization and a model organization. The analogy allows members, clients, overseers and others who interact with the organization to understand it in a simplified way.”116 The model organisation is a stylised ideal type that “carries a portrait of the ideal-typical member, a portrait constructed of ideal-typical traits and organisational ‘virtues’.”117 Carpenter’s notion of a model organisation is reminiscent of the Weberian ideal type. According to Weber’s definition, “[a]n ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasised viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.”118 Weber’s ideal type is a mental construct that allows social scientists to make sense of social phenomena in a simplified way by using the ideal type as a foil against which empirical evidence is assessed. An ideal type is therefore “not a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description.”119 As such, the ideal type is different from the empirical reality, or real-type. Rather ideal types are generic concepts used to order the complexity of social reality. In this respect, the ideal type/real-type dichotomy is analogous to the differentiation between the model organisation and the actual organisation. Weber came up with the notion of an ideal type with social scientists in mind. What Carpenter’s concept of the model organisation underscores is that it is also a mental tool used by practitioners or every social agent for that matter. 112

Interview #12. Interview #19. 114 Interview #34. 115 Interview #9. 116 Carpenter (2001), Bureaucratic Autonomy, p. 23. 117 Ibid. 118 Max Weber (1949), “Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy, in: Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (eds., transl.), Max Weber on the Methodology of the Social Sciences, Glencoe: Free Press, p. 90 (emphasis in original). 119 Ibid. 113

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When comparing the depictions of DG Trade with those of the EEAS put forward by the interviewees, it appears that the EEAS does not (yet) offer the same powerful metaphors its staff could buy into. The EEAS was described either in less favourable terms or was not described at all. In fact, when asked to put their finger on the cultural differences between DG Trade and the EEAS, many interviewees described DG Trade and then concluded that the EEAS lacks those traits. One interviewed EEAS official called the institution “the least worst solution to the problem that we had, which is that we don’t have an EU foreign policy and that member states aren’t willing to give that up and put it into the community pillar. So, they have come up with some fudge, which is the EEAS.”120 Others spoke of a “compromise” institution, a “hybridised” institution, a “funny beast”, a “design flaw” or even called it “not the most professional body”.121 Although these characterisations arguably hit the nail on the head, in the sense that the EEAS is indeed the product of a compromise between member states’ diplomatic services, which refused to relinquish control of foreign and security policy and advocates of communautarising the CFSP, they do not display the same sense of mission. In fact, as already mentioned, the EEAS has no formal mission statement. The Council decision establishing the EEAS simply stipulates that the EEAS will support the High Representative in fulfilling his/her mandate to conduct the Common Foreign and Security Policy, in his/her capacity as permanent chair of the FAC and in his/her role as vice-president of the Commission. This need not necessarily mean that EEAS officials do not identify with their work, although it does seem to hamper the forging of an esprit de corps and thus the coherence and effectiveness of the EEAS.122 The importance of the success of the EEAS in forging an organisational culture was well recognised from the very beginning. David O’Sullivan, the EEAS’ first chief operating officer, explained in January 2011, only weeks after the EEAS had been set up: “In terms of organisational culture, the merger of the different EEAS’ component parts is not unlike a merger between corporations: it brings with it the challenge of establishing a common identity. And as with organisational change elsewhere, this will take time to be forged.”123 He furthermore spoke about the necessity to “create a common sense of purpose” among EEAS staff. Scholars have since been asking the question of whether the EEAS has developed a distinctive culture.124 The 2013 EEAS review report acknowledges that creating the EEAS “posed complex challenges of combining different traditions and organisational cultures alongside the difficult task and ongoing inter-institutional negotiations linked to setting up the service.”125 In 120

Interview #22. Interviews #17, #43. 122 See Juncos and Pomorska (2014), Manufacturing Esprit de Corps, pp. 302–319. 123 David O’Sullivan (2011), Setting Up the EEAS, Speech delivered at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin, 14 January. 124 See, for example, Juncos and Pomorska (2013), ‘In the Face of Adversity’; Juncos and Pomorska (2014), Manufacturing Esprit de Corps. 125 European External Action Service (2013), EEAS Review, Brussels, July, p. 4. 121

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a progress report from 2015, it is acknowledged that “the EEAS is still a relatively new organisation and it will therefore take more time to achieve full maturity, in particular regarding its internal corporate identity” and that “the institutional culture of the organisation continues to evolve.”126 With its socially less cohesive composition, relative to DG Trade, the EEAS resembles “an amalgamation of different groups of agents and their different practices”, Christian Lequesne argues.127 His findings suggest “that differences of professional cultures persist and split the EEAS staff into […] groups.”128 There is, first of all, former Commission staff, which have a more supranational understanding of EU foreign and security policy. Second, the former staff from the Council’s SecretariatGeneral “constitutes a world of its own inside the EEAS”, which relates much more to hard security issues rather than soft security cooperation embodied by the former DG Relex.129 Third, there are seconded member state diplomats. While there can be no doubt that there is a common EU practice of trade policy—and in this context, one could legitimately question whether member states still have their own distinct national trade policy practices—it is clear that “[n]ational diplomats have their own practices relating to EU foreign policy”,130 which they are ostensibly not poised to relinquish. For member state diplomats, “the EEAS can only be an additional resource and not a substitute to their respective MFAs.”131 Indeed, the EEAS “was created to complement, not to subsume national diplomatic identities,” as its first chief operating officer David O’Sullivan explained.132 Accordingly, the EEAS can act as the EU’s token foreign ministry only to the extent that the member states permit it to do so.133 There is reason to believe that nationality is a salient centrifugal force in the EEAS, given that one third of its staff comes from national foreign ministries on a rotating basis and can therefore reasonably be expected to be sensitive to their member 126

European External Action Service (2015), Report of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 22 December 2015 to the Council on Implementing the EEAS Review, HR(2015) 170, Brussels, 22 December, pp. 2, 7. 127 Lequesne (2015), EU Foreign Policy, p. 356. 128 Ibid., p. 357. 129 Ibid., p. 355. 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid., p. 356. 132 David O’Sullivan (2011), Setting Up the EEAS. See also the foreword by Catherine Ashton in European External Action Service (2013), EEAS Review, p. 2: “We seek to co-operate with, but not replace, the important work done by Member States” (emphasis added). 133 See Pomorska and Vanhoonacker (2015), Europe as a Global Actor, p. 219. On the insistence of some member states not to let the EEAS subsume national diplomatic services, see Geoffrey Edwards (2013), The EU’s Foreign Policy and the Search for Effect, International Relations, 27(3), p. 279; Nicholas Wright (2013), Co-operation, Co-optation, Competition? How Do Britain and Germany Interact with the European External Action Service?, Paper prepared for the 43rd UACES Annual Conference, University of Leeds, UK, 2–4 September. See also Rosa Balfour and Kristi Raik (2013), eds., The European External Action Service and National Diplomacies, EPC Issue Paper, No. 73, March.

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states’ concerns, whereas it appears to be a negligible factor in the Commission.134 The interviewed Commission officials, then, also criticised seconded EEAS officials for what they lament as a lack to think in supranational EU terms and a tendency to further their own states’ national interests.135 To quote a trade official who echoed the view of others in this respect: “[T]he colleagues that come from a member state often pursue member states’ interests. And they also often don’t know how the Commission operates, what the working procedures are and what we can actually do in terms of trade policy and what we should not do.”136 Indeed, Ana E. Juncos and Karolina Pomorska likewise conclude that “[t]he fact that different categories of officials within the EEAS hold different views about how diplomacy should be conducted and for which purposes does not bode well for the establishment of mutual trust and the emergence of an esprit de corps.”137 David Spence is even more sceptical in his analysis, speaking not only of “divergent” but of “competing mind-sets” inside the EEAS that have “hindered, if not stymied, [the] development of the new foreign policy system”, arguing further that “melding different epistemic communities into one effective new diplomatic community might not actually work.”138 The EEAS’ composition of different staff categories hence inhibits the emergence of a strong and homogenous organisational culture, which in turn is likely to affect the perceived effectiveness and competence of the EEAS as a bureaucratic actor. Moreover, the EEAS also lacks the same policy function as DG Trade. Given the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP/CSDP, the EEAS does not have the same standing in the policy process as DG Trade has for the CCP. Whereas there is no way around DG Trade in the conduct of EU trade policy, the member states have frequently circumvented the EEAS in matters of foreign and security policy, such as during the Ukraine crisis and in the early phase of the Iran nuclear talks. Hence, as already mentioned, while the EEAS is certainly a unique body in the way it is set up, it arguably does not benefit from a functional uniqueness in the same way DG Trade does. An EEAS official explains that DG Trade has “a much, much clearer mandate,” which allows trade officials “to have a clear idea of where they want to go and what they have to do.”139 The reason for this, he explains, is because “the definition of our interests is more immediate in trade and economic contexts”, whereas “they 134

See Semin Suvarierol (2008), Beyond the Myth of Nationality: Analysing Networks Within the European Commission, West European Politics, 31(4), pp. 701–724; Semin Suvarierol (2011), Everyday Cosmopolitanism in the European Commission, Journal of European Public Policy, 18(2), pp. 181–200. 135 Interviews #5, #19, #22. 136 Interview #8. Also interview #26: “The problem is that the EEAS has a lot of people coming from member states and they will not be as equipped as Commission colleagues are to this preparatory work of working with member states in the committees, in the Council, what is expected.” 137 Juncos and Pomorska (2014), Manufacturing Esprit de Corps, p. 312. 138 Spence (2012), Early Days, pp. 116–117. Similarly also Stefan Lehne (2013), Between Hesitations and Aspirations, European Voice, 18 July: “The EEAS’s heterogeneous composition—of EU officials and member states’ diplomats—and its dependence on the European Commission have hampered efforts to build a coherent corporate culture and a shared sense of purpose.” 139 Interview #48.

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[DG Trade, J.S.] see us [the EEAS, J.S.] as being slow and as being not that clear cut, not having a clear idea of our strategy. Whereas they believe they have one and we don’t.”140 Correspondingly, trade officials claimed that DG Trade is a service that “has delivered” and has “a very strong track record”.141 These appraisals of competence or relative lack of competence suggest that the interviewed practitioners do perceive the homogeneity or relative lack thereof to have an influence on how they assess the effectiveness and competence of DG Trade and the EEAS.

2.2.3.2

Differences and Effects

The previous section examined the existence of differences in organisational cultures between DG Trade and the EEAS. This section analyses how those differences shape the way officials of both services perceive and interpret, in short, make sense of the world. Hence, in addition to asking whether they think that there are cultural differences between DG Trade and the EEAS, the interviewed officials were asked whether they see differences in view that stem from those differences in organisational cultures. Theories of organisational culture and the communities of practice approach within practice theory hold that differences in view are a normal phenomenon of interactions between different groups of practitioners. Indeed, the general view among the interviewees was that such differences exist and are normal, yet they differed about the degree to which these affect their work. While some argued that differences in organisational culture and view matter greatly, others emphasised that it is more about individuals being able to work together. The latter view need not be inconsistent with explanations based on differences in organisational culture: some DG Trade officials explained that it was easier to work with EEAS officials who had previously worked in the Commission. As Christian Lequesne underscores, “potential conflicts between the EEAS and the Commission have to be nuanced by the fact that the EEAS includes former Commission officials […] They know about the ‘other’ group’s practices.”142 Asked whether DG Trade and EEAS officials somehow understand the world differently, a senior EEAS official with experience working in DG Trade, neatly summarised: Of course, they do! It’s normal. You know, we all get influenced by what we do. There are very few people who can rise above the crowd and then look at the big picture with a certain distance and maturity or balance. It’s basically a question of degree. But people who manage to do that sufficiently are very few. You get shaped by what you do, your way of thinking, your way of handling things, your approach, the way you feel. You grow up in a certain reality, you become part of this reality. So there is a big cultural difference between the two, no doubt.143 140

Ibid. Interviews #12, #6. 142 Lequesne (2015), EU Foreign Policy, p. 359. 143 Interview #5. 141

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As a result of this, the same official explained, there are “different instincts constantly across the board.”144 Another official stated that there are “two mentalities”, which lead to “differences in how the EEAS approaches things and how DG Trade approaches things.”145 Yet another official stated that between the two services there are “different role conceptions about what the European Union is”, which he explained with reference to Miles’ Law: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”146 Other interviewees responded that the two institutions are “managed differently”147 and therefore its officials understand situations differently and operate accordingly. While some lauded the effectiveness of the Brussels bureaucracy to forge a coherent policy approach, others cautioned not to wear rose-coloured glasses and recalled that finding those compromises among services “implies a huge effort. It’s not easy. It’s not a given.”148 In this regard, the following quote by an EEAS official stands emblematically for the majority view that differences of culture and view are normal and have to be dealt with: “Of course, there are differences of opinion. We have to work towards solving these problems. And we have these issues all the time.” And he furthermore explained that as a result “we often have very tough debates about issues. But so what? That is part of normal business!”149 Overall, it appears that the differences in organisational cultures shape the way DG Trade and EEAS officials respectively understand and approach developments and situations, which, according to practice theory, should prompt them to repeatedly engage in distinctive and patterned actions. Rebecca Adler-Nissen makes the argument that Commission officials and EEAS officials recruited from member states diplomatic services do not share the same habitus.150 Pierre Bordieu’s notion of habitus, to which Adler-Nissen refers, is indeed a helpful concept to illuminate the link between organisational culture and practices. In his seminal work Distinction, Bourdieu defines habitus as a “system of dispositions”151 and advances that “habitus is both the generative principle of objectively classifiable judgements and the system of classification (principium divisionis) of

144

Ibid. Interview #50. 146 Interview #31. On Miles’ Law, see Rufus E. Miles, Jr. (1978), The Origin and Meaning of Miles’ Law, Public Administration Review, 38(5), pp. 399–403. 147 Interview #4. 148 Interview #29. 149 Interview #49. 150 Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2013), European Diplomats: State Nobility and the Invention of a New Social Group, in: Niilo Kauppi and Mikael Rask Madsen (eds.), Transnational Power Elites: The New Professionals of Governance, Law and Security, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 73. See also Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2008), The Diplomacy of Opting Out: A Bourdieudian Approach to National Integration Strategies, Journal of Common Market Studies, 46(3), pp. 668–671. 151 Pierre Bourdieu (1984), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, translated by Richard Nice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 562 (endnote 2, Introduction). 145

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these practices.”152 Accordingly, habitus is both “medium and outcome” of practices.153 For Bourdieu, habitus is also a marker of class, as every societal group has its own distinct and distinctive habitus—a “class habitus”.154 Habitus is therefore not innate but acquired by way of belonging to certain societal or occupational groups. In short, habitus is the generative principle in a culture that disposes its members to engage in a certain type of action and to appraise the actions of others relative to one’s own habitus. In other words, through their actions, practitioners both produce classifiable practices and make classificatory judgements about their own and each other’s practices. In the context of EU external action, this means that officials from DG Trade and the EEAS each assure themselves of their own distinctness by making judgements about who is a competent performer of certain practices and who is not.155 This is very evident in the interview material. EEAS officials, while lauding DG Trade’s technical expertise and competence in trade policy, questioned the foreign and security policy acumen of their trade colleagues, in particular their ability to ‘see the bigger picture’, criticising that inside DG Trade foreign and security policy considerations are “sometimes treated as an irritant rather than as an essential element.”156 One EEAS official phrased it as follows: “They [DG Trade, J.S.] are strong in a small, narrow sense. At the end of the day, it’s only trade.”157 A Commission official put it in similar terms: “DG Trade is a real Roles Royce machine. It’s exclusive community competence. It gets some very good people. They are very, very interested in trade. They’re good negotiators. It’s a very impressive operation. But they do trade.”158 Another interviewed official acknowledged that “they are extremely good masters of trade policy per se”, but “it probably takes a longer period of time for DG Trade to see the political developments in the world.”159 A Commission official that had previously worked in DG Trade stated, “that can be a problem with DG Trade, that often they fail to see the broader political picture” and offered two explanations for that: “[T]here is a lack of seeing the broader political picture and there is a lack of 152

Ibid., p. 170. Steven P. Wainwright and Bryan S. Turner (2006), ‘Just Crumbling to Bits’? An Exploration of the Body, Ageing, Injury and Career in Classical Ballet Dancers, 40(2), Sociology, p. 240. 154 Bourdieu (1984), Distinction, pp. 101–102. 155 Lequesne (2015), EU Foreign Policy, makes a similar argument about the dynamics among EEAS officials. 156 Interview #28. Interestingly, some trade officials acknowledged this shortcoming, as the following, almost philosophical comment brings to the fore: “[T]he risk of DG Trade is a little bit what Heidegger was denouncing in the technicity of our world. In the end, technicity starts running itself and the only objective is to intensify technicity and [to] continue. […] In the sense that you don’t have any self-consciousness, you never take a step back to look at yourselves and to reflect about yourself: ‘Is it right what I’m doing?’ And the risk with trade policy is that you start, for example, you think free trade agreements are good, so you start a process […] You completely forget about the bigger picture and the objective in which you negotiate free trade agreements, you just negotiate agreements for the sake of negotiating agreements. And the risk with a very competent structure, very technical and sort of expert-led, is potentially that” (interview #9). 157 Interview #31. 158 Interview #43. 159 Interview #50. 153

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willingness, indeed, to realise that trade policy is not the only external policy. And while of course, it has its own objectives, it cannot be totally isolated from other foreign policy objectives.”160 Yet another Commission official conceded that “the technical expertise and quality they have are impressive, but sometimes what they are partly lacking is more political qualities.”161 A very straightforward boundary and role ascription is also evident in the following quote: “It’s not their [DG Trade’s, J.S.] role to think all day about overall foreign policy. That’s why we exist.”162 Interestingly, the interviewed trade officials very much drew the same boundary: “[T]hey [EEAS officials, J.S.] know about international relations and foreign affairs everything that I don’t know. But I know about trade policy what they don’t know.”163 Another trade official put it even more succinctly: “This is trade. They [EEAS officials, J.S.] do diplomacy”, adding that DG Trade deals with “pure trade issues where money counts.”164 Of course, what exactly ‘pure’ trade issues remain subject to debate and money is obviously a relevant figure in foreign and security policy too. What these role ascriptions underscore, however, is a very neatly perceived boundary between trade policy and foreign and security policy, which does not seem to square well with the increasing interconnectedness of the two policy fields. While all interviewed non-DG Trade officials agreed that DG Trade has over recent years improved its foreign and security policy acumen, many attributed this development to the arrival of trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström, who at times had to convince her own DG of the political expediency of launching trade negotiations with countries that are not priorities from a pure trade perspective: “Malmström has understood this perhaps better than some of the traditional DG Trade system: trade policy is intensely political, it’s not technocratic. And it’s not only about maximising economic opportunity; it’s also about projecting certain preferences about how society should be organised. […] And sometimes DG Trade has historically too narrow a focus on this technocratic approach.”165 As for their own role, the interviewed EEAS officials generally claimed for themselves a higher-level coordinating and steering role, blending the different strings that feed into EU external action into one coherent approach. “By virtue of where it sits”, one EEAS official explained, “the EEAS has a responsibility to take the broader perspective and to understand various concerns, including the trade aspects”, whereas “DG Trade views things from that technocratic perspective.”166 An almost identical role conception is put forward by another EEAS official, who defined the EEAS’ role to “identify the different tracks that are being followed” and “to have a real bird’s eye view of what our relationship with a given country is and to make sure

160

Interview #34. Interview #15. 162 Interview #25. 163 Interview #35. 164 Interview #1. 165 Interview #31. 166 Interview #45. 161

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that everything fits together.”167 Other interviewed EEAS officials used expressions such as, “diplomacy looks further than pure trade policy”,168 “we factor in a lot”,169 “we look after the overall balance of European interests”.170 What is more, many of the interviewed EEAS officials compared their role to that of a national foreign ministry, which is in itself indicative of the model organisation that many EEAS officials compare their own institution with in spite of the fact that the EU treaties explicitly reject this image.171 It, moreover, puts emphasis on a distinctive practice of EU foreign and security policy, which treats trade policy as one instrument in a larger balance of factors and considerations that need to be taken into account by the EEAS, as opposed to the pure trade policy perspective prevalent in DG Trade. Implicit in these statements is furthermore the self-understanding of being overall responsible, of bearing the ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of EU external action in its entirety; the conviction that “we set the political priorities”,172 the belief that “it is very clear, by now for sure, that the EEAS is in the lead on bilateral relations.”173 Even though it is in fact anything but evident that the EEAS is in the lead. Arguably, the EEAS leads neither on the CFSP/CSDP, which remains a member state competence, nor in domains of exclusive EU competence (e.g. trade), where the relevant Commission DGs are in charge. Other EEAS officials, however, took a more nuanced stance, explaining that while the EU treaties do indeed assign a coordinating role to the EEAS, it is precisely that: a coordinating role. “[W]e will not be able and are not able as an EEAS—not yet and probably never will—to fully control everything that’s ongoing in a bilateral relationship.”174 The corollary of the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP/CSDP is, of course, that EU foreign and security policy priorities are set by the member states; the EEAS having only limited agenda-setting power, which significantly circumscribes its action space. While the Commission’s agenda-setting power is arguably much greater in trade policy, all interviewed EEAS officials nevertheless rejected the notion that trade policy provides strategic guidance in or sets the overall tone of EU external action or that trade policy dominates EU external action. This was to be expected given that this is precisely the role that the EEAS claims for itself. Although DG Trade officials did not claim to provide strategic guidance, they nevertheless viewed the CCP as the most important of all external policies. One trade official stated that “[i]t’s really 167

Interview #16. Interview #37. 169 Interview #38. 170 Interview #31. 171 In fact, one of the differences between the vetoed Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon is that the initially planned position of Union Minister of Foreign Affairs was turned into the much less symbolic High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. For a detailed account of the differences between the two treaties, see Jean-Claude Piris (2010), The Lisbon Treaty: A Legal and Political Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 172 Interview #29. 173 Interview #37. 174 Interview #30. 168

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[DG] Trade, which really has the power, we can really give the added value.”175 Others describe trade policy as the “meat”, the “main engine” or the “muscle” of EU external action.176 The interviewed trade officials laid claim to competence in the form of technical expertise, as becomes visible in the quotes above and suspected officials working in the EEAS of not having the necessary know-that and know-how to fully understand the ramifications of trade policy: “The problem is that the EEAS, or [DG] Relex at the time, sometimes member states, or even our [Commission] president, they are not technically equipped. They don’t know. They just see trade agreement as an instrument to deploy or unroll a broader higher-level strategy, not realising that this has consequences.”177 Another trade official pointed out that the EEAS “will be more interested in deliverables, in making the summit a success. But then when it gets to the actual nitty-gritty of what we are going to agree, we are more concerned with that than they will be; we will be more concerned with the substance and the actual commitments and economic impact than the EEAS.”178 Again the image of DG Trade as the guardian of a competently implemented EU trade policy is evoked with the attendant claim that only trade officials dispose of the necessary knowledge to ensure that EU trade policy is competently performed; with ‘competent’ being defined by DG Trade officials as knowledge about the technical intricacies of trade policy and trade law as well as the proper way to conduct trade negotiations—as opposed to foreign and security policy considerations, which are thus deemed alien to a competent performance of trade policy. Contrary to that, EEAS officials criticised DG Trade for not showing enough flexibility, for being too rigid in their approach and not using seemingly available leeway. Similarly, these are assessments of competence, or incompetence for that matter. The critique generally took two forms. On the one hand, trade officials were blamed for taking too much of a maximalist approach to trade, for asking too much from third countries: “For them, it’s one hundred per cent or nothing. Free trade agreements must be ambitious, must be up to the maximum standards on everything, otherwise, we cannot do anything […] If they took a more flexible approach, maybe we could score more both from a trade-related point of view and from a political point of view”, one EEAS official commented.179 On the other hand, officials from DG Trade were criticised for not offering enough to the partner countries. One EEAS official gave the example of agricultural quotas in trade agreements where “there is always a big discussion and there DG Trade and DG AGRI are usually much more reluctant to offer more. Where we would think that the best or the maximum should be tried.”180 Another interviewed official struck a more frustrated tone: “If the EEAS were to recommend a more imaginative trade policy—a policy that meant changing 175

Interview #19. Interviews #48, #12. 177 Interview #9. 178 Interview #26. 179 Interview #29. 180 Interview #37. 176

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a rule here and there—DG Trade would not even countenance it. Because they’re purists! They’re total, total purists!”181 Noteworthy is the official’s belief that DG Trade’s alleged inflexibility “doesn’t get you anywhere in international relations”,182 a statement which expresses the conviction that a competent performance in the realm of foreign and security policy necessitates different skills and knowledge than those DG Trade displays in conducting the CCP. The image of DG Trade as the guardian over a ‘pure’ trade policy was also used by others, who showed themselves convinced that “there is some kind of purity in the DG; this tendency to compare trade agreements, basically their own gold standard of what a trade agreement needs to look like.”183 Apparent in these comments is the practice of DG Trade to conduct trade negotiations according to fixed procedures and pre-established economic standards of ambitiousness. In the eyes of EEAS officials, these are incongruous with the practice of cultivating diplomatic relations and subsuming trade policy under an overall foreign and security policy strategy, which requires a more flexible approach to using trade instruments. The interviewed trade officials flatly rejected their alleged lack of flexibility in conducting EU trade policy. Some struck a more ironic tone and deconstructed the positive connotation of the word ‘flexibility’, as evidenced by the following quote: “Flexibility sounds very polite. It means: ask for less and give more. This is what is called flexibility.”184 Others simply emphasised, “it makes sense to stick to what is working and not to overload it.”185 Not only did the interviewed trade officials reject the reproach of not being forthcoming enough, but they, in turn, believed that the EEAS tends to be too forthcoming. A common thread of argumentation was that EEAS officials, and by the same token all foreign and security policy specialists, tend to see free trade agreements as ‘nice foreign policy gestures’, whereas DG Trade, in line with its practices and self-assigned role as the guardian of EU trade policy, needs to ensure that trade agreements remain ‘meaningful’ and ‘ambitious’, in short, a competence performance. One senior DG Trade official phrased it as follows: [T]here tends to be more enthusiasm by the EEAS to start negotiations […] there is always this sense that it’s a foreign policy gesture to start a negotiation with a certain country. We tend to be much more careful. First, because if we start a negotiation, we know we need to put a lot of resources behind it. And secondly, because it also makes no sense to start a negotiation if you don’t think that there is a reasonable chance of success.186

A colleague of his similarly claimed: [I]t’s not always DG Trade that pushes for its thing without thinking and then the EEAS bringing the political consideration. Most often, it’s actually the opposite. It is the EEAS wanting to be nice with this or that country, thinking: ‘Why don’t we negotiate a trade 181

Interview #21. Ibid. 183 Interview #15. 184 Interview #36. 185 Interview #33. 186 Interview #6. 182

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agreement with those guys?’ And then it’s DG Trade saying: ‘Well, I’m sorry, but the conditions are not right.’187

Although it would be an exaggeration to conclude that EEAS officials see their trade colleagues as blinkered specialists, whereas trade officials consider officials working in the EEAS as generalist dilettantes, the above statements indicate that both DG Trade and EEAS officials respectively hold firm opinions about each other and “[e]ach group is perceived by the other group as possessing specific practices that confirm the logics of distinction.”188 Perhaps surprisingly, given the accentuated differences in organisational culture and view, the majority of interviewed officials stated that the cooperation between DG Trade and the EEAS is overall good or even very good.189 The responses were somewhat contradictory regarding the question of whether there was institutional competition between the two services, as some officials who stated that relations are good or very good nevertheless saw institutional competition. Some spoke of “healthy competition”, the “normal rivalry”, “unproductive turf war stuff” or, as an outlier, “silent wars”, but the general sense was that institutional competition does not amount to unmanageable levels.190 Perhaps the best explanation, reconciling good interpersonal relations with institutional competition, is offered in the following quote: “You always have institutional competition […] Not that people are particularly difficult or hate each other. Not at all. But we have a kind of clash of cultures.”191 This is in line with those previously cited statements that it comes down to individuals to deal with the differences between the two services. Consistent with that, cooperation between DG Trade officials and EEAS officials appears to be easier when the latter are former Commission officials.192 This sub-chapter has brought to the fore the differences in bureaucratic culture between DG Trade and the EEAS, with the former possessing a relatively homogenous and established organisational culture compared with the latter, which lacks the same attributes. It has also been brought out that officials from both services perceive these cultural differences in their daily work and, what is more, associate specific practices with them. A key practice of DG Trade is to conduct the CCP according to predefined economic criteria and for economic purposes. It is important to emphasise, and it will be further highlighted below, that DG Trade is seldom able to run trade policy in this way, as DG Trade is not the sole carrier of the CCP. This 187

Interview #9. Lequesne (2015), EU Foreign Policy, p. 358. 189 The results on this are perhaps slightly too positive. The generic question of how they would qualify the overall state of relations between DG Trade and the EEAS was asked before getting into specific aspects of the relationship. In fact, some interviewees who characterised the relationship as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ then severely criticised the respectively other service, which suggests that day-to-day cooperation is probably more difficult. What is more, inquiring about the state of interservice relations is a ‘classic’ interview question, the intention behind which many interviewees could easily guess. Whereas when asked about specific aspects of cooperation, the officials seemed to be more at easy to level criticism. 190 Interviews #41, #43, #50. 191 Interview #5. 192 Interview #8. 188

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qualification does not, however, lessen the observation that practicing trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic purposes constitutes the essence of what trade officials consider to be a competent performance in the realm of trade policy. A key practice of the EEAS, as far as trade policy is concerned, is using the CCP as a flexible diplomatic tool in the pursuit of foreign and security policy interests, which may not lie in achieving a gold-standard free trade agreement; a practice that DG Trade officials derided as merely constituting a nice foreign policy gesture. Both these practices meet the definition of a practice elaborated above in that they are a class of action that DG Trade and the EEAS respectively engage in repeatedly, they are both accompanied by attendant claims to constitute competent performances and, as such, reflect divergent beliefs about the proper role of the CCP in EU external action and, consequently, result in differing rules for action. In the following, these two practices will be further differentiated.

2.3 Discursive Evidence of Practices: Documents and Interviews Having thus far examined the organisational cultures of DG Trade and the EEAS, this section critically scrutinises the main strategy documents for their references to trade policy and foreign and security policy. In a second step, the views that officials of both services hold about the role of trade policy in EU external action are juxtaposed. This two-step approach serves to further identify and delineate key practices of trade policy and foreign and security policy. In order to better bring out the trade-security nexus, the following questions shall serve as guidelines: What definition of security does the EU operate with? What role has trade policy to play in EU external action at large? What are the cross-references between trade policy strategy documents and foreign and security policy strategy documents? What are the views of the interviewed officials about the role that trade policy should play and what role it actually plays in EU external action?

2.3.1 The Trade-Security Nexus in Key Strategy Documents The EU operates with a comprehensive understanding of security, whereby security is understood “in the broadest possible terms”, as one interviewed official put it.193 The concept of ‘comprehensive security’ refers to the understanding that security is 193

Interview #21. See also European Commission (2014), A Global Actor in Search of a Strategy: European Union Foreign Policy Between Multilateralism and Bilateralism, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, p. 42. For a comprehensive presentation of the report’s research results, see Sonia Lucarelli, Luc Van Langenhove and Jan Wouters, (2013), eds., The EU and Multilateral Security Governance, Abingdon: Routledge.

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no longer (if it ever was) adequately defined in military terms. Instead, it must be broadened to take into consideration other factors ranging, inter alia, from development, economic and societal issues to climate change and resource concerns to terrorism and cyber security, all of which pose or may pose a threat to the security of a state and its citizens.194 While trade policy plays next to no role in territorial defence, it can play a role if security is understood comprehensively and power and influence are to be projected beyond the borders. The European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003 is reflective of this comprehensive security approach, which is often associated with the civilian power model.195 It also acknowledges that the EU’s security interests extend beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Correspondingly, the analysis put forward in the ESS sketches a security environment where threats are no longer purely military and hence cannot be tackled by military means alone. Instead, “the full spectrum of instruments […] including political, diplomatic, military and civilian, trade and development activities” is required to address the multitude of threats facing the EU.196 The ESS is less concerned with territorial defence, indeed “[l]arge-scale aggression against any Member States” is deemed “improbable”.197 Rather the threat landscape is portrayed as being “more diverse, less visible and less predictable” and essentially global in nature.198 Terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, state failure and organised crime are identified as the five key threats facing the EU.199 The 2016 EU Global Strategy (EUGS), which replaced the ESS as the EU’s main foreign and security policy strategy document, originated from the recognition that “the EU’s strategic environment has changed radically” in the thirteen years following the publication of the ESS.200 Accordingly, the EUGS further broadens the scope of the comprehensive approach to security, advocating an “integrated approach to conflicts and crises”.201 Unsurprisingly given its name, the EUGS shares the ESS’ view that in a globalised world the EU’s has security interests in all parts of the world. Yet, being drafted in light of the Russian annexation of Crimea and meddling in Eastern Ukraine, it reincorporates the threat of territorial attacks into its threat 194

For a presentation of the different positions in the debate about the broadening and deepening of the security agenda, see Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams (1996), Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods, Mershon International Studies Review, 40(2), pp. 229–254. 195 On the EU as a civilian power, see Duchêne (1972), Europe’s Role in World Peace. 196 European Council (2003), European Security Strategy: A Secure Europe in a Better World, Brussels, 12 December, pp. 11, 7–11. See also Carmen Gebhard and Per Martin Norheim Martinsen (2011), Making Sense of EU Comprehensive Security: Towards Conceptual and Analytical Clarity, European Security, 20(2), p. 221. 197 European Council (2003), European Security Strategy, p. 3. 198 Ibid. 199 Ibid. 200 EEAS (2015), A More Connected, Contested and Complex World, p. 1. 201 See European External Action Service [EEAS] (2016), Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe. A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, Brussels, June, pp. 28–32.

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assessment, while recalling that territorial defence remains NATO’s responsibility.202 What both documents have in common is that the EU’s global role in foreign and security policy is inferred from its economic power: As a union of 25 states with over 450 million people producing a quarter of the world’s Gross National Product (GNP) […] the European Union is inevitably a global player. […] Europe should be ready to share in the responsibility for global security and in building a better world.203

A similarly phrased statement can be found in the EU Global Strategy: Economically, we are in the world’s G3. We are the first trading partner and the first foreign investor for almost every country in the globe […] our partners expect the European Union to play a major role, including as a global security provider.204

The reference to the EU’s economic strength as a justification for a larger role in global foreign and security policy affairs would suggest a heavy entanglement between EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy. However, the picture is more nuanced and at times even contradictory. While the EU’s main foreign and security policy documents and trade strategies contain a surprising level of discursive coherence, the cross-references remain rather vague and overly Panglossian.205 The ESS merely enumerates trade policy as one of the tools in the “mixture of instruments” that need to be put to use in a coherent manner to tackle the ‘new’ security threats.206 The strategy moreover suggests that through “conditionality and targeted trade measures” trade policy can serve as a “powerful tool for promoting reform” in third countries.207 In addition, the ESS generically underlines the role of international organisations “in confronting threats to international peace and security” and in this regard deems the WTO a “key institution in the international system”, which should be further developed and whose membership should be widened without lowering the standard of the global trade rulebook.208 The 2008 report on the implementation of the ESS likewise states that addressing the “more complex and interconnected threats” confronting the EU “requires coherent use of our instruments, including political, diplomatic, development, humanitarian, crisis response, economic and trade cooperation and civilian and military crisis management.”209 Even so, neither document spells out in concrete terms how trade policy can contribute to achieving the EU’s foreign and security policy objectives.210 What is 202

See ibid., pp. 19–21, 33–34. European Council (2003), European Security Strategy, p. 1. 204 EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, p. 3. 205 See Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, pp. 68–71. 206 European Council (2003), European Security Strategy, p. 7. 207 Ibid., p. 10. 208 Ibid., pp. 9–10. 209 European Council (2008), Report on the Implementation of the European Security Strategy: Providing Security in a Changing World, S407/08, Brussels, 11 December, pp. 1, 9. 210 See Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, p. 70. 203

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more, there is no mention, let alone examination, of potential incongruences between trade policy and foreign and security policy. No reflection is made on the necessary trade-offs in situations where the EU cannot pursue both or the pursuit of one comes at the cost of the other. Instead, both documents are imbued with the principled conviction that more global trade integration will automatically lead to more stability and security, a reflection of the EU’s own “founding myth”211 and the conviction that it would be only a question of time until the world would become more European.212 By contrast, the 2015 strategic review, which paved the ground for the EUGS, starts from a much more sobering analysis of the strategic landscape facing the EU: “At the time of the 2003 European Security Strategy, the EU was still enjoying its best moment in recent history […] Since then, the world—and our perception of it—has become more dangerous, divided and disorienting.”213 Consequently, it is much less sanguine about the prospects of greater (economic) interdependence automatically bringing about peace and preventing war, acknowledging that growing interconnectedness may also give rise to tensions and more conflict.214 It categorises between trade policy undertaken for foreign and security policy purposes and trade policy done for economic purposes, exhorting that “when trade policy is used as a foreign policy means, it requires a coherent pursuit of trade and non-trade objectives, which in turn calls for deeper cooperation between different stakeholders in the negotiation and implementation of trade agreements.”215 By the same token, “[w]hen trade agreements are pursued to achieve economic goals, successful negotiations often hinge on trade being part of a wider relationship”.216 However, it openly admits that “the EU still needs to find effective ways to manage tensions that may arise between trade and non-trade objectives”,217 which by reverse logic implies that the EU still has not been able to reconcile the at times conflicting strategies and priorities of the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP. This reflects a sea change in thinking compared to the diffuse idea, underlying the ESS and its 2008 update, that, since the CCP is one of the strongest external policy tools, it will somehow naturally contribute to achieving the EU’s foreign and security policy objectives. Yet this is by no means a ‘natural’ course of events, as trade policy and foreign and security policy each have their own specific background knowledge, beliefs, rules for action and practices. In a similar 211

Frank Schimmelfennig (2001), The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union, International Organization, 55(1), p. 66. 212 See Nathalie Tocci (2017), From the European Security Strategy to the EU Global Strategy: Explaining the Journey, International Politics, 54(4), pp. 494–495. 213 EEAS (2015), A More Connected, Contested and Complex World, p. 19. 214 See ibid., p. 6: “We used to think that greater interdependence would automatically bring about peace and prevent war. Now we know that while a more connected world is full of opportunities, it is also putting the nation state under unprecedented strain […] giving rise to tensions and, at times, leading to more conflict.” The notion that increasing interconnectedness may be a source of increasing tensions is of course not new and can in fact be traced back to the academic debates of the 1970s, as highlighted in the literature review. 215 Ibid., p. 18. 216 Ibid. 217 Ibid., p. 3.

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vein, exhortations to a more joined-up approach weave through the document, taking note that “specific EU policy areas and departments”, among which trade is listed, “are all developing their own strands of diplomacy.”218 It is furthermore noteworthy that the review document is openly critical of the current conduct of EU trade policy, cautioning that given “the EU’s declining economic dynamism, the high demands that it makes of its trading partners and what it is willing to offer may be hampering its leverage”, citing as evidence “the difficulty the EU is facing to conclude negotiations on investment or free trade agreements with several major partners.”219 This matches the criticism voiced in the interviews that DG Trade allegedly shows a lack of flexibility in its conduct of trade policy. Although the document occasionally still falls back into the platitudinous language that trade “has long been recognised […] to promote other goals including human rights, development, energy security and environmental protection”,220 overall it is circumspect about the leverage the EU can exert through trade policy and in this regard notes that the EU “potentially wields significant power” in trade and development policy.221 The overall picture drawn depicts strong forces of integration concurrently at work with powerful forces of fragmentation; hence the triad of a ‘more connected, contested and complex world’.222 The EUGS is less explicit about potential inconsistencies between trade policy and foreign and security policy, although it picks up the leitmotif of ‘a more joinedup union’ from the 2015 strategic review and in a similar vein emphasises that “[a] stronger Union also requires investing in all dimensions of foreign policy”,223 among which trade policy. It moreover recommends using “our economic weight and all the tools at our disposal in a coherent way”224 in pursuit of the five declared priorities: the security of the EU, state and societal resilience, an integrated approach to conflicts, cooperative regional orders and global governance. A central theme of the EUGS is the notion of “addressing the root causes of instability”.225 In this regard, strengthening state and societal resilience in both 218

Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 16. 220 Ibid., p. 14. 221 Ibid., p. 16 (emphasis added). 222 Interestingly, Bruno Maçães claims that the EU is ill-equipped to navigate such a world. Maçães argues that the EU either engages with the outside world on the basis of a framework of rules that is historically European in nature or, if that is impossible, shuts itself off these countries; see Bruno Maçães (2018), The Dawn of Eurasia, London: Allen Lane, pp. 237–243. Although his point about the EU closing itself off is a bit of a stretch, his argument underscores that it is difficult for the EU to navigate a world where economic cooperation occurs in parallel with political contestation. The EU’s trade practices are designed to work in an international system that largely separates economic policy from security policy, which makes it even more difficult for the EU when it interacts with third countries that practice no such strict separation and have furthermore fewer qualms about exploiting their economic strength for geostrategic purposes. 223 EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, p. 10. 224 Ibid. 225 Ibid., p. 14. 219

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neighbouring countries and surrounding regions as well as globally is repeatedly emphasised. Trade policy is indeed often seen as an instrument that can help remedy ‘the root causes of instability’ by fostering economic growth, development and thus state resilience. In that respect, the EUGS vows trade agreements will be used “to underpin sustainable development, human rights protection and rules-based governance.”226 On the other hand, recognising that most growth will be generated outside the EU in the near future, the EUGS underscores the importance of trade and investment in underpinning economic prosperity in the EU and, for that reason, the EU’s interest in an open and rules-based international economic system. The pursuit of comprehensive free trade agreements with the US, Japan, Mercosur, India, ASEAN and others is mentioned “as building blocks of global free trade.”227 Using trade to foster growth and prosperity in the EU implies the need for the EU to secure access to emerging and growing markets and therefore select trade partners according to economic criteria, which may be incongruous with the pursuance of non-trade objectives. It is this belief that undergirds the practice of conducting trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic purposes that DG Trade seeks to uphold. Strangely, unlike the 2015 strategic review, the EUGS does not mention the possibility of tensions between trade and non-trade objectives. This is all the more curious as the underlying tensions between trade policy undertaken for economic objectives and trade policy put at the service of foreign and security policy objectives are already highlighted in the 2006 Global Europe trade strategy: [W]hile our current bilateral agreements support our neighbourhood and development objectives well, our main trade interests […] are less well served. The content of these agreements also remains limited. We should continue to factor other issues and the wider role of trade policy in EU external relations into bilateral trade developments. But in order for trade policy to help create jobs and drive growth, economic factors must play a primary role in the choice of future FTAs.228

Global Europe is a key strategy document to understand the ‘conflictedness’ of EU trade policy. Many of the interviewed trade officials referred to this document to highlight what they considered a turning point in EU trade policy towards “new competitiveness-driven FTAs”.229 Global Europe was drafted against the backdrop of the stalemate of the Doha development round, the United States’ active pursuit of bilateral trade agreements and the belief that the EU needed to get a foothold in the burgeoning Asian markets.230 And it is fairly straightforward in its diagnosis: “Trade policy and our whole approach to international competitiveness need to adapt.”231 One interviewed official summarised the rationale at the time as follows: “[T]he 226

Ibid., pp. 26–27. Ibid., p. 41. 228 European Commission (2006), Global Europe Competing in the World: A Contribution to the EU’s Growth and Jobs Strategy, COM(2006) 567 final, Brussels, 4 October, p. 11 (emphasis added). 229 Ibid. 230 See, for example, Stephen Woolcock (2007), European Union Policy Towards Free Trade Agreements, ECIPE Working Paper, No. 03/2007, p. 5. 231 European Commission (2006), Global Europe, p. 3. 227

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multilateral system does not work, so we move into bilateral negotiations. And the main argument for that shift was economic reasons. We needed to open up markets. We could not wait for the multilateral system to deliver.”232 Scholars have similarly argued that with its change of strategy the EU “tried to regain lost ground”.233 In keeping with its stated purpose of setting out the contribution of trade policy to improving the EU’s competitiveness and thus stimulating growth and creating jobs, Global Europe lays down “key economic criteria” according to which trade partners are to be selected, namely market potential, the level of protection against EU exports as well as balancing against commercial advantages negotiated by EU competitors with third countries. Accordingly, it emphasises that future trade agreements “need to be comprehensive and ambitious in coverage, aiming at the highest possible degree of trade liberalisation including far-reaching liberalisation of services and investment.”234 Besides its overwhelming emphasis on “reinforc[ing] the competitive position of EU industry in a globalised world”,235 the document contains the minimum standard language on external policy coherence, recalling the importance of coherence, while stating that EU trade policy will “also seek to contribute to a range of the Union’s external goals”.236 It also states that in addition to economic criteria and the partner country’s readiness, launching trade negotiations should also be based on broader political considerations.237 Global Europe marks an evolution in EU trade policy practices, which some scholars describe as a move from a soft and normative trade power to a much more realist and strategically-informed one: “‘Global Europe’ presents a more unambiguously interest-seeking rationalist- ‘realist’ policy, prioritising economic interests in other markets and economic balancing against competitors.”238 In this regard, the strategy’s full title, Global Europe Competing in the World—A Contribution to the EU’s Growth and Jobs Strategy, is revealing. As such, Global Europe also reflects a shift away from then trade commissioner Pascal Lamy’s dictum of ‘harnessing globalisation’, characterised by a rather progressive interpretation of the objectives of 232

Interview #17. Alberta Sbragia (2010), The EU, the US, and Trade Policy: Competitive Interdependence in the Management of Globalization, Journal of European Public Policy, 17(3), p. 370. See also Katharina L. Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism and EU Trade Policy: Competing for Economic Power in Asia and the Americas, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 137: “In the Global Europe paper, the Commission explicitly expressed the wish to search for alternatives to multilateral negotiations in order to access foreign markets.” 234 European Commission (2006), Global Europe, p. 11. 235 Ibid., p. 6. 236 Ibid., p. 2 (emphasis added). 237 See ibid., p. 11. 238 Maria Garcia (2013), From Idealism to Realism? EU Preferential Trade Agreement Policy, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 9(4), p. 535. See also Louise Curran (2017), EU Trade Policy after the GFC: The Geoeconomics of Shifting EU Trade Policy Priorities, in: J. Mark Munoz (ed.), Advances in Geoeconomics, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 133. For the argument that the EU competes with other trade powers for privileged trade relations with third countries, see Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, pp. 36–51. Similarly also Sbragia (2010), Competitive Interdependence. 233

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trade policy, to a much more uncompromisingly trade-centric discourse.239 One interviewed DG Trade official explained, “with Global Europe we brought in economic factors much more than had been the case before” because previously EU trade policy “had been too security-oriented or too international affairs-oriented; it had been dictated mainly by factors that were not linked to the economic interests of the EU.”240 Another DG Trade official explained that Global Europe heralded a “moving away from a [trade] policy dictated by all sorts of others interests and objectives towards a much more autonomous one that is much more based on commercial objectives.”241 These quotes suggest that trade officials considered the doctrinal shift embodied by Global Europe as what Sophie Meunier calls a “perceived return to the roots of trade policy, with the EU now back to pursuing economic instead of normative foreign policy objectives.”242 What the statements moreover reflect is the belief among trade officials that the CCP should be based on an economic rationale. This belief is enacted whenever potential partners for launching free trade negotiations are selected according to economic criteria. Since Global Europe, the practice of selecting trade partners on the basis of economic indicators has become more dominant in EU trade policy. Indeed, the EU has launched and/or concluded trade negotiations with ASEAN (first as a group, then with individual member states), Korea, Mercosur, India, China (investment agreement only), which are all listed in Global Europe on account of their economic importance to the EU. In addition, trade negotiations have been launched and/or concluded with Canada, Japan and the United States, arguably more for economic than foreign and security policy reasons. Selecting trade partners according to economic criteria can therefore be identified as a repeated and patterned action inside DG Trade, which moreover enacts the aforementioned beliefs, held dear by trade officials, that the CCP is a competent performance only if and when it follows economic considerations. Even so, the selection of trade partners has never proceeded purely on the basis of the ‘key economic criteria for new FTA partners’ set out in Global Europe, and DG Trade has been repeatedly put under political pressure to launch and/or conclude trade negotiations on grounds of foreign and security policy considerations, not economic criteria. By way of anecdotal evidence, one DG Trade official recounted that one of the first trade negotiations launched after Global Europe were with Libya in 2008 as 239

See Sophie Meunier (2007), Managing Globalization? The EU in International Trade Negotiations, Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(4), pp. 905–926. Similarly also Tony Heron and Gabriel Siles-Brügge (2012), Competitive Liberalization and the ‘Global Europe’ Services and Investment Agenda: Locating the Commercial Drivers of the EU–ACP Economic Partnership Agreements, Journal of Common Market Studies, 50(2), p. 251, who argue that ‘Global Europe’ ushered in a shift from “multilateralism first to competitive liberalization”. 240 Interview #9. 241 Interview #12. 242 Meunier (2007), Managing Globalization?, p. 906. See also Michael Smith (2018), Trade Policy and Foreign Policy in the European Union, in: Sangeeta Khorana and Maria Garcia (eds.), Handbook on the EU and International Trade, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 172, who argues that the 2006 Global Europe Strategy is “focused in a concentrated fashion on the material aspects of trade and competitiveness, in a way which was seen by some as completely separate from—if not at odds with—the principles of the ESS and ‘European foreign policy’.”

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a quid pro quo for the release of five Bulgarian nurses, held hostage by the Khadafi regime. He called it a “particularly absurd example” of trade policy being put at the service of foreign and security policy, not only because Khadafi’s Libya did not dispose of a proper trade administration in place, but more importantly it was and still to this day is not a member of the WTO, a fundamental prerequisite for the EU to launch free trade negotiations.243 In the end, the negotiations were ultimately suspended in February 2011 due to the domestic-political situation in Libya. But the example illustrates that, in certain cases, there are very strong pressures on DG Trade to deviate from the practice of selecting and conducting trade negotiations purely on the basis of economic criteria when it serves a foreign and security policy expediency. This does not lessen the existence, inside DG Trade, of the practice of selecting trade partners according to economic criteria. But it does point to the existence of other practices, such as selecting trade partners for foreign and security policy considerations, which intersect with economically-based trade practices and, most likely, will create tensions with these. Written in the context of the global financial and economic crisis, the 2010 trade strategy Trade, Growth and World Affairs continues the competitiveness narrative, touting the triple benefits of international trade and investment: economic growth, job creation and lower consumer prices. The strategy’s central concern, as the then trade commissioner Karel de Gucht put it in his foreword, is “to maintain and improve our position [as the biggest global player in international trade and investment] and to trade our way out of the current economic crisis.”244 Accordingly, the priority of EU trade policy “must now be to gain better access to the largest and fastest-growing economies in the world and in particular through ambitious trade agreements.”245 Although an entire, if a short section is dedicated to trade and external relations, the strategy limits itself to repeating that “the Union’s trade and foreign policies can and should be mutually reinforcing”,246 without further elaboration on how this could be done. In essence, the 2010 trade strategy thus enshrines the belief that trade policy should first and foremost be an economic affair. Another doctrinal shift in EU trade policy, towards a more values-driven agenda, was signalled by the Trade for All strategy of 2015. The document needs to be understood in the context of public outrage at the allegedly nontransparent and opaque negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the fear of a lowering of consumer protection standards, investment protection clauses and private arbitration tribunals and more generally the perceived injustices and detrimental effects of globalisation.247 The Commission interpreted the intensified public 243

Interview #6. See also Euractiv (2008), EU to Deepen Relations with Libya, Starting with Trade Deal, 28 February; European Commission (2008), Libya: Commission Proposes Negotiating Mandate for a Framework Agreement, PRESS RELEASE, IP/08/308, Brussels, 27 February. 244 European Commission (2010), Trade, Growth and World Affairs: Trade Policy as a Core Component oft he EU’s 2020 Strategy, COM(2010)612, Brussels, p. 2. 245 Ibid., p. 9. 246 Ibid., p. 15. 247 See Ferdi De Ville and Gabriel Siles-Brügge (2017), Why TTIP is a Game-Changer and its Critics Have a Point, Journal of European Public Policy, 24(10), pp. 1491–1505.

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debate about TTIP and global trade more generally as pivoting fundamentally around the question of whom EU trade policy is for. The conclusion, given in Trade for All, was to formulate a trade agenda that, as its name suggests, purports to be ‘for all’ and therefore “seeks to improve conditions for citizens, consumers, workers and the self-employed, small, medium and large enterprises and the poorest in developing countries and addresses the concerns of those who feel they are losing out from globalisation.”248 In her foreword to the strategy, then trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström announces nothing less than a “new approach” to trade policy, which will “ensure EU trade policy is not just about interests but also about values”, with trade agreements serving “as levers to promote, around the world, values like sustainable development, human rights, fair and ethical trade and the fight against corruption.”249 With Trade for All, the EU ostensibly seems to want to correct the image of a purely competitiveness-driven and—thus ran the public critique—neoliberal trade policy embodied by Global Europe. How feasible such a shift remains to be seen. First of all, by claiming that trade is ‘for all’, the document obfuscates the distributional effects of trade policy that inevitably create winners and losers of such agreements. Second, tasking trade policy with ever more objectives to achieve and values to respect also increases the likeliness of inconsistencies and tensions between the different policy practices, because increasing the number of policies that are tactically or substantively linked to trade policy also increases the odds that their distinctive beliefs and rules for action are incongruous with one another. In its attempt to mollify all of its critics at once, the strategy resembles a laundry list more than it offers guidelines for dealing with potential inconsistencies between the many ‘new’ objectives of EU trade policy. One commentator remarked that “it is not really a strategy at all, but just a list of principles”, pointing out that it lacks a clear definition of a long-term goal that EU trade policy aims to achieve: “Claiming that one wants to reach all of the above at once and without any priorities is not very convincing, as there are clearly tradeoffs.”250 Sieglinde Gstöhl notes that with Trade for All the Commission “is bound to face a classical dilemma” of wanting more than ever to defend EU trade interests while upholding yet more fundamental principles and values.251 It remains to be seen whether the discursive shift initiated by Trade for All will also prompt a change in practices. Interestingly enough, towards the end of the document, the same guiding principles for selecting trade partners as had been stipulated in the 2006 Global Europe strategy are upheld: “For EU trade policy to deliver jobs and growth, our priorities to open negotiations must continue to be primarily based on economic criteria, 248

European Commission (2015), Trade for All: Towards a More Responsible Trade and Investment Policy, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, p. 7. 249 See ibid., p. 5. 250 Sebastian Dullien (2016), The EU Trade Strategy: Where is the “Strategic” Part?, ECFR Note from Berlin, 17 March, p. 2. 251 Sieglinde Gstöhl (2016), ‘Trade for All’—All for Trade? The EU’s New Strategy, College of Europe Policy Brief , January, p. 4.

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while also considering partners’ readiness and the broader political context.”252 Yet the strategy offers no indications as to how much the broader foreign and security policy context should play a role when launching negotiations on a trade agreement. It merely repeats the stock formula that “trade policy should dovetail with the EU’s development and broader foreign policies” and that “trade and investment policy must work in close coherence with other instruments of EU external action.”253 Besides that, even though Trade for All acknowledges that “trade policy has significant repercussions on the geopolitical landscape—and vice versa”,254 it does not elaborate on how exactly these repercussions may play out and, more importantly, how EU trade policy should factor them in. This seems to be a shortcoming in practical EU trade policy more generally. One DG Trade official put it very bluntly: “[O]ur problem is that our trade policy is normative and legalistic and blind to geopolitical considerations.”255 The reason for that, the official explained, “is more a cultural bias, not a denial. It’s a reflection of the EU’s 40 years, 50 years of institutional cult” and the fact that DG Trade is a “normative house that does nothing else than the external projection of the single market.”256 Another DG Trade official offered a very similar explanation: [T]here are many reasons why we are cautious in using trade as a geopolitical tool. First of all, because it goes indeed against the DNA of the EU, which is to say trade is [a] win-win, […] it’s not a zero-sum game. […] The second reason is probably simply that on trade [policy] we agree very much; on geopolitics we agree much less – EU member states as well as [the] EU as a whole.257

The belief that ‘trade is not a zero-sum game’ was in fact one of the most often made statements. An EEAS official gave an explanation along similar lines: [I]t’s also a way of going about things in the trade world, that they [DG Trade, J.S.] don’t want to be too explicit about these things. They know very well that it has geostrategic impacts. But it’s against their orthodoxy to say: ‘we do this because of geostrategic interests’.258

These interview quotes highlight a key belief and rule for action about trade policy held dear by DG Trade: the CCP should not be used as a geopolitical tool. It is not so much that DG Trade officials are oblivious of the geopolitics of international trade. Rather they uphold the principled conviction that EU trade policy should not take part in this geopolitical game, that EU trade policy is different and that it responds to (more rational and sounder) economic calculations. To summarise, the role that trade policy is being assigned in the foreign and security policy discourse has shifted from the belief that trade will quasi-automatically contribute to achieving the EU’s foreign and security policy objectives if only 252

European Commission (2015), Trade for All, p. 30 (emphasis added). Ibid., pp. 7, 20. 254 Ibid., p. 7. 255 Interview #20. 256 Ibid. 257 Interview #39. 258 Interview #41. 253

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economic exchanges with the rest of the world are increased, to a much more downto-earth assessment. The trade policy discourse, by contrast, appears to be less linear and more conflicted about the role of trade policy in delivering on the EU’s wider foreign and security policy agenda. While the EU trade strategy documents take note of the requirement for trade policy to be coherent with foreign and security policy, all three major trade strategies, including the ‘values-driven’ Trade for All document, insist that trade partners have to be selected, first of all, on the basis of economic criteria, a key belief inside DG Trade. None of the trade policy and foreign and security policy strategies offers guidelines on how to deal with inconsistencies and tensions that may arise between trade policy and foreign and security policy. Instead, they are peppered with vague calls for greater coherence between the various external action tools.

2.3.2 Interview Results: Trade Policy in EU External Action The various roles, interests and objectives that different actors assign to the CCP will also circumscribe the nexus of practices between trade policy and foreign and security policy. Some of these linkages are more substantive in nature, i.e. based on knowledge consensus, others are more tactical in nature.259 Depending on the kind of tasks trade policy is supposed to fulfil, there is more or less room for synergies but also tensions. Once the different conceptions of trade policy held by DG Trade and the EEAS are outlined, the next step of the analysis will be to study the actual interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy and highlight the key practices that structure both policy fields. What do officials from DG Trade and the EEAS think about the role of trade policy in delivering on EU external action? All interviewees were asked one openended question in this regard: What is the role of the CCP in EU external action? The formulation was deliberate as general as possible and the question was always the first one posed in every interview so as to ensure that there was as little subconscious influencing by subsequent questioning as possible. The interview results reveal a mixed picture about the role of trade policy in EU external action. When asked about the role of the CCP in EU external action, officials from DG Trade and the EEAS emphasised different aspects. DG Trade officials first and foremost underscored that “the fundamental goal”, “the overarching consideration”, “the driving consideration”, “the essential strategy”, “the essence”, “the core” of the CCP is to promote jobs and growth through the furtherance of EU economic interests, that is the economic interests of member states and their companies and businesses.260 This, they variously explained, is to be achieved by opening up new 259

On issue-linkage and the differences between knowledge-based and tactical linkages, see Haas (1980), Issue-Linkage. 260 Interviews #36, #9, #12, #34.

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markets or improving existing market access for EU companies by reducing tariffs and, more importantly, non-tariff barriers to trade, which may exclude or disadvantage EU exporters on a given market.261 The objective is to maintain or increase the share of EU exports to a given market, which is measured by a dedicated result indicator.262 The general thrust is clearly stated in DG Trade’s strategic plan 2016– 2020: “The deeper the liberalisation and the more effective its implementation, the stronger the anticipated EU’s competitive position vis-à-vis other partners on the export market.”263 Besides that, EU trade policy seeks to set international standards by spreading EU rules and regulations, thus structuring foreign markets favourably for EU companies. Structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations can be identified as one of the key practices of EU trade policy. It comprises a set of actions DG Trade repeatedly engages in when negotiating trade agreements, as will be shown below, and it moreover corresponds to the representation of competent performance in the realm trade policy in the sense that trade officials believe that exporting EU rules and regulations through trade agreements is the right and appropriate way to conduct the CCP. DG Trade officials, consequently, spurn prospective trade agreements that do not stipulate a harmonisation or approximation of rules and regulations. Conceptualising the spreading of EU rules and regulations through trade agreements as a practice makes it possible to transcend the dichotomy between the “logic of consequences” and the “logic of appropriateness”.264 When trade officials explain that the rationale for structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations is “to create the most appropriate conditions for EU companies to be able to export in the best conditions possible”,265 it goes beyond purely normdriven or purely goal-oriented conduct. Rather it points to a key aspect of practice theory: practitioners often engage in a specific practice not merely out of rationallycalculated material interests or normative convictions but rather because “it is ‘what one does’.”266 And as long as this way of doing and understanding things has not been challenged through problematic situations, practitioners are likely to perpetuate the practice in question. Another key practice of EU trade policy, which was mentioned as an action DG Trade repeatedly engages in, is the tackling of unfair trade practices, which generally refers to subsidisation and dumping, through the use of 261

Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) refer to technical, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures as well as other rules, regulations and standards that serve both legitimate public policy purposes and may also constitute unnecessary or outright protectionist barriers to cross-border trade. 262 See European Commission (2016), Strategic Plan 2016–2020: DG Trade, Brussels, March, p. 26. 263 Ibid. 264 On logic of appropriateness and logic of consequences, see James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (2002), The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders, International Organization, 52(4), pp. 943–969. 265 Interview #11. See also European Commission (2015), Management Plan 2015: DirectorateGeneral for Trade, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, p. 6: “The Commission aims at ensuring the best competitive conditions and opportunities for European firms, in order to make a substantial contribution to the growth and the competitiveness of the European economy.” 266 David McCourt (2016), Practice Theory and Relationalism as the New Constructivism, International Studies Quarterly, 60(3), p. 478.

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trade defence instruments (i.e. antidumping and countervailing duties) to establish a level playing field on which EU and third-country companies compete with one another. While the aforementioned aspects emphasise economic factors—and one trade official pointedly summarised the essence of many interviews in DG Trade when stating that “trade policy is about trade, is about external trade, markets and access to markets and the possibility for our economic operators to flourish and to export”267 — all interviewed trade officials acknowledged that non-economic factors also influence EU trade policy, albeit only at an abstract level. In particular, they recalled that they have to operate within the framework of certain fundamental values and principles, such as human rights, democracy, the rule of law and sustainable development.268 The CCP was also considered to be a “translator of EU values and principles into global trade.”269 Nonetheless, DG Trade officials insisted that “at the end of the day, a trade negotiation is a trade negotiation”270 and that the driving principle of DG Trade “is, after all, to make commercial gains.”271 Another interviewed official phrased it as follows: “Its main role is, of course, to advance our trade interests. That’s what it was created for. Those who say the opposite are lying. Again, that doesn’t mean that it should be only that. But let’s face it: trade policy at the outset is about that.”272 These statements point to a basic incongruence between the practice of conducting trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic objectives and the practice of using trade policy as a tool to promote non-trade objectives in the service of foreign and security policy. The conception that the interviewed trade officials entertain about the role of trade policy in EU external action is largely identical to the trade policy discourse put forward in the trade strategy documents analysed above. It reflects the acknowledgement that the CCP increasingly has to factor in non-trade objectives because it is (one of) the strongest external action tools at the EU’s disposal. At the same time, there is an unfailing insistence on the pre-eminent importance of economic criteria if EU trade policy is to deliver on the stated goals of spurring growth and creating jobs. However, if trade policy is ‘at the core’ about jobs and growth, then all non-trade objectives inevitably become second-order criteria. A case in point is the indicators that DG Trade employs to assess the conduct of the CCP. DG Trade’s strategic plan 2016–2020 identifies four trade-specific objectives, which are indicative of a number of trade practices, that are supposed to contribute, to varying degrees, 267

Interview #33. Article 21(1) TEU lists the “principles which have inspired [the EU’s] own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity, and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.” 269 Interview #23. 270 Interview #15. 271 Interview #2. 272 Interview #34. 268

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to three out of ten of the Juncker Commission’s general policy objectives.273 The annual activity reports as well as the annual management plans report on selected indicators. The practices related to the DG Trade-specific objectives are: opening up foreign markets and combatting protectionism through trade agreements; ensuring the effective implementation of trade agreements through monitoring, enforcement and support; tackling unfair trade practices by applying trade defence instruments (i.e. antidumping and countervailing duties); and pursuing a sustainable approach to trade. It furthermore sets out a list of three key performance indicators and seventeen impact indicators, by means of which the progress towards achieving the general and specific objectives is measured and made measurable. Of the seventeen impact indicators only the four which are related to ‘a sustainable approach to trade’ could be qualified as non-commercial in nature. All other indicators, including the key performance indicators, measure the conduct of the CCP purely on the basis of commercial terms.274 All this is strongly indicative of the practice of assessing EU trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic purposes. On the whole, even a cursory look at the indicators makes it very clear that the fundamental beliefs inside DG Trade about how EU trade policy should be conducted are firmly embedded in commercial terms. DG Trade operates by clear criteria for success, which are in principle measurable. The same cannot be said about the EEAS, since foreign and security policy largely escapes attempts to make it measurable in any meaningful way. The interviewed EEAS officials, by contrast, tended to first see the leverage effect that trade policy provides. One EEAS official, whose reply is quoted in full because it stands emblematically for many other EEAS officials, declared that “from a foreign policy perspective, I would see FTAs basically as things which reinforce our end as foreign policy actors. So, FTAs I think are an important tool to build closer relations with third countries and also to have more leverage in our foreign policy relations with a third country.”275 Others saw trade policy as a tool to project stability and prevent conflicts as well as a post-conflict reconstruction instrument.276 To be sure, it was not the case that the interviewed EEAS officials did not acknowledge that the CCP has to promote trade. But, from their vantage point, trade policy and development cooperation are the two strongest levers of influence for EU foreign and security policy, in the absence of any hard power tools. Seeking to reconcile both views, one EEAS official explained that the CCP is “a tool in the external relations foreign policy toolbox and the purpose of the toolbox is to further EU interests. Within that, 273

These are general objective 1 (‘A new boost for jobs, growth and investment’), general objective 6 (‘A balanced and progressive trade policy to harness globalisation’) and general objective 9 (‘A stronger global actor’). 274 KPI 1: ‘preference utilisation rates of agreements provisionally applied or entered into force’; KPI 2: ‘percentage of trade covered by applied bi-lateral and regional agreements’; KPI 3: ‘percentage of fully liberalised trade with the world’; see European Commission (2016), Strategic Plan 2016–2020: DG Trade, p. 16; for a table of all indicators, see pp. 22–31. 275 Interview #38. 276 Interviews #16, #30.

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its primary function is to secure our commercial interests and also to extend the field of application of certain very basic values.”277 By the same token, the interviewed DG Trade officials did not deny that the CCP is also influenced by non-commercial objectives. But they appeared to be more conflicted about the use of trade policy for foreign and security policy objectives, even if all of them acknowledged that, given the EU’s economic power, trade policy is one of the strongest if not the single strongest lever of influence. And yet there seems to be a marked uneasiness among trade officials about the intrusion of foreign and security policy consideration into the conduct of trade policy: “We are pursuing our trade agenda here. We want to open markets” and “we might not like that too much” when “commercial policy can then also be used as a means in foreign policy.”278 Another DG Trade official declared: “Frankly speaking, in this house, we see ourselves as a tool to open markets and we are not always very happy when other DGs, other institutions come and say, ‘okay, let’s add more objectives’.”279 Similarly yet another trade official critically remarked that “there is a number of things being done on the back of our trade policy because it’s where we have more leverage.”280 Non-DG Trade officials likewise attested to DG Trade’s reticence to see other policies interfere with the conduct of the CCP. An official working in the EEAS advanced that “you cannot separate economic interests from security interests and from what we do with external relations. Some of the trade colleagues would like to do this because it’s more convenient and it moves the area into a more technical one. But I don’t think that holds water in terms of political reality.”281 A senior official pointedly summarised the view held by many outside DG Trade when stating: “DG Trade is always looking at itself as the at least primus inter pares, as the ones having the most interesting, the most demanding, the sexiest portfolio. And indeed the self-confidence if not arrogance to say, ‘we’re dealing with it and no one else should interfere!’”282 Another top-level official similarly remarked: “DG Trade has a fairly strong corporate identity. They are—as is logic—very much focused on trade negotiations. And they like to feel that they are in charge, in control of those. And they then don’t want to have too much interference from other issues.” Interestingly though, he added that a similar tendency could be observed in the EEAS “with people who only want to do ‘high politics’ and don’t want to see the grubby issues of trade and economics interfering with that. And in both cases, you have to call them back to order and say: ‘The world doesn’t look like that!’”283 Apparent in these remarks are the aforementioned logics of distinction attendant to which come specific role ascriptions for self and others.

277

Interview #49. Interview #8. 279 Interview #39. 280 Interview #26. 281 Interview #41. 282 Interview #30. 283 Interview #27. 278

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In conclusion, the interview results put the spotlight on a basic incongruence of beliefs, which lurks beneath the discursive harmony displayed in official strategy documents, between officials from DG Trade and the EEAS respectively about the role of the CCP in EU external action. While all interviewees recognised and emphasised the need for greater external policy coherence, they nevertheless held different beliefs about what trade policy should ideally do.284 In terms of broad conceptual understanding, the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP are, by definition, very much in harmony. It is in fact a universally held belief among EU officials that more economic integration will enhance security.285 Yet, at the same time, the interview results are reflective of the existence of two conflicting sets of practices regarding the role of the CCP in EU external action. The first reflects a more autonomous and self-standing, competitiveness-driven CCP, whose core practice is conducting trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic purposes. This can be further differentiated into the practices of selecting trade partners on the basis of economic indicators, structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations, opening up foreign markets through trade agreements and assessing the success of trade policy initiatives on the basis of economic indicators (e.g. growth in exports, market share, etc.). The other set of practices makes use of the CCP as one of the EU’s main levers of influence and puts it at the service of various non-economic foreign and security policy objectives. The CCP consequently becomes merely a means by which the EU seeks to project foreign and security policy influence. Both sets of practices are informed by different beliefs about the role of trade policy in EU external action at large, which consequently results in different rules for action. Before turning to the two main case studies, the following section will highlight these rules for action in order to put into relief the practices that respectively structure trade policy and foreign and security policy more clearly.

2.4 Trade Policy and Foreign and Security Policy: Practical Interactions Having examined the main trade policy as well as foreign and security policy strategy documents with regard to the trade-security nexus and the role assigned to the CCP in external action, the following section analyses the interactions, as perceived by the interviewed officials, between the practices of trade policy and foreign and security policy in the conduct of EU external action. Any inquiry into the interactions between 284

Similarly also Peterson (2007), EU Trade Policy as Foreign Policy: “For purists, EU foreign policy objectives intrude, as they should not, on trade policy, which should be used narrowly to defend European economic interests. For foreign policy specialists, trade is a principal policy tool through which the EU conducts a ‘structural’ foreign policy […] and allows the Union to act as a ‘civilian power’, which uses non-military, mostly economic power in pursuit of its foreign policy objectives.” 285 For example, interview #23: “[W]e believe that open trade and open markets can bring peace, growth and stability to all trade partners.”

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trade policy and foreign and security policy needs to analyse both directions of this relationship and ask: first, to what extent is the CCP influenced by foreign and security policy considerations? And second, to what extent is the CFSP/CSDP influenced by trade and economic interests? Most interviewed DG Trade officials explained that, while at a very general and abstract level, foreign and security policy considerations do influence the CCP, the actual conduct of trade negotiations remains largely insulated from foreign and security policy considerations and proceeds strictly according to the beliefs and rules of commercial exchanges. Whereas at the conceptual level “[i]t’s all about prosperity and security being intrinsically linked and being the foundation of the EU”, as an EEAS official points out, “[w]hen you get specific, then it does become siloed! […] Day-to-day is different.”286 “There are not many good examples where we really instrumentalised one for the other”, another EEAS official explains, because “neither the political side nor the trade side is willing to be put on hold, frankly, in function of the other. There is a deep reluctance.”287 It appears that transforming established practices in order to allow for actual trade-offs between the two policy fields is a persistent shortcoming of EU external action. A DG Trade official with experience working in the former DG Relex explained that, between trade policy and foreign and security policy, “the link is never made that explicitly, the trade-off is never made that explicitly”, instead “[i]t’s at a more metapolitical level that these considerations are integrated”.288 Another senior DG Trade official concurred with that assessment: “[I]t’s more broader foreign policy considerations rather than security stricto sensu.”289 However, even those broader foreign and security policy considerations do “not fundamentally” influence the conduct of trade negotiations.290 Other officials variously described trade negotiations as being “very sheltered”291 from foreign and security policy, having “no direct link”292 to them or only “to a relatively small extent”.293 In short, the influence of foreign and security policy considerations on the conduct of trade policy is “limited”.294 Accordingly, foreign and security policy considerations influence the CCP in essence only in a very original sense, just like the European integration itself, that good and close economic relations across boundaries enhance security [...] in that sense, of course, the Common Commercial Policy serves also the broader objectives and, as you know, under the EU Treaty all external policies have to be in harmony and serve overall external policy

286

Interview #22. Interview #31. 288 Interview #9. 289 Interview #6. 290 Ibid. 291 Interview #8. 292 Interview #13. 293 Interview #34. 294 Interview #33. 287

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What this quote highlight is that, on a daily basis, trade policy and foreign and security policy each proceed according to distinct beliefs and rules for action that give rise to distinctive practices, which make it difficult to integrate specific concerns that stem from the respectively other policy fields into negotiations. While it is true that the EU has developed the practice to make the conclusion of trade agreements conditional upon the parallel signing of political agreements—or if that is not feasible, incorporate political clauses in the trade agreement itself—it is a wholly different thing to barter market access for foreign and security policy objectives. Indeed, none of the interviewed DG Trade officials recalled ever to have received instructions that would have linked the attainment of foreign and security policy objectives to the degree of market access offered to a third country, in the sense that the EU would offer to reduce its tariffs on a given product according to the other country’s willingness to align its position with the EU on a given foreign and security policy issue: “That’s a level of trade-off, a cross-policy that doesn’t exist”, one EEAS official attested.296 A trade official similarly explained that “there is no horse-trading taking place across pillars […] there are no linkages in that sense […] it’s not that you’re saying: ‘well, I want or I hold certain access to my procurement market and I want to obtain something else in the CFSP pillar.’ No! These are quite autonomous things.”297 Asked whether there are linkages between multilateral trade negotiations at the WTO and the EU’s foreign and security policy agenda, one EEAS official stated that there are “[a]bsolutely no hardball connections!”298 Another EEAS official puts it even more bluntly: “[W]e are light years away from that!”299 Yet another interviewed senior EEAS official even questioned whether the EU is able to provide the accurate political steering to WTO negotiations and contends that “the EU is a real superpower in terms of influence at the WTO […] but even there we are very strong in a silo”, explaining that the EU is hard-pressed to pass political messages to the chancelleries of third countries when their WTO representatives “misbehave”.300 This reinforces the impression that even in the realm of trade policy, the EU regularly lacks the necessary level of foreign and security policy backing, instead treating trade policy as a technical undertaking. If foreign and security policy considerations do not fundamentally affect the conduct of trade negotiations, as the interview results suggest, how do they influence EU trade policy? As highlighted in the previous section, the EU infers its global role from its economic power and seeks to establish a global presence through preferential trade agreements. That is, it uses the prospect of trade agreements and access to the single market as a bargaining chip to establish the EU as a foreign and security policy 295

Interview #35 (emphasis added). Interview #31. 297 Interview #12. 298 Interview #4. 299 Interview #16. 300 Interview #5. 296

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actor in its own right by making the conclusion of a trade agreement conditional upon the parallel signing of a political framework agreement, thus seeking to gradually build up the EU’s actorness in the realm of foreign and security policy, i.e. as an actor whose competence extends beyond economic affairs. A Commission official explained that, in the case of Australia and New Zealand as well as with other third countries, the EU uses the prospect of opening trade negotiations as a “hook for the foreign policy at EU level to attract the interest of our partners” and “to build the EU as a foreign policy actor.”301 Since “they were seeing the EU as an economic power only […] the only way to force or to convince our partners to negotiate these political clauses or agreement is through trade.”302 This could be qualified as the practice of employing trade policy instruments (e.g. FTAs) as a tool to build the EU as a foreign and security policy actor. However, the practice of using trade policy instruments as foreign and security policy tools lies also at the heart of tensions between trade policy and foreign and security policy. In this respect, the opening of trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand is also an example of the differences between DG Trade and the EEAS when it comes to the beliefs and rules for action about the role of the CCP in external action. Surprisingly, the interviews revealed that DG Trade had opposed the opening of negotiations on trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand. One trade official confided: “DG Trade was against opening negotiations with Australia and New Zealand. And this discussion between the EEAS and DG Trade had been going on for years and years. We tried to stop it, but as you can see we haven’t succeeded. There the EEAS has influenced us.”303 Asked why DG Trade opposed negotiating trade agreements with the two countries, the official replied: “[T]here is no economic interest! It’s a small market. We don’t have a huge economic interest. On the contrary, we have a lot of defensive interests—when you look at the agricultural sector. So, we did not want this!”304 Another Commission official concurred that “[f]rom the economic point of view, there is no interest; I mean, there is very, very little or almost no economic interests”, explaining that the opening of trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand was “a political decision because these are like-minded countries; we share the same values and we want to narrow and strengthen our bilateral relationship.”305 An EEAS official once entrusted with the file concluded that “foreign policy has prevailed over stricto sensu economic interests because from an economic point of view I don’t think that this is decisive for Europe to gain more market share [in Australia and New Zealand, J.S.]. But from a foreign policy perspective, it’s significant.”306 The incongruence between the practice of conducting trade policy according to economic criteria and the practice of using trade instruments as foreign and security policy tools is clearly visible here. 301

Interview #17. Interview #17. 303 Interview #8. 304 Interview #8. 305 Interview #17. 306 Interview #38. 302

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A similar fault line between DG Trade and the EEAS can be observed with regard to the stalled negotiation on a free trade agreement with India. Neither DG Trade nor the EEAS genuinely denied that an FTA with India would be economically beneficial to the EU. Likewise, neither EEAS nor DG Trade officials denied that India is also an important strategic partner and that a free trade agreement would be an instrument to strengthen EU-India relations overall. And yet DG Trade is advising against moving forward because India does not meet the benchmark for a “meaningful trade agreement”.307 One Commission official involved in the process explained: “DG Trade is totally opposed to re-launching the negotiations with India” whereas “at the political level, there is the feeling that India is increasingly an important partner for the EU and beyond market access and trade relations, this trade agreement is something that can reinforce this relationship, so it should be used.”308 And he concluded that “the decision to re-launch, to resume those negotiations will probably come from the political level against the advice of the DG [Trade, J.S.] and possibly also the commissioner.”309 Noteworthy, here, is the understanding that a trade agreement with India would be important ‘beyond market access and trade relations’, which points to the practice of using trade agreements as a diplomatic tool. An EEAS official elaborated in a similar fashion: India is one of the biggest growing economies. Is it in our interest to have the perfect trade agreement with them in 30 years, because it will take us that long to negotiate it? Or do we want to lower our standards of trade agreements a little but keep them in our reach? And there I would think DG Trade and the EEAS have a different interpretation. And we would look at this more as a geostrategic tool to keep them closer to us, rather than a pure question of having a gold-standard trade agreement.310

The interviewed trade officials, on the other hand, interpreted the negotiations from a very different vantage point, as the following account by a senior official working in DG Trade highlights: [W]e have been insisting that it makes no sense to resume those negotiations unless we get a sense from India that those difficult issues can be solved […] But there is some degree of political pressure from some member states and from the EEAS: ‘India is such an important country. It would be good to negotiate a trade agreement with them et cetera et cetera.’ And we have been very much resisting that on the argument that we should not really get into this unless we get some clear indication from India that on the difficult issues there is a way forward.311

Another DG Trade official almost identically explicated that “the level of ambition shown by India is simply too low; we cannot move forward on that basis”, specifying that “our main sectors would not gain from this agreement”, before adding that “the pressure comes from both the External Action Service and also from the Council to 307

Interview #6. Interview #15. 309 Ibid. 310 Interview #41. 311 Interview #6. 308

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push DG Trade to go forward.”312 Yet another trade official saw the negotiation as an example of a “conflict in terms of a more geopolitical interest of saying it’s important for us to have an agreement with India because it shows that we are engaging with one of the biggest countries in the world and one of the G20 developing countries et cetera. At the same time, this comes at a price, because it’s unlikely that we would be able to do an FTA with India that has the same level of ambition even like Vietnam.”313 The debate between DG Trade and the EEAS on the appropriate level of ambitiousness of the prospective EU-India free trade agreement comes in addition to India’s refusal to have political clauses included in the agreement, especially the clause on the non-proliferation of WMDs.314 This means that the EU is caught in a double quagmire. On the one hand, there is a strong foreign and security policy interest to forge closer relations with India, but from a trade perspective the Indian side is not making enough concessions, hence DG Trade’s opposition to resuming the negotiations. On the other hand, there is a strong economic interest to secure preferential access to the Indian market for EU exporters, but the EU’s practice of including political clauses in its trade agreements meets Indian resistance to have these included. A third example that illustrates the differences in beliefs and rules for action and therefore practices, between trade officials and EEAS officials, are the negotiations the EU has been conducting on a region-to-region free trade agreement with the four founding states of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur): Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The negotiations were first launched in 1999 and failed in 2004, relaunched in 2010 and suspended again in 2012, before being once more resumed in 2016. Several interviewed officials confirmed that DG Trade—and even more so DG AGRI315 —had opposed the foreign policy-based resumption of the negotiations.316 The principal sticking point was the level of market opening offered by Mercosur, deemed not ambitious enough by DG Trade. An EEAS official explained that for “political reasons” the EEAS wanted DG Trade to continue the negotiations despite insufficient concessions on the Mercosur side, whereas DG Trade advised against resuming the negotiations, a position that he characterised as reflecting the “straightjacket” of trade policy.317 In the eyes of a top trade official, “the EEAS would have liked for a long time to complete them, but the economic 312

Interview #8. Interview #26. 314 See Vinod K. Aggarwal and Kristi Govella (2013), Trade Linkages to Traditional and NonTraditional Security: Lessons and Prospects, in: Vinod K. Aggarwal and Kristi Govella (eds.), Linking Trade and Security: Evolving Institutions and Strategies in Asia, Europe, and the United States, New York: Springer, p. 238. 315 Agricultural policy and trade policy are in fact so closely linked that Olsen (2009), The Missing Link, pp. 345–346, speaks of a “trade cum agriculture policy sub-field”, in which trade policy is however the stronger component. 316 Interviews #9, #15, #17, #50. 317 Interview #4. 313

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stakes are simply too high.”318 Given that the negotiations were indeed resumed in 2016, DG Trade has seemingly not been able to impose its assessment and instead had to accept the prospect of a less ambitious agreement in pursuit of the foreign and security policy objective of forging, by means of a trade pact, closer relations with Latin America. What is interesting is that given the high tariff rates of Mercosur, a trade agreement would arguably, in any case, be beneficial to EU economic interests, even if the final agreement might not envisage the far-reaching liberalisation and level of regulatory convergence that DG Trade generally strives to achieve in trade agreements. But the foreign and security policy rationale seems to have prompted the EU to lower its ambition for a trade agreement: “[I]t’s so complicated—but it is so politically important to conclude—that we are ready to do a trade agreement ‘minus minus’, if I can qualify it like this”,319 a Commission official closely following the file remarked. An EEAS official warned of the diplomatic fallout in case the negotiations fail again: “[I]f we don’t conclude, we will have to manage politically the fact that we are not able to conclude—because this will create tensions.”320 The current debate over the ratification of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, whose negotiations were brought to a conclusion subsequent to the interviews, suggests that the EU did indeed have to lower its ambition and acquiesce to making significant concessions in terms of its defensive agricultural interests. The examples illustrate that incongruences between the distinctive practices of trade policy and foreign and security policy, in this case between, on the one hand, conducting trade negotiations and assessing their progress according to economic indicators and, on the other hand, using a trade agreement to enhance foreign and security policy influence and diplomatic presence in a particular country or region, have tangible effects on the conduct of EU external action. What has furthermore become clear is that the political influence is strongest at the start and end of trade negotiations, whereas the actual trade negotiating processes themselves largely follow commercial beliefs and rules for action. But a top-level political decision, either by the President of the Commission in consultation with the political leadership of the (biggest) member states or by the Council, may indeed override trade-specific technical reservations about starting or concluding trade negotiations.321 Hence, it seems that although DG Trade may be able to resist such pressures at services level (at the time of writing the negotiations on an EU-India FTA have still not been resumed), once a top-level political decision has been taken, it has to acquiesce and—as all interviewed officials widely attested—generally does. 318

Interview #36. Interview #17. 320 Interview #38. 321 Interview #9: “[W]e expect that the decision on whether or not to resume our negotiations with India will be based probably more on the stratospheric level of political decision making, at the president’s level, than on the fact that, you know, the working group on public procurement or on financial services has issued a negative recommendation because conditions are not there for a successful deal to be found very easily. So, the political or the strategic international affairs imperative, so to speak, imposes itself at a more general level, launching the process for example.” 319

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However, in contrast to conventional realist thinking, there is no general primacy of foreign and security policy in EU external action. Although even trade officials admitted that in principle “existential security threats trump everything”,322 the interviewees widely rejected the notion that all other interests are systematically subordinated to foreign and security policy considerations. Interestingly, the explanations given by the interviewed officials all referred to the lopsided relation between economic and foreign policy in the EU: “[W]e’re quite far away from assuming this primacy of security over everything else, also because we as an organisation have been built as an economic one first of all and security came afterwards.”323 Another EEAS similarly explained: “[C]ommercial policy existed before foreign policy and to a large degree it’s not a question of us integrating them into our toolbox. It’s us trying to get to a level where we are considered as a tool for the member states to the same degree [as trade policy, J.S.].”324 The fact that there is no foreign and security policy primacy in EU external action would accordingly be an emanation of the dominance of trade policy practices. The paradox of the trade-security nexus is the coexistence of ostensible discursive coherence with limited actual practical integration of the two policy fields.325 While the trade policy discourse and the foreign and security policy discourse, as visible in official documents, are remarkably coherent, the actual conduct of the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, respectively, follows their own distinctive practices. Hence they appear indeed to be “speaking the same language, be it in different worlds.”326 Or rather they are speaking the same language but are acting in different worlds. Indeed, the trade policy and foreign and security policy discourses merely paper over the incongruences between trade policy and foreign and security policy by largely omitting any mention of them. Instead, official discourse assumes both policies to be coherent and consistent with each other because they are both tasked to contribute to achieving the EU’s interests and values of external action. This assumption is based on the pax mercatoria theorem that more economic integration will quasi-automatically enhance security. The EU does indeed operate on the premise that, in the long run, more economic integration will automatically enhance peace and security. At the basis of this view lies the fundamental liberal belief that the integrating forces of the international economic system will give rise to a harmony of interests that will ultimately override the fragmentation of the international political system and its sources of political conflict. However, this is no law of nature-like rule. Rather it depends on how trade policy and foreign and security policy are practiced by those

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Interview #3. Interview #41. 324 Interview #28. 325 See Orbie, Driege and Bossuyt (2012), EU Trade Policy; Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together; Bossuyt, Orbie, Drieghe (2020), EU External Policy Coherence. See also Olsen (2009), who speaks of a “missing link” between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. 326 Orbie, Drieghe and Bossuyt (2012), EU Trade Policy, p. 17. 323

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states that are powerful and influential enough to alter, through their practices, the structure of the international system and, so to speak, the rules of the game.327 In a nutshell, EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy are two tracks that form part of an overall whole but there are surprisingly few direct linkages and in any event “[o]ne does not drive the other.”328 It is therefore not the long-term objectives of creating growth and ensuring security so much as the different beliefs and rules for action, and therefore practices, that may give rise to incoherence and inconsistency. The reason there are no or very few direct linkages is, I have argued, because of the existence of characteristic practices in each policy area. The distinctive practices that structure the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, respectively, exert conflicting pressures on EU external action as a whole, inasmuch as the beliefs and rules for action underlying the different practices are incongruous. The different beliefs that DG Trade and EEAS officials have been shown to hold about the role of trade policy in EU external action reflect these incongruences. Due to these conflicting pressures, the conduct of EU external action cannot be assumed to be coherent and consistent. As one official explained: “[T]hey continue running in parallel. So, while we have some kind of gateway coordination, it depends very much on the political moment, the personalities in charge of the different policies to make sure that both work together in good synchronisation. And still, we will find many cases where the one is not really subordinated to the other.”329 Another official likewise stated that “agendas have started to merge over the years, but there are not yet fully, let’s say, as compatible as they should be.”330 Other interviewees emphasised that, although increased coherence and consistency between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP is necessary, there are well-founded limits in a liberal market economy to using trade policy for non-trade objectives, and for this reason the EU will never have a trade policy and foreign and security policy which as in the case of China and Russia are “cast in the same mould”.331 This view neatly captures the notion that, in a liberal market economy like the EU, the practices of trade policy and foreign and security policy respectively follow different beliefs and rules for action.332 In a different politico-economic system, the beliefs and rules for action that structure trade policy and foreign and security policy may be less incongruous and thus allow for deeper integration of the two policy fields. There is hence no inherent ‘logic’ to trade policy or foreign and security policy, but rather temporally and spatially contingent practices, which enact certain beliefs and rules for action, which are in principle subject to change, about the proper conduct in either policy field.

327

This argument refers back to Gidden’s point about the duality of agency and structure. Interview #16. 329 Interview #17. 330 Interview #50. 331 Interview with Elmar Brok (26.09.2018). 332 As highlighted in the literature review, modern liberal economics goes back to the separation instigated by Adam Smith of political science and economic science into two distinct disciplines. 328

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2.5 Conclusion This chapter has examined the trade-security nexus in EU external action from four different dimensions, all of which relate to the practice approach. First, the different historical trajectories of European integration in the realms of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy have been outlined and the post-Lisbon developments critically analysed. In spite of the considerable institutional changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, the silo structure of the EU’s external relations bureaucracy has de facto not been overcome and the action space remains compartmentalised. The general assessment of the interviewed officials was that, although there has been a certain rapprochement between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP with the Juncker Commission, much of it has been the result of the political leadership of the respective services, not a becoming more alike of the two policy fields or a convergence of practices. It remains to be seen which direction developments will take under the Von der Leyen Commission. Prima facie evidence, in particular Ursula von der Leyen’s announcement that her Commission will be a geopolitical one, would suggest a greater subordination of trade policy under foreign and security policy. Second, the differences in bureaucratic culture and worldview between DG Trade and the EEAS have been brought to the fore. Whereas DG Trade looks back at a long institutional history and is characterised by a homogenous organisational culture, the EEAS was set up over 50 years later and has not (yet) developed a uniform institutional culture. Furthermore, the EEAS’ heterogeneous staff composition and its weaker legal-institutional power are hampering the emergence of a uniform institutional culture inside the EEAS. The interviewed officials showed themselves conscious of these differences, yet all entertained very specific roles conceptions of their own and the respectively other service and laid claim to being the exclusive provider of a certain kind of expertise, thus confirming logics of distinction between each other. Next, the main strategy documents of the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP have been scrutinised with regard to their covering of the trade-security nexus. While the documents contain a high level of conceptual coherence, this is largely because critical issues of possible incoherence and inconsistency between trade policy and foreign and security policy are, with few exceptions, disregarded. The conceptions of the interviewed officials about the role of trade policy in EU external action differed perceivably. Again, even though the grand contours were consistent, officials working in DG Trade and the EEAS respectively had different beliefs about the right and appropriate role of the CCP in EU external action. Trade officials acknowledged that trade policy also has to deliver on non-trade objectives, yet insisted that in the end trade policy must be conducted according to its own merits and objectives. EEAS officials, on the contrary, saw trade policy first and foremost as a foreign and security policy tool by means of which the EU can act as a global actor in its own right. Lastly, the practical interactions, as reported by the interviewed officials, between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the conduct of EU external action were

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examined. Here the trade officials explained that the bulk of political influencing takes place during the opening and closing of trade negotiations, while the actual negotiating process itself remains a purely commercial affair. The interviewed EEAS officials likewise explained that there is very little practical interaction between the two policies and that few levers of influence exist at services level to nudge DG Trade into changing its practices. Overall, this chapter has highlighted two conflicting trends: One of a more autonomous, self-standing and competitiveness-driven trade policy and one of a trade policy that increasingly has to deliver on foreign and security policy objectives. On the one hand, the long-standing absence of a genuinely ‘common’ foreign and security policy prompted the EU to pursue its interests in the realm of foreign and security policy by means over which it exerted exclusive or at least shared competence, i.e. trade, development cooperation and even competition policy.333 Therefore, the CCP “is increasingly also being used for broader strategic means; to use or to integrate our trade policy, which traditionally has been quite separate from other policy areas, in our overall strategic considerations how to deal with third countries.”334 The consequence of which is, in the words of a Commission official, that “the Common Commercial Policy has been pushed to contribute to foreign policy objectives—more than the other way round.”335 This seems to be the natural corollary of the differences in relative strength between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, in that EU trade policy has to compensate for the lack of a fully-fledged EU foreign and security policy. Conversely, since the CFSP/CSDP is a relatively weak policy, there is not that much it can contribute to the CCP. Given that quite often third countries’ interest to work with the EU is driven mainly by their desire to gain access to the EU single market, the EU links trade agreements with broader political framework agreements. This use of the CCP for non-trade objectives is also at very the core of the EU’s being characterised as a “conflicted trade power”.336 Some scholars have even called into doubt the enforceability of such non-trade provisions in EU trade agreements, suggesting instead that these merely serve a “declaratory diplomacy”.337 On the other hand, even if there is a trend towards greater convergence between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, there are also opposite tendencies at work. The stalemate at the WTO and the ensuing global spreading of preferential free trade agreements have prompted the EU to negotiate bilateral free trade agreements with a view to spurring growth and creating jobs in the EU. Indeed, the EU’s economic openness makes it dependent on international trade and investment; hence the belief that the CCP should be practiced according to economic criteria if the competitiveness and continued economic prosperity of the EU are to be ensured. This tendency, which has 333

On competition policy as an instrument of EU foreign policy, see Chad Damro (2001), Building an International Identity: The EU and Extraterritorial Competition Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, 8(2), pp. 208–226. 334 Interview #41. 335 Interview #17. 336 Meunier and Nicolaïdis (2006). 337 Orbie, Drieghe and Bossuyt (2012), EU Trade Policy, pp. 12–13.

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become increasingly dominant in EU trade policy since the publication of the Global Europe strategy in 2006 is at odds with the demand to incorporate an ever-growing number of foreign and security policy considerations into the conduct of EU trade policy. These two diverging trends make that EU trade policy is conflicted between a commercially-driven CCP, embodied by the Global Europe strategy, a values-driven CCP, incorporated by Trade for All, and a foreign and security policy-driven CCP, reflected in the EU Global Strategy. There is a limit to how far these different conceptions can be brought into harmonious interplay. The unresolved discrepancy between the conceptual and the operational levels bears testimony to the view that “the EU is a very eclectic player, often highly ambitious and normative in rhetoric, but […] has conflicting strategies and priorities”,338 and, indeed, practices. The argument advanced in this chapter is that the reason for the limited integration between the two policies is not a normative divergence between the objectives of prosperity and security that lies at the heart of this ‘conflictedness’ so much as an incongruence between the respective practices that structure the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP. DG Trade is a more autonomous actor that has developed and honed a set of practices over decades, which are not easily integrated into a larger foreign and security policy strategy because they respond to a very particular way of policymaking.339 The CCP is a highly technical and differentiated policy field and trade officials have a very precise understanding of what a competent performance in the realm of trade policy should look like. The EEAS, by contrast, is a much more heterogeneous and less autonomous actor. The weaker legal-institutional position of the CFSP/CSDP restricts the action space for EEAS officials and as a consequence makes that the foreign and security policy practices do not have the same thrust as those of the CCP. Adopting a practice approach has made it possible to unearth these divergences. The following two chapters will use the insights into the trade-security nexus gained in this chapter to examine the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy a) in the EU’s approach to Ukraine in the run-up to the crisis and against the background of Russia’s increasingly assertive stance as well as b) in the EU’s relations with the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian States against the background of China’s rise.

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European Commission (2014), A Global Actor in Search of a Strategy, p. 44. See also Bossuyt, Drieghe and Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together, p. 65: “As the oldest, most integrated and most powerful external policy domain of the EU, trade policy has acquired a high degree of institutional autonomy, operates according to its own logic and standard procedures and has a distinct organizational esprit de corps. This inhibits the integration of the EU’s trade policy into the more comprehensive security portfolio.”

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Chapter 3

The EU Trade-Security Nexus and the Ukraine Crisis

Ukraine and the five other countries of the Eastern Partnership form a region where the EU has both trade policy as well as foreign and security policy interests. Precisely how the EU has defined and pursued its interests in the realms of trade policy as well as foreign and security policy, respectively, and how the two relate to each other will be the subject of this chapter. The Ukraine crisis “occurred at the intersection of geoeconomics and geopolitics”1 and is therefore ideally suited as a case in point to foreground and analyse the interactions between trade policy practices and foreign and security policy practices in EU external action. There is no lack of superlatives to characterise the order of magnitude of the crisis triggered by the events in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in the winter of 2013/2014. The most common point of comparison is the end of the Cold War. Roy Allison, for instance, calls the Ukraine crisis “a challenge […] for the wider European security order of a greater magnitude than anything since the end of the Cold War” and “a frontal challenge to the post-Cold War European regional order.”2 Sten Rynning sees “a crisis of proportions Europe has not experienced since the fall of the Berlin wall”,3 and Jeffrey Mankoff argues that the Ukraine crisis “plunged Europe into one of its gravest crises since the end of the Cold War.”4 Neil MacFarlane and Anand Menon similarly qualify it as “the most significant security crisis in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”5 Others have gone as far as calling it “Europe’s worst crisis since World War II”6 or have even compared it to events on the eve 1

Lawrence Freedman (2014), Ukraine and the Art of Crisis Management, Survival, 56(3), p. 8. Roy Allison (2014), Russian ‘Deniable’ Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules, International Affairs, 90(6), p. 1255. 3 Sten Rynning (2015), The False Promise of Continental Concert: Russia, the West and Necessary Balance of Power, International Affairs, 91(3), p. 551. 4 Jeffrey Mankoff (2014), Russia’s Latest Land Grab: How Putin Won Crimea and Lost Ukraine, Foreign Affairs, 93(3), p. 60. 5 Neil MacFarlane and Anand Menon (2014), The EU and Ukraine, Survival, 56(3), p. 95. 6 Taras Kuzio (2017), Ukraine between a Constrained EU and Assertive Russia, Journal of Common Market Studies, 55(1), p. 103. 2

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of World War I.7 While the latter two descriptions are arguably exaggerated, the Ukraine crisis has undoubtedly marked a “turning point in the evolution of European security governance.”8 The events in Ukraine have been attributed a “game-changing significance”, heralding “the return of ‘great power rivalry’.”9 Some of the earliest interpretations of the Ukraine crisis came from the realist school of thought and represent a rather straightforward application of realist theory to explain the developments that triggered the crisis in Ukraine.10 The essence of these arguments is that the Ukraine crisis is the result of a competition between the EU, or the West more generally, and Russia over security policy preferences in the countries that lie between the EU’s eastern external border and Russia. Nicolas Ross Smith, for instance, argues that the EU and Russia “both had very similar, yet mutually exclusive, security aims in Ukraine.”11 And while subsuming the Ukraine crisis under a textbook version of realism might not capture the complex amalgamation of contributing factors, it does have the added value of drawing attention to an aspect that seems to have been lost in many analyses of EU external action: power and the balance of power in Europe. Another strand of research had long before the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis interpreted the rise in tensions between the EU and Russia as the result of a normative gap, a clash of differing value systems or cultural differences, which “make the occurrence of conflicts inevitable and therefore unpuzzling.”12 Several scholars have emphasised the “essential incompatibility of wider value systems”13 pitting the EU and Russia against each other, with events in Ukraine being the “culmination of a long-term crisis”.14 It is noteworthy that Sergei Prozorov, writing in 2006, deemed 7

See James Sherr (2015), A War of Narratives and Arms, in: Keir Giles, Philip Hanson, Roderic Lyne, James Nixey, James Sherr and Andrew Wood (eds.), The Russian Challenge, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, p. 23. 8 Derek Averre (2016), The Ukraine Conflict: Russia’s Challenge to European Security Governance, Europe-Asia Studies, 68(4), p. 699. 9 Richard Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis: The Geopolitics of Asymmetry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 41. See also Dmitri Trenin (2014), The Ukraine Crisis and the Resumption of Great Power Rivalry, Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 10 See, for example, John J. Mearsheimer (2014), Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin, Foreign Affairs, 93(5), pp. 77–89; Stephen M. Walt (2014), The Perils of an Itchy Twitter Finger, Foreign Policy, 21 July. 11 Nicholas Ross Smith (2017), EU-Russian Relations and the Ukraine Crisis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 126. 12 Sergei Prozorov (2006), Understanding Conflict between Russia and the EU: The Limits of Integration, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 14. 13 Hiski Haukkala (2010), The EU-Russia Strategic Partnership: The Limits of Post-Sovereignty in International Relations, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 2. See also James Greene (2012), Russian Responses to NATO and EU Enlargement and Outreach, Chatham House Briefing Paper, June 2012, pp. 18: “This is a direct challenge to the EU […] underlining a conflict of divergent identities, values and politico-economic systems.” 14 Hiski Haukkala (2015), From Cooperative to Contested Europe? The Conflict in Ukraine as a Culmination of a Long-Term Crisis in EU-Russia Relations, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23(1), p. 33.

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it necessary to justify writing a book about the conflict in EU-Russian relations, which at the time of his writing the book appeared to be an unlikely scenario. He speaks of a “permanent presence of conflictual dispositions”, which call into question the notion of an ever-closer EU-Russia strategic partnership.15 Scott N. Romaniuk demonstrates how, despite a presumed commonality of interests, EU-Russian relations have become increasingly fraught due to the different nature and norms of the two entities, contrasting “Russia as a self-interested modern state” with “the EU as a post-modern actor.”16 Similarly, Graham Timmins sees a difference between a “post-Westphalian” EU and a “realist” Russia.17 Michael Emerson et al. underscore a “clash of paradigms” where Russia views itself as “the categorical opposite of the modern (or post-modern) Europe of the European Union.”18 Michael Leigh even sees a “civilizational struggle”.19 The gist of such normative arguments is that it is not conflicting interests so much as conflicting norms that have given rise to tensions in EU-Russian relations, with Ukraine having become the “normative battleground”.20 Other scholars, by contrast, have rejected such dichotomous approaches that paint the EU as the normative actor whereas Russia is the realist power. Tom Casier challenges the existence of a strong dichotomy, emphasising that even as the EU promotes norms it may actually do so for interest-driven purposes.21 In a similar vein, Derek Averre argues that “it is simplistic to talk of a benign, normative power Europe in relentless competition with a malign Russian ‘sphere of influence’.”22 Instead, he contends that it is elements of both normative and structural power in the relations of either actor to its neighbours that stand in tension.23 A third and related strand of scholarship sees in the Ukraine crisis a clash of competing region building projects. Kristi Raik advances that the Ukraine crisis is the result of two colliding and incompatible visions of European order, playing out along three dimensions—politics, economics and security—as part of “a deeper contest 15

Prozorov (2006), Understanding Conflict between Russia and the EU, p. 5. Scott Nicholas Romaniuk (2009), Rethinking EU-Russian Relations: ‘Modern’ Cooperation’ or ‘Post-Modern’ Strategic Partnership?, Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, 3(2), p. 71. 17 Graham Timmins (2002), Strategic or Pragmatic Partnership? The European Union’s Policy Towards Russia Since the End of the Cold War, European Security, 11(4), pp. 78–79. 18 Michael Emerson et al. (2009), Synergies vs. Spheres of Influence in the Pan-European Space, Report prepared for the Policy Planning Staff of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, pp. 13–14. 19 Michael Leigh (2014), The European Neighbourhood Policy: A Suitable Case for Treatment, in: Sieglinde Gstöhl and Erwan Lannon (eds.), The Neighbours of the European Union’s Neighbours: Diplomatic and Geopolitical Dimensions Beyond the European Neighbourhood Policy, Farnham: Ashgate, p. 205. 20 Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk (2012), Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union and the EU: Cooperation, Stagnation or Rivalry?, Chatham House Briefing Paper, August, p. 1. 21 See Tom Casier (2013), The EU-Russia Strategic Partnership: Challenging the Normative Argument, Europe-Asia Studies, 65(7), pp. 1377–1395. 22 Derek Averre (2009), Competing Rationalities: Russia, the EU and the ‘Shared Neighbourhood’, Europe-Asia Studies, 61(10), p. 1708. 23 See ibid., p. 1691. 16

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over the rules of the game” whereby the security issues are the result of disagreements over of the political and economic order.24 For David Cadier, the Ukraine crisis was at its origins a “rivalry between two economic integration regimes [that] led to an escalation in coercive diplomacy, political revolution, military intervention and territorial seizure.”25 The ‘competing region building’ literature seizes a decisive issue at its core, to wit the mutual incompatibility between the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) and the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union, which effectively forced Ukraine to choose between either integration initiative, even though the EU and Russia each blame the other side for forcing that choice upon Ukraine. Others highlight that, while tactics and mechanisms differ, Brussels and Moscow have both sought to extend their own model of governance to the countries situated in-between them, prompting a clash of their conflicting models of regional governance.26 The existing literature on the Ukraine crisis does, however, not offer a systematic analysis of the interplay between trade policy and foreign and security policy. This case study seeks to redress this shortcoming with regard to the EU and through the prism of practice theory. The objective of this chapter is to reconstruct how the distinctive practices that structure EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy respectively have shaped the EU’s conduct in the run-up to the crisis. Which consistencies and inconsistencies between EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy do these practices reflect? How did the EU define its trade policy interests as well as foreign and security policy interests towards Ukraine in the context of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and against the background of Russia’s increasingly assertive policy in the post-Soviet space and vis-à-vis Ukraine in particular? Which policy instruments did the EU opt for and how did it apply them in the pursuit of these interests? The timeframe that will be taken into account covers the period from 2004, the launch of the ENP, until 2016 when the DCFTA between the EU and Ukraine provisionally entered into force. While some aspects of Ukraine’s and Russia’s perspectives will be taken into account to the extent necessary for the purposes of this chapter, the focus of this chapter is on the EU, not on Russia or on Ukraine. Hence the analysis will take an EU-centric inside-out perspective limited to the realms of trade policy as well as foreign and security policy. It is not the ambition of this chapter to provide a comprehensive analysis of the factors that lead to the Ukraine crisis, but rather to use it as a foil to study the interplay between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action and make a qualified assessment of the contribution of the two policies to the crisis, bearing in mind that the crisis was as much about trade and 24

Kristi Raik (2019), The Ukraine Crisis as a Conflict over Europe’s Political, Economic and Security Order, Geopolitics, 24(1), pp. 57, 65. 25 David Cadier (2014), Eastern Partnership vs Eurasian Union? The EU-Russia Competition in the Shared Neighbourhood and the Ukraine Crisis, Global Policy, 5(1), p. 77. 26 See Averre (2009), Competing Rationalities, pp. 1696–1697; Elena A. Korosteleva (2016), The EU, Russia and the Eastern Region: The Analytics of Government for Sustainable Cohabitation, Cooperation and Conflict, 51(3), pp. 365–383. See also Freedman (2014), Crisis Management, p. 28: “[T]he heart of the issues was the political economy of Ukraine.”

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security as it was about domestic factors in Ukraine, Russia and, indeed, the EU.27 Although Russia manifestly violated fundamental norms and rules of international law, the purpose of this chapter is not to render value judgements on the actions of Russia and the EU respectively, but to analyse them through the prism of the trade-security nexus. Therefore, the chapter does not assess the normative value of the EU’s and Russia’s approaches respectively, i.e. whether the EU’s and Russia’s approaches are inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. The analysis starts with a thorough examination, based on the interview material, official documents and secondary sources, of EU trade policy as well as foreign and security policy interests in Ukraine and the wider EaP. Taking advantage of the insights of practice theory and the previous chapter, I will then analyse the interactions between EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy in the run-up to the Ukraine crisis.

3.1 EU Trade Interests Towards Ukraine In 2004, the year of the launch of the ENP, Ukraine accounted for EUR 10.6 bn or 1.1% of total extra EU exports, making it the EU’s 22nd largest export partner.28 In the same year, the EU imported goods worth EUR 8.5 bn from Ukraine, which made the country the 24th largest EU import partner accounting for 0.8% of total EU imports. The total volume of trade reached EUR 19.1 bn.29 EU-Ukraine trade by volume attained a peak in 2008 of EUR 39.8 bn with Ukraine receiving 1.9% (EUR 25.2 bn) of all EU exports and accounting for 0.9% (EUR 14.6 bn) of all EU imports. Trade between the EU and Ukraine almost halved to a total volume of EUR 21.9 bn the following year due to the global financial crisis. In 2012 and 2013, the two years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, bilateral trade had almost reached pre-financial crisis levels again with a volume of EUR 38.5 bn and EUR 37.8 bn respectively; Ukraine accounted for 1.4% of EU exports and 0.8% of EU imports in both years. Trade then slumped again in the face of conflict in Ukraine and with EUR 26.9 bn in 2015 hit its lowest point since the global financial crisis. With the entry into force of the DCFTA in 2016 EU-Ukraine trade picked up again to reach its all-time high of EUR 40.2 bn in 2018. In terms of relative importance compared to other EU trade partners, Ukraine’s position has barely shifted; in 2018, the country’s share of EU total exports stands at 1.1% (EUR 22.1 bn) and its share of total EU imports is 0.9% (EUR 18.0 bn). This makes Ukraine the 20th largest destination of EU exports in 2018, just behind Morocco but before Taiwan and Israel. And it is in 27

For an account of the Ukrainian perspective, see Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia: The Integration Challenge, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 28 All data are sourced from Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/home. 29 As a comparison, the EU’s five biggest trading partners by volume in 2004 were the United States (EUR 395.0 bn), China excluding Hong Kong (EUR 177.6 bn), Switzerland (EUR 137.4 bn), Russia (EUR 131.0 bn) and Japan (EUR 118.4 bn).

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23rd place for EU imports, before Bangladesh and Libya and behind Algeria and Kazakhstan. The interview data are somewhat imprecise on the trade interest Ukraine represents for the EU. Some officials called the 1.1% of EU exports that go to Ukraine “peanuts”,30 whereas others underscored that although it is small it is “not negligible” and represents an “untapped potential”,31 or even stressed that “the size of the market is very important and it is not by accident that this whole process started with Ukraine.”32 Yet others emphasised that regardless of market size the EU always wants to promote EU exports.33 Still, others pointed out that the DCFTA was predominantly about creating the appropriate regulatory framework in Ukraine so as to facilitate market entry for EU exporters and investors to the Ukrainian economy.34 This latter view closely resembles the way the DCFTA with Ukraine is presented in official EU documents: The DCFTA offers Ukraine a framework for modernising its trade relations and for economic development by the opening of markets via the progressive removal of customs tariffs and quotas and by an extensive harmonisation of laws, norms and regulations in various traderelated sectors. This will create the conditions for aligning key sectors of the Ukrainian economy to EU standards.35

Accordingly, in addition to the incremental removal of tariff barriers and quotas, the EU above all seeks to shape the market structure of Ukraine in order to make it more accommodating to EU businesses, thereby facilitating market entry and direct investment.36 To this end, the DCFTA aims to gradually reduce and ultimately do away with non-tariff barriers to trade, by having Ukraine adopt EU technical norms and standards for industrial goods, sanitary and phytosanitary standards for agricultural products, rules for competition, public procurement, geographical indications and intellectual property rights as well as enhancing customs cooperation. The use of trade agreements to incentivise third countries to adopt EU standards with a view to aligning their economy to the rules of the EU single market reflects the aforementioned practice of structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations. Given that nowadays the most important obstacles to international trade come in the 30

Interview #37. Interview #39. 32 Interview #36. Also interview #10: “it is an important, it’s a big country. I mean we’re talking about 40–45 million inhabitants. It’s quite a large market, by far the largest in the Eastern Partnership region. And, I mean, offensively, of course, it is a market which is quite developed—if you compare also to other partners—where there are prospects for our exporters to take, to use the opportunities on that market.” 33 Interview #13. 34 Interview #11. 35 http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/delegations/ukraine/eu_ukraine/political_relations/index_en.htm [06.04.2018, emphasis added]. 36 See David Cadier (2019), The Geopoliticisation of the EU’s Eastern Partnership, Geopolitics, 24(1), p. 79: “The will to shape domestic markets towards the approximation of EU norms and standards partly reflects a desire to make them more amenable for EU businesses; thus the EaP does entail an offensive component in that sense, but a geo-economic one.” 31

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form of non-tariff barriers, i.e. rules and regulations, which the EU seeks to reduce, it is a practice that shapes the EU approach to virtually all of its trade negotiations with third countries—and the negotiations on the DCFTA with Ukraine were no exception in this regard. Indeed, the attributes ‘deep’ and ‘comprehensive’ refer to the ‘extensive harmonisation of laws, norms and regulations in various trade-related sectors’. Not only does the DCFTA with Ukraine go beyond a traditional free trade agreement, i.e. a tariff-only agreement, but it is also more far reaching in terms of market liberalisation than the DCFTAs negotiated with Georgia and Moldova.37 Indeed, according to the then president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, it is the most far-reaching agreement the EU had thus far offered to a non-member state.38 In the words of a trade official, the DCFTA is in essence an extension of the EU single market in such a way that “you effectively seize a market area with your own rules”,39 thus allowing Brussels extensive influence over Ukraine’s economic policy. Even so, the interviewees all confirmed that the principal rationale for the EU behind the DCFTA as an integral part of the Association Agreement (AA) “was clearly because of political interests rather than trade interests.”40 An official with experience in both DG Trade and the EEAS declared that the DCFTA with Ukraine was “obviously driven by political considerations, not by trade considerations.”41 Another EEAS official similarly stated that “Ukraine is extremely important in political terms, but in economic terms, it’s not so important for the EU.”42 It is noteworthy that the interviewed officials believe that it is evident—underscored by their use of adverbs such as ‘clearly’ and ‘obviously’—that the DCFTA with Ukraine is first and foremost a foreign and security policy undertaking. Consequently, given the relatively small trade volume between the EU and Ukraine, the DCFTA was never seen as a priority inside DG Trade, sector-specific economic interests notwithstanding.43 Rather, DG Trade was engaged in the negotiations as part of a broader foreign and security policy strategy towards Ukraine. A senior trade official elaborated: There was never a huge degree of enthusiasm from [DG] Trade, but we understood that for foreign policy reasons that’s something that we should probably do. [...] This was an example of us engaging in a trade negotiation for fundamentally foreign policy more than trade reasons.44

37

Interview #10. See European Council (2013), Remarks by President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy at the Press Conference of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, PRESSE 526, Vilnius, 29 November. 39 Interview #20. 40 Interview #25. 41 Interview #18. 42 Interview #37. 43 Interview #39. 44 Interview #6. Also interview #12: “Ukraine is still a very good example of an agreement that was done for broadly mostly political reasons.” 38

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Both DG Trade and EEAS officials concurred that while the EU did have some offensive and defensive (especially agricultural) economic interests vis-à-vis Ukraine, which it pursued and defended in the negotiations, the main rationale for the AA/DCFTA was foreign and security policy and the DCFTA part was used as an incentive for Ukraine to implement the necessary reforms that would align the country politically and economically with the EU. In this regard, trade policy merely assumed a “supporting role” in the EU’s approach towards Ukraine and, more generally, the EaP45 ; an approach that reflects the EU’s practice of using trade policy instruments for foreign and security policy objectives, which brings with it different beliefs and rules for action compared with a purely commercially-driven trade policy, as highlighted in the previous chapter. This practice is part necessity, part conviction. A necessity because the EU historically lacks a supranational foreign and security policy and consequently has frequently had recourse to the CCP as a vehicle for pursuing its foreign and security policy interests. A conviction because it reflects the EU’s own history of overcoming conflict through economic integration and the belief that international commerce will be conducive to peace. Therefore, it qualifies as a practice in that it represents a repeated and patterned way of both understanding international relations and acting in the sphere of international relations, premised on the principled belief that trade policy can transcend conflictual dynamics in international relations. In sum, despite the fact that, contrary to the other countries of the EaP, Ukraine offered some, albeit limited, economic interests for the EU, overall the DCFTA was concluded for foreign and security policy considerations rather than trade and economic interests. If the DCFTA with Ukraine was pursued primarily for foreign and security policy interests as part of the Association Agreement, then the question is: What are the EU’s foreign and security policy interests with regard to Ukraine and the wider EaP?

3.2 EU Foreign and Security Policy Interests Vis-À-Vis Ukraine In order to find an answer to this question the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) and its call for a “ring of well governed countries” is a useful starting point.46 The so-called ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004 has moved the EU’s external border further towards the east to a region that was perceived to be politically and economically unstable, thus confronting the EU with the challenge of having to deal with potential security threats, such as armed conflict, terrorism and organised crime as well as political and economic instability, emanating from the new neighbouring countries.47 What is more, unstable and volatile states in the EU’s neighbourhood were thought 45

Interview #43. See European Council (2003), European Security Strategy, p. 8. 47 See Leigh (2014), European Neighbourhood Policy, p. 204. 46

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to be more vulnerable to Russian pressure and influence.48 Whereas in the case of the EU enlargement candidates, accession itself is considered the remedy to this security concern, membership is not on offer for all those countries that form part of the so-called European neighbourhood. The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and by the same token its Eastern leg, the Eastern Partnership (EaP), are the response to this “integration-security dilemma”, to wit the challenge of promoting stability and security in the post2004 neighbourhood without offering a membership perspective to the countries in question.49 The ENP/EaP are supposed “to realise the objectives of the European Security Strategy”,50 by seeking “to develop a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood—a ‘ring of friends’—with whom the EU enjoys close, peaceful and cooperative relations.”51 That the ENP/EaP is driven by an overarching foreign and security policy interest also shined through in different interviews, as, for instance, in the following comment: “The geostrategic interest for us is to stabilise this region, which is potentially a region where you have wars.”52 The reference to ‘wars’ indicates less a concern about a threat of invasion against an EU member state, which at the time was deemed to be low,53 rather than a worry about potential security spill-overs from instability and armed conflict in the neighbourhood. Stabilising the EU neighbourhood has therefore arguably been one of the most if not the most important foreign and security policy challenge for the EU since the break-up of the Soviet Bloc. How the EU has approached the objective of a stable neighbourhood, i.e. by which means the EU has been trying to foster a stable neighbourhood, is emblematic of the practice of seeking to foster stability and security through trade policy instruments. The concept of the ‘ring of well governed countries’ is suggestive of a particular vision of political, economic and security order that the EU wants to promote in its neighbourhood, whereby the EU constitutes itself as the 48

See ibid. See Christopher S. Browning and Pertti Joenniemi (2008), Geostrategies of the European Neighbourhood Policy, European Journal of International Relations, 14(3), pp. 520, 524. See also European Council (2003), European Security Strategy, p. 8: “The integration of acceding states increases our security but also brings the EU closer to troubled areas.” 50 European Commission (2004), European Neighbourhood Policy, COM(2004) 373 final, Brussels, 12 May, p. 2. 51 European Commission (2003), Wider Europe—Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours, COM(2003) 104 final, Brussels, 11 March, p. 4. 52 Interview #13. Also interview #18: “It’s a mix of trying to have societies which are resilient, which are democratic, which are stable, which means economic development, which means rules of law, which means stability, which means a society which is as little divided as possible, which means avoiding state grabbing by some, which generates frustration by others—that kind of things. And then there is the general idea that the EU interests in terms of security is to have a stable environment, because [an] unstable environment means wars, can lead to migration crises, can lead to refugee problems, can lead to mafia because if there is no solid state or democratic state or rule of law, there is mafia, there is organized crime, there is all these things which in one way or another end up here.” 53 This assessment has arguably changed since the Russian annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, after which many EU member states have re-focused on territorial defence. 49

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core surrounded by a group of states. These states are neither prospective insiders, as EU membership is not offered, nor are they full outsiders, as the EU seeks to incorporate them firmly into a hub-and-spoke system of governance with a view to “gaining ‘political and economic control over the unstable and impoverished Eastern part of the continent’ in order to safeguard the Union from the various security issues it faces.”54 In other words, the ENP/EaP states serve as a protective belt to the east of the EU and around the Mediterranean in order to inoculate the EU’s borderlands against conflicts and instability associated with the world that lies beyond this ring of EU-leaning states. Some scholars have argued that the ‘ring of friends’ is “tantamount to creating a buffer zone of sorts.”55 The interviewees, by contrast, dismissed the notion that the EU was seeking to establish a ‘buffer zone’ or a ‘zone of influence’ in its neighbourhood. The terms ‘buffer zone’ and ‘zone of influence’ have a decided realist connotation to them, which is probably why the interviewed officials rejected them as a characterisation of EU policy in the ENP/EaP, given that the EU as a project is informed by liberalist ideas about norms-based cooperation, which is in many regards the antithesis to realist conceptions of international politics. On the other hand, the EU doubtlessly seeks to wield considerable normative and interest-based influence over the political and economic orientation of the ENP/EaP states in order to address a security concern. To capture this, the more neutral term of a ‘protective belt’, which comes with less baggage, is preferred here. For the ENP/EaP states to serve as a protective belt, they need to be relatively stable and prosperous so as not to become a source of instability themselves. The principal vehicle through which the EU has intended to achieve this is trade policy. In the words of an EEAS official, who relayed the dominant view inside the EU institutions, “[s]ecurity is best guaranteed by having prosperous neighbouring countries”, an objective trade policy can “contribute” to.56 Another EEAS official likewise explained that “[t]he Eastern Partnership, in the first place, for the EU is a political undertaking and the trade part is a tool to achieve our political priorities,” before 54

Smith (2017), EU-Russian Relations and the Ukraine Crisis, p. 112. For in-quote citation, see Jan Zielonka (2008), Europe as a Global Actor: Empire by Example?, International Affairs, 84(3), p. 476. On the geopolitical vision underlying the ENP, see Christopher Browning (2018), The Construction and Deconstruction of the EU’s Neighbourhood, in: Tobias Schumacher andreas Marchetti and Thomas Demmelhuber (eds.), The Routledge Handbook on the European Neighbourhood Policy, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 119–129. See also Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis, p. 59: “The EU would work to reform the economic and governance structures of eastern partners; this was assumed to be synonymous with the latter drawing closer and embedding themselves within an EU-centred security community.” 55 Raffaella A. Del Sarto (2016), Normative Empire Europe: The European Union, its Borderlands and the ‘Arab Spring’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 54(2), p. 221. See also Raffaella A. Del Sarto and Tobias Schumacher (2005), From EMP to ENP: What’s at Stake with the European Neighbourhood Policy towards the Southern Mediterranean?, European Foreign Affairs Review, 10(1), p. 19; Steve Marsh and Wyn Rees (2011), The European Union in the Security of Europe: From Cold War to Terror War, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 87; Iain Ferguson (2018), Between New Spheres of Influence: Ukraine’s Geopolitical Misfortune, Geopolitics, 31(2), pp. 285–306. 56 Interview #37.

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adding that “it was meant to be a comprehensive package to bring our neighbours closer to us, both in political terms and also in trade terms and also to open up, of course, our market for their products.”57 These statements point to the practice of promoting security through trade, which is premised on the belief that increasing economic exchanges through a reduction in tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade will also indirectly promote security and stability. In the case of the DCFTA with Ukraine, offering Ukraine preferential access to the EU single market in exchange for wideranging and profound political and economic reforms was believed to stabilise and modernise the Ukrainian economy, thereby inducing a similar effect on Ukraine’s political system, which in turn was thought to enhance the stability and security of the wider Eastern neighbourhood.58 Consequently, structuring the Ukrainian economy, and by the same token those of the other EaP states, according to EU rules and regulations does not simply serve an economic interest, which is anyways low given the relatively small trade volume. Rather, it aims at incorporating the EaP states into the EU’s system of political and economic governance to the point where they share everything but institutions with the EU, so that, in the words of an official, who in different responsibilities dealt with the EaP countries for many years, they “end up looking like us, end up being a little mini EU.”59 The rationale for an ever-closer alignment is simple: the closer the political and economic systems of the EaP states resemble the EU’s, the more naturally EU-leaning they will be and the easier it is to cooperate with them on a host of issues of interest to the EU. As it were, the EU has been trying to replicate its own “founding myth”60 in its neighbourhood: fostering security and stability through economic and political integration.61

3.2.1 Ukraine as the Key State in the EaP Although EU-Ukrainian relations pre-date the ENP/EaP and in fact go back to the early 1990s, the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine ought to be seen within the context of the neighbourhood initiative, under which it was eventually subsumed, much to the disappointment of the Ukrainian government.62 Due to its being the largest and most-populous country in the EaP—with 42 million inhabitants Ukraine’s population is larger than all other countries combined—as well as accounting for over half 57

Interview #25. See European Commission (2004), European Neighbourhood Policy, p. 5: “The European Neighbourhood Policy’s vision involves a ring of countries, sharing the EU’s fundamental values and objectives, drawn into an increasingly close relationship, going beyond co-operation to involve a significant measure of economic and political integration. This will bring enormous gains to all involved in terms of increased stability, security and well being.” 59 Interview #22. 60 Schimmelfennig (2001), The Community Trap, p. 66. 61 See Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis, pp. 63–64: “[T]he EU focused mainly on reproducing itself in quasi-technocratic fashion on its own periphery.” 62 See Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 45. 58

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of the regions combined GDP, Ukraine has been called “the linchpin state for the whole Eastern neighbourhood.”63 It is Ukraine, Nicu Popescu and Andrew Wilson predicted already in 2009, “where the biggest problems will accumulate and from where the biggest shockwaves may emanate.”64 For the EU, Ukraine is indeed the most important country for the success of the entire EaP initiative.65 Without Ukraine, the EaP would not have made much sense, an official acknowledged.66 What is more, Ukraine is perceived as an “essential swing state”, that is if the EU succeeds in inducing political and economic reforms in Ukraine, then it can help bring about similar reforms in the other EaP states, too.67 Besides, there was the belief that successful political and economic reform in Ukraine could also give rise to similar reform efforts in Russia.68 In terms of foreign and security policy, the overarching objective, in line with the general goals of the ENP/EaP, has been to induce reforms that would transform Ukraine into a stable, democratic, liberal market economy, which respects fundamental European norms and values, such as human rights, the rule of law, free and fair elections, without however becoming a member state in the foreseeable future.69 Through the adoption of large parts of the acquis communautaire, Ukraine is to approximate EU legislation, norms and standards, thus aligning itself politically and economically with the EU and becoming a more predictable and reliable partner.70 Even though the EU relies mostly on economic incentives and its sheer power of attraction, Brussels has nevertheless used its economic prowess relative to Ukraine and the other EaP countries in the pursuit of its foreign and security policy as well as economic interests,71 albeit with limited success as far as attaining these goals is

63

Nicu Popescu and Andrew Wilson (2009), The Limits of Enlargement-Lite: European and Russian Power in the Troubled Neighbourhood, London: European Council on Foreign Relations, p. 21. 64 Ibid., p. 18. 65 Interview #25: “Ukraine was always and is still the main element of the Eastern Partnership. Of course, we respect all of our neighbours, but the South Caucus for example is farther away from us than Ukraine and Ukraine of course is the biggest country. So, yes, it is the most important country we have in the Eastern Partnership. And also some of the actions of Russia towards other partners can be explained by Russian interests in Ukraine.” 66 Interview #47. 67 Interview #22: “Ukraine is an essential swing state. If Ukraine goes one way, you know, it would be disastrous for our stability. If it goes the other way, it would be fantastic for Europe.” 68 Interview #22. See also The Economist (2016), A Hollow Superpower, 19 March: “If Ukraine can become a successful European state, it will show Russians that they have a path to liberal democracy.” 69 See EU-Ukraine Cooperation Council (2009), EU-Ukraine Association Agenda, UE-UA 1056/2/09 REV 2, Brussels, 23 November. See also EU-Ukraine Cooperation Council (2005), EU-Ukraine Action Plan, Brussels, 21 February. 70 See Smith (2017), EU-Russian Relations, pp. 112–114. 71 See Del Sarto and Schumacher (2005), From EMP to ENP, pp. 27–28. See also Smith (2017), EU-Russian Relations, p. 57: “[T]he EU used its attractiveness as a trade partner with Ukraine to pursue broader strategic foreign policy goals.”

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concerned.72 Realist scholars, moreover, argue that the EU also took advantage of its “relative economic power advantage” over Russia to pursue its foreign and security policy goals in Ukraine.73 While the term ‘relative economic power advantage’ is steeped in realist thinking, the interviewed officials did indeed show themselves convinced that the EU had a more attractive offer to make to Ukraine than Russia both in economic and political terms. The Association Agreement also includes specific provisions on foreign and security policy as well as defence cooperation. Article 4 envisages the “gradual convergence on foreign and security matters with the aim of Ukraine’s ever-deeper involvement in the European security area.” Article 7 moreover opens the possibility of Ukraine’s participation in CSDP missions. There has been disagreement in the literature on what these provisions really imply. Some scholars see it as a preparation for NATO enlargement74 or point out that it would disrupt military cooperation between Ukraine and Russia,75 whereas others argue that there is no evidence to support such claims.76 While it is unusual, albeit by no means unique, that the AA includes provisions on CFSP/CSDP issues,77 the notion that these are purposefully designed to pave the ground for NATO enlargement is a stretch, given their vague formulation, the limited cooperation between the EU and NATO and, lastly, the fact that in many cases NATO enlarged actually preceded EU enlargement.78 Be that as it may, the CFSP/CSDP provisions are indeed “quite far reaching”,79 which signals the EU’s intent to incorporate Ukraine into its area of security governance.80 This would involve cooperation and joint policy planning on issues like conflict prevention and crisis management, non-proliferation and arms control. Moreover, the notion of security governance also embraces the security-predicated spatialising of the neighbourhood into a ‘ring of friends’, in which Ukraine is of pre-eminent importance, 72

See, for example, Martin Nilsson and Daniel Silander (2016), Democracy and Security in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood? Assessing the ENP in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, Democracy and Security, 12(1), pp. 44–61. 73 See Smith (2017), EU-Russian Relations, p. 58. 74 See Richard Sakwa (2015), The Death of Europe? Continental Fates After Ukraine, International Affairs, 91(3), pp. 569–570; Richard Sakwa (2015), Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, London: I.B. Tauris, pp. XII, 49. 75 See Glenn Diesen (2015), EU and NATO Relations with Russia After the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 71. 76 Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 47. 77 See Guillaume van der Loo (2016), The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area: A New Legal Instrument for EU Integration without Membership, Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, pp. 191–193. 78 Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland all joined NATO prior to becoming members of the EU. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia joined NATO the same year as the joined the EU. 79 Van der Loo (2016), EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, p. 193. 80 See Gunnar Wiegand and Evelina Schulz (2015), The EU and Its Eastern Partnership: Political Association and Economic Integration in a Rough Neighbourhood, in: Christoph Herrmann, Bruno Simma and Rudolf Streinz (eds.), Trade Policy between Law, Diplomacy and Scholarship: Liber Amicorum in Memoriam Horst G. Krenzler, Heidelberg: Springer, p. 336.

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whose political and economic orientation the EU seeks to shape through the export of norms and practices in an attempt to increase the EU’s security. But the EU is neither capable nor willing to extend hard security guarantees to Ukraine, as anecdotally underscored by the refusal of EU member states, unlike the United States, to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons during the crisis. It is crucial to emphasise that there is no evidence that, at its launch, the ENP was directed against Russia. In fact, Russia was invited to join the ENP; and even though the Kremlin refused to be part of the ENP on the grounds that it preferred a privileged partnership with the EU over being just one among several countries in the ENP, EU-Russia relations were generally still considered to hold great promise. At the 2003 summit in Saint Petersburg, the EU and Russia agreed to enhance their cooperation through the creation of the so-called Four Common Spaces in the realms of economics, freedom, justice and security, external security as well as research, education and culture.81 In Brussels, it was considered the time of “the early Putin, who wanted to become part of the West”, as one EU official recalled.82 As regards the EaP, the situation appears to be somewhat different. Even though likewise not in principle directed against Russia, it was at least in part a response to the Russo-Georgian war of 2008.83 The European Commission itself declared the EaP “a strategic imperative and a political investment for the EU”,84 with which the EU responded to “[e]vents in the countries in Eastern Europe and in the Southern Caucasus.”85 Although the Commission statement does not specify precisely which ‘events’ it is referring to, events that would fit the description are the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2004, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2005, the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, the events surrounding the 2009 parliamentary elections in Moldova and the Russo-Ukrainian gas dispute in the winter of 2008/2009. And unlike in the case of the ENP, Russia was never offered to participate in the EaP. This suggests that with the EaP the EU did indeed seek “to counter the growing assertiveness and influence of Moscow in this

81

See Council of the European Union (2003), EU-Russia Summit: 300th Anniversary of St.Petersburg—Celebrating Three Centuries of Common European History and Culture, JOINT STATEMENT, 9937/03 (Press 154), Saint Petersburg, 31 May. 82 Interview #14. 83 See Averre (2009), Competing Rationalities, p. 1694; Hiski Haukkala (2016), A Perfect Storm; Or What Went Wrong and What Went Right for the EU in Ukraine, Europe-Asia Studies, 68(4), p. 659; Stephan Keukeleire and Irina Petrova (2014), The European Union, the Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia: Competing Regionalisms, in: Mario Telò (ed.), European Union and New Regionalism: Competing Regionalism and Global Governance in a Post-Hegemonic Era, Farnham: Ashgate, p. 267; MacFarlane and Menon (2014), The EU and Ukraine, p. 96; Marsh and Rees (2011), Security of Europe, p. 139; Nilsson and Silander (2016), Democracy and security, p. 55; Raik (2019), The Ukraine Crisis, p. 63; Susan Stewart (2009), Russia and the Eastern Partnership: Loud Criticism, Quiet Interest in Cooperation, SWP Comments 7, May, p. 1; George Christou (2010), European Union Security Logics to the East: The European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, European Security, 19(3), p. 415. 84 European Commission (2008), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Eastern Partnership, COM(2008) 823 final, Brussels, 3 December, p. 15. 85 European Commission (2009), Eastern Partnership, MEMO/09/2017, Brussels, 5 May, p. 1.

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region”86 by offering to extend the benefits of liberal market democracy as an alternative to Russian hegemony. What is more, the conclusions of the European Council of 1 September 2008 “linked the EU’s condemnation of Russia’s behaviour during the Caucasus crisis to its intention to move ahead with the Eastern Partnership, thus creating the impression that the initiative was directed against Russia.”87 Even though the Commission, for its part, has always denied that the EaP is directed against Russia,88 this was manifestly not how the Kremlin has seen the EaP. Whereas Russia’s reaction to the ENP was “muted or […] barely noticeable”,89 it opposed the EaP from the start.90 Indeed, only one month after the EaP had been officially launched at the Prague summit in May 2009, the Kremlin announced that it intended to set up a Eurasian Customs Union (EACU) between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The creation of the EACU on 1 January 2010, subsequently subsumed under the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), is interpreted by many scholars as a Russian counter-move to the EaP.91 The Kremlin perceived the EaP as a “geopolitical challenge to Russian hopes for reintegration of the western CIS states, in which Ukraine remained the key territory.”92 With the launch of the EACU, the Russian government sought “to recover lost ground and avoid further chipping away at Russian influence in its immediate neighbourhood.”93 Similarly to the EaP, the EACU is premised on economic instruments in the pursuit of foreign and security policy objectives and its ostensibly economic purpose is only a thinly-veiled cover for Russia’s geopolitical ambitions.94

86

Keukeleire and Petrova (2014), Competing Regionalisms, p. 267. Stewart (2009), Russia and the Eastern Partnership, p. 1. See also Council of the European Union (2008), Presidency Conclusions of the Extraordinary European Council held in Brussels on 1 September 2008, 12594/2/08 REV 2, Brussels, 6 October. 88 See European Commission (2009), Eastern Partnership, p. 2. 89 Dmitri Trenin (2014), Ukraine is not the only Battlefield between Russia and the West, Carnegie Europe, 21 March. 90 See Freedman (2014), Crisis Management, p. 18; Stefan Lehne (2014), Time to Reset the European Neighbourhood Policy, Brussels: Carnegie Europe, p. 7. See also Akardy Moshes (2012), Russia’s European Policy under Medvedev: How Sustainable is a New Compromise?, International Affairs, 88(1), p. 23; Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 46; Stewart (2009), Russia and the Eastern Partnership, pp. 2–3. 91 See Haukkala (2015), From Cooperative to Contested Europe?, p. 32; Greene (2012), Russian Responses, p. 18; Jolyon Howorth (2017), ‘Stability on the Borders’: The Ukraine Crisis and the EU’s Constrained Policy Towards the Eastern Neighbourhood, Journal of Common Market Studies, 55(1), p. 127; Nilsson and Silander (2016), Democracy and Security, p. 55. 92 Allison (2014), Russian ‘Deniable’ Intervention, p. 1271. 93 Keukeleire and Petrova (2014), Competing Regionalisms, p. 269. 94 See Hannes Adomeit (2012), Putin’s ‘Eurasian Union’: Russia’s Integration Project and Policies on Post-Soviet Space, Center for International and European Studies, Neighbourhood Policy Paper, No. 4, July, p. 8: “The ostensible purpose of this initiative is economic. Its primary objectives, however, are geopolitical and these are to be achieved in large part by economic means.” 87

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For Moscow, Ukraine is the keystone of its Eurasian integration scheme,95 much like Ukraine is of paramount importance to the EaP. Ukraine has thus become the “crucial test case” for Russia’s great power aspirations.96 Interestingly, Gunnar Wiegand and Evelina Schulz—Mr Wiegand was the director in the EEAS responsible for negotiations with Russia and the Eastern Partnership and Ms Schulz a member of the EU delegation to Kiev—similarly call Ukraine “a test case for the EU’s new approach of shaping its relations with its Eastern neighbours”,97 thus underlining the importance of Ukraine to the EaP. Wiegand and Schulz moreover concede that the EU had “underestimate[d] the symbolism represented by the mere fact of Ukraine signing the AA with the EU and its turn westward becoming definitive.”98 The phrase ‘turn westward’ insinuates that the alternative would have been a turn eastward, i.e. towards Russia, by joining the EEU. In a similar vein, an interviewed official confided: “[C]learly, the DCFTA was a tool towards integration with the EU, to anchor Ukraine with the EU and to attract Ukraine towards the West rather than towards Russia.”99 Both remarks reveal the either-or choice between ‘the West’ and Russia that Ukraine was facing, even though the EU accused Russia of having forced that choice upon Kiev by seeking to include Ukraine into a customs union, which would have been incompatible with the DCFTA. On the other hand, referring to Ukraine’s ‘turn westward’ as merely a matter of ‘symbolism’ overplays the “noticeable geopolitical shift which will affect the whole region”100 as Kiev signs and implements the agreement.

3.2.2 Lack of Geopolitical Awareness? The EU has been heavily criticised for its alleged disregard of the geopolitical security dynamics at play in the Eastern neighbourhood.101 The term ‘geopolitical’, in these 95

See ibid., p. 3; Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, pp. 9– 11; Freedman (2014), Crisis Management, p. 19; Uwe Halbach (2012), Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Union: A New Integration Project for the CIS Region?, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP Comments, No. 1, January, p. 4. See also Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997), The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, New York: Basic Books, pp. 46, 104. 96 See Moshes (2012), Russia’s European Policy, p. 26. See also F. Stephen Larrabee (2010), Russia, Ukraine and Central Europe: The Return of Geopolitics, Journal of International Affairs, 63(2), pp. 37–38. 97 Wiegand and Schulz (2015), The EU and Its Eastern Partnership, p. 332. See also Roland Dannreuther (2004), Introduction: Setting the Framework, in: Roland Dannreuther (ed.), EU Foreign and Security Policy: Towards a Neighbourhood Strategy, London: Routledge, p. 3: “[T]he EU’s ‘near abroad’ represents a testing ground for its broader political and foreign policy ambitions and its capacity to emerge as a more coherent and strategic actors.” 98 Wiegand and Schulz (2015), The EU and Its Eastern Partnership, p. 349. 99 Interview #39. 100 Moshes (2012), Russia’s European Policy, p. 27. 101 See, for example, Averre (2016), The Ukraine Conflict, p. 713; Freedman (2014), Crisis Management, p. 28; Serena Giusti (2016), The EU’s Policy Towards Russia: National Interests and Path

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critiques, is generally used in the sense of realist conceptions of power politics. Scholars have found fault with “the EU’s utter inability to appreciate the strategic ramifications of its own policies”102 and qualified the practice of seeking to indirectly foster security through political association and economic integration as a “denial of power in one of its classical meanings”.103 In short, the EU is blamed for having, wittingly or not, ignored Russia’s claim to a privileged sphere of interests in the former countries of the Eastern bloc. A key question regarding the security policy dynamics that unfolded around the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine is whether, how and to what extent the EU was aware of and responsive to Russia’s opposition to the agreement. The interview results on this issue can be clustered into three groups. First, an often-made remark was that the Russian side never raised the issue of the EaP and Ukraine in any of the EU-Russia summits and furthermore appeared to show no interest in the topic even when raised by the EU. Therefore, the argument goes, the EU could not possibly have had any clue that Russia would perceive the initiative as a threat.104 The first sign that Russia opposed the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine, according to this line of argumentation, was the imposition by Russia of trade-restricting measures on Ukrainian imports as of August 2013.105 Regardless of whether or not, and if yes to what degree, the issue of the EU-Ukraine AA/DCFTA was spoken about behind closed doors, there is at least one public statement delivered by then Russian president Dmitri Medvedev at the press conference of the EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk in May 2009, in which he clearly expressed what the Russian government thought of the EaP: “I’ll put it succinctly. We tried to convince ourselves [that the EU project is harmless] but in the end, we couldn’t. […] What worries us is that in some countries attempts are being made to exploit this structure as a partnership against Russia.”106 It is hence unlikely that the EU was utterly oblivious of Russia’s opposition to the EaP and the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine. A more plausible line of argumentation is that the EU was cognisant of the fact that Russian was not welcoming of the EaP, but underestimated the degree of opposition, thus failing to notice that the Kremlin perceived that AA/DCFTA with Ukraine as Dependency, in: Lorenzo Cladi and Andrea Locatelli (eds.), International Relations Theory and European Security: We Thought We Knew, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 190; Raik (2019), The Ukraine Crisis, pp. 63–66. 102 Haukkala (2016), A Perfect Storm, p. 659. 103 Raik (2019), The Ukraine Crisis, p. 63. 104 Interview #25: “[T]he Russians [had] never told us that they would perceive the Eastern Partnership as a threat.” Interview #22: “We were caught hopping, honestly! […] we were very much caught on the hop by the Russians. We were caught by surprise. We had not seen this coming. This was a drastic change in Russian thinking at the time. Now, we’re used to it. Now it has become normal. But in 2013, we had become very complacent, because for years we had been talking to the Russians about the Eastern Partnership and the Russian just didn’t seem to be interested.” The official added that even people who were working on the AA/DCFTA did not see it coming “up until it all blew up in their face.” 105 Interview #20. 106 Dmitri Medvedev, quoted in Andrew Rettman (2009), EU-Russia Summit Ends With Prickly Exchange Over Energy, EUObserver, 23 May.

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a matter of core national interest.107 Indeed, the interview material reveals that, far from being clueless about Russian opposition to the EaP, there was rather a diffuse awareness inside the EU institutions that Russia was not in favour of the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine. A senior EU official involved in the negotiations stated: “Russia was never supportive of what we were doing. But Russia was never menacing. […] Yes, we knew. But we thought that the Russians ha[d] learnt from history, that you are not treating neighbouring countries as vassal states, that they have a right to their own decision.”108 Another EEAS official similarly acknowledged, “we knew that Yanukovych was under pressure by the Kremlin on the Association Agreement”, but also admitted, “of course, nobody took it that serious, that it would really derail the process”, before adding, “we did not think that Russia would go as far as they went in the end.”109 All interviewees, without exception, admitted that they had been surprised at the heftiness of the Russian reaction, in particular the swift annexation of Crimea. Asked when it became clear that Russia would perceive the AA/DCFTA as a threat, the most common point of reference was, again, the summer of 2013 when Russia started to levy duties on Ukraine imports; that is, only weeks before Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych, presumably under heavy pressure from the Kremlin, refused to sign the AA/DCFTA at the Vilnius summit on 28 and 29 November 2013. The majority of interviewees stated that prior to the summer of 2013 the EU and its member states had been convinced that Russia would ultimately acquiesce to the AA/DCFTA given the ostensibly ‘low-politics’ nature of the agreement.110 Moreover, the interviewed officials insisted that, in any event, the EU could not and would never recognise a Russian sphere of influence, as doing so would run counter the very essence of what the EU stands for as a project: “[W]e don’t accept spheres of influence in general but in particular not in our immediate neighbourhood […]. And if we were acting differently, we would return to the past and we know exactly what the past has brought to Europe.”111

107

Interview #38: “Russia never told us that this was a core national security [interest, J.S.] for them. They never said, you know: ‘If you go ahead with it, we’ll invade the countries, we’ll have a war’.” 108 Interview #14. 109 Interview #37. 110 The distinction between ‘high politics’ and ‘low politics’ in International Relations is sometimes made to differentiate between issues which relate to the very survival of the state (national security, defence, etc.) and those that are not existential (economy, trade, social affairs, etc.). This dichotomy is not without its caveats, given that in a world of ‘complex interdependence’ issues that were previously thought to be ‘low politics’ in nature may quickly turn into problems of ‘high politics’. An example of this is the national security exception to free trade. The high politics-low politics differentiation is, nevertheless, a useful prima facie analytical frame to disentangle the web of policy actions in interstate relations. 111 Interview #14. Also interview #21: “Why should we necessarily do what Russia wants? We don’t believe in spheres of influence! This sort of nineteenth century theory of spheres of influence. […] we believe fundamentally that Ukraine has a right to exercise its sovereign choice as to whether to sign an association agreement and a DCFTA with the European Union or not, whether to enter a customs union with the Eurasian Economic Union or not. So, it’s Ukraine’s sovereign choice.”

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From the EU perspective, the issue was seen as touching upon the very core of Ukraine’s state sovereignty. Consequently, not signing the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine or granting Russia a say at the negotiating table would have implied that Ukraine’s sovereignty is curtailed.112 In a joint statement, then presidents of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, and the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, declared: The European Union continues to stand ready to clarify to the Russian Federation the mutual beneficial impact of increased trade and exchanges with our neighbours, whilst fully respecting the sovereignty and independence of our Eastern Partners and the bilateral nature of Association Agreement and DCFTAs.113

The statement reflects a deep-running belief inside the EU institutions, namely the notion that the EU would de facto recognise a Russian sphere of influence, which is irreconcilable with how the Brussels-based institutions believe international relations should be conducted if it did more than ‘clarify’ the AA/DCFTA to Russia.114 Instead, in an attempt to dispel Russian concerns, which were seen as unfounded in Brussels, the EU reiterated the mutually beneficial economic effect of the DCFTA for both Ukraine and Russia and offered to extend the transition periods for certain product categories to comply with EU norms and standards. The issue of transition periods is important because once Ukraine completes the shift to EU norms and standards, as required under the AA/DCFTA, Russian exports to Ukraine that do not respect those standards are shut out of the Ukrainian market. However crucial, the extension of transition periods did not offer a political solution to the crisis. In addition, the interviewed officials emphasised that even if the EU had known that the Kremlin was prepared to defend its self-declared sphere of privileged interest in the post-Soviet space, the EU would not have changed its approach, as any accommodating of Russia’s point of view would have equalled recognising a Russian sphere of influence: [E]verybody knew that the Russians could be unhappy about it. […] I would have predicted that, had I thought about it. But the question is what do you do with that prediction? Do you formulate your policy on that basis? Or do you say – and that was the EU’s position – that it’s not Russia’s business to decide whether Ukraine prefers to be in a free trade agreement with the EU as Ukraine or rather be in a customs union with Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus?115 112

Interview #38: “Refusing to have this agreement would be to accept that certain countries in Europe have a limited sovereignty; would be to accept that kind of doctrine of limited sovereignty which existed before during the Cold War with Khrushchev and all that, that the countries in the East, you know, couldn’t do certain things because they were under the tutelage, the oversight of Moscow; would be to accept that this still existed, that these countries were not fully independent, they couldn’t take decisions, they were not free to decide on their own international relations.” 113 European Council (2013), Joint Statement by President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso on Ukraine, EUCO 245/13, Brussels, 25 November, p. 2. 114 Interview #45: “They were not supposed to take this position of spheres of influence and they still shouldn’t take this position of spheres of influence, because we don’t recognise Russian spheres of influence!”. 115 Interview #35. Also interview #37: “I maintain that I do not think that we should have done anything differently and I do not think that we should be told by the Russian Federation with which

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The interviewed officials were moreover adamant that the argument that the EU should have taken into account that Russia considered its ‘near abroad’ its natural sphere of influence must be rejected, because they considered that Russia’s concerns “objectively speaking have to be qualified as illegitimate”,116 all the more so since “there is nothing in our neighbourhood policy which is inimical to Russian interests”.117 Some officials did, however, express discomfort at the notion that the EU would have pursued the same course, especially if it had known that this would trigger a military conflict.118 These statements point to the EU practice of not recognising spheres of influence as an appropriate principle for organising international relations. Accordingly, EU officials do not consider conducting foreign and security policy on the basis of spheres of influence, as Russia seems to be doing with regard to the post-Soviet space, a competent performance in the sense of a right and appropriate course of action. It is a patterned type of behaving in that the EU repeatedly refuses to act in a way that would signal recognition of such spheres of influence, whether in the Eastern neighbourhood or elsewhere. Instead, EU officials act as if such spheres of influence did not exist, claims by other countries to the contrary notwithstanding. This practice, moreover, finds its expression in a particular way of understanding Russia’s actions in the post-Soviet space, which may have contributed to underestimating the Russian government’s readiness to defend its interests vis-à-vis Ukraine by military means. Arguably, a state that conducts its own foreign and security policy on the basis of spheres of influence not only acts differently but also understands other countries’ behaviour differently, namely in terms of spheres of influence. Consequently, even though there was some degree of awareness inside the EU institutions that Russia opposed the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine and the EaP more generally, any changes to the EU’s approach towards Ukraine and Russia would have belied core EU practices in the realms of trade policy and foreign and security policy, in particular the belief that trade policy should be conducted according to economic criteria, not as an instrument of power politics, and that international relations must not be conducted on the basis of spheres of influence. This begs the question of the interplay between the EU’s trade policy towards Ukraine, a central piece of EU’s approach towards the country embodied in the DCFTA, and its larger foreign and security policy strategy for the EaP and Russia’s role in it. Rather than accusing the EU of being blind or naïve, which, after all, make only for poor analytical categories, I will argue, in the following section, that the EU’s approach towards Ukraine was shaped by the practices which structure its trade policy as well as its foreign and security policy.

countries we should have what kind of agreement. It’s, in the first place, a bilateral affair and it’s the responsibility of the country that has to decide what it wants.” 116 Interview #35. 117 Interview #45. 118 Interview #39: “[F]rankly, who would be ready to sign an agreement when you know that it will trigger a war, the death of ten thousand people, the loss of Crimea and so on? […] I think that many governments in the EU would have been very reluctant if they had known what would happen.”

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3.3 The Interplay of EU Trade and Security Policy Practices The theory chapter elaborates on my understanding of practice theory in more detail. Suffice it to recall here that for the purposes of this book practices are understood as the routinised and patterned ways of understanding and doing of a designated collective based on the belief that a certain course of action is the right and appropriate one under a given set of circumstances. As such, practices both reflect and shape organisational cultures and are moreover an expression of the shared background knowledge of a collective, which provides common interpretative frames among members of the collective. Sharing a common interpretative frame creates expectations about desired objectives, employable means and defines a horizon of conceivable actions. As highlighted in the previous chapter, organisational cultures, background knowledge, beliefs and rules for action and consequently practices differ between DG Trade and the EEAS, resulting in the different conduct of trade policy, on the one hand, and foreign and security policy, on the other. The CCP is a highly technical and differentiated policy field and trade officials hold very precise and firm beliefs about what makes a competent performance in the realm of trade policy. EU trade policy is defined by its all but exclusive dealings with the economic, commercial and legal aspects of trade policy, not its reflection about the foreign and security policy reverberations of the CCP. One interviewed trade official reckoned that “99.9%” of all documents produced inside DG Trade deal with trade policy in this narrow sense.119 Hence the question arises of what trade officials deal with when negotiating a trade agreement, such as the DCFTA with Ukraine. In a nutshell, modern trade agreements can be divided broadly into three parts: market access, regulatory cooperation and rules. The first, market access, deals with so-called at-the-border measures, that is customs duties and other barriers to trade, such as lengthy administrative procedures. Making a market access offer involves careful calculation of the expected rise in imports and the relative competitiveness of domestic industries that would be affected by the lowering of customs duties. For example, if the EU offers to lower its tariff on a product x, it will have to make sure that the resulting increase in imports of product x is set off against imports of x from other countries or that an overall increase in imports of product x does not incur an intolerable level of injury to domestic producers of x. To oversimplify just a bit, EU trade negotiators seek to lower the other side’s tariffs in sectors where the EU has a competitive advantage while trying to lower tariffs as little as possible in sectors where the EU has a competitive disadvantage.120 The final negotiated agreement is a halfway house between both positions. Regulatory cooperation is about aligning or recognising as mutually equivalent, technical norms and standards as well as animal and plant health 119

Interview #3. Always assuming that there are domestic producers of x, the EU may also lower its tariff on x to deliberately induce more competition on the domestic market for x, for example to lower consumer prices and spur innovation.

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standards (i.e. sanitary and phytosanitary rules). If such norms and standards differ between two trading partners, it may raise production costs for firms, which need to produce one and the same product according to different technical specifications so as to be allowed to export to foreign markets. In complex trade negotiations, there are usually chapters on horizontal as well as industry-specific norms and standards, for example, chemicals. Lastly, in a bid to iron out competitive distortions and create a level playing field, trade negotiators seek to ensure that the rules governing, for instance, competition policy, state subsidies, intellectual property or geographical indications are the same or equivalent between the parties to an agreement. As emphasised above, the objective of the DCFTA with Ukraine was fundamentally predicated upon a foreign and security policy reasoning, not an economic one. Given the extreme technical complexity of trade negotiations, the question arises to what extent trade officials were additionally influenced by foreign and security policy considerations when negotiating the DCFTA with Ukraine. Curiously, it appears that, even though DG Trade officials openly acknowledged that the EU would not have launched trade negotiations with Ukraine in the absence of a larger foreign and security policy rationale, they did not think that foreign and security policy considerations had an impact on the actual trade negotiating process itself, or at best only at a very abstract level. One trade official expressed that the DCFTA negotiations with Ukraine were “not really” affected by foreign and security policy considerations, emphasising that “we were steered by only the trade aspects. […] we are only guided by the best outcome possible we want for our companies. So, purely economic dimensions.”121 Another official stated that the DCFTA negotiations were “totally in the hands of DG Trade because it’s technical.”122 In addition, trade officials highlighted that the DCFTA was negotiated as a “real” trade agreement.123 What these remarks underscore is a conception of the DCFTA as an undertaking whose success is above all defined by achieving the maximum market opening for EU businesses as well as ensuring the technically-sound negotiation and application of trade rules. The reference to ‘purely’ economic aspects is one that was repeatedly made by trade officials to characterise EU trade policy solely as a ‘technical’ endeavour, thereby demarcating it from the ‘political’ foreign and security policy. These findings are in line with the notion that EU trade policy is structured by a set of distinctive and autonomous practices, which are not easily malleable from outside the trade policy community of practice. Hence, even if trade policy has been used as a vehicle to pursue foreign and security policy objectives in the European neighbourhood, it has been conducted in a way that is largely dominated by economic and commercial criteria and mostly incognisant of foreign and security policy considerations. It may perhaps not be surprising that DG Trade was largely incognisant of foreign and security policy concerns when negotiating the DCFTA with Ukraine. After all, trade officials readily admitted that they do not deal with such questions in their daily work. One trade official remarked on the integration of foreign and security policy 121

Interview #11. Interview #18. 123 Interview #39. 122

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considerations into the practice of trade policy: “I can tell you that this is a dimension that we’re completely not programmed to factor in in the development of trade policy.”124 All this raises the question of the foreign and security policy guidance that the EEAS is supposed to ensure. If DG Trade during the DCFTA negotiations, despite their fundamentally foreign and security policy rationale, was in fact not influenced by foreign and security policy considerations, then the question arises to what extent the foreign and security policy steering and oversight was provided at a different level, to wit by the EEAS. The interview data suggest that this was the case only to a limited extent. A senior Commission official dealing with security policy explained with regard to the DCFTA negotiations: “[I]t was a Commission policy pursued by a DG in the Commission and run in a very classic sort of trade negotiations way, not a political or strategic sort of view.”125 The characterisation of the policy as ‘run in a very classic sort of trade negotiations way’, as opposed to a ‘political or strategic’ approach, insinuates that the EU’s approach towards Ukraine was more concerned with the technical minutiae of trade policy and lacked an adequate foreign and security policy oversight.126 This interpretation is furthermore corroborated by the view expressed by another official who stated that there was “no check on the geopolitics” because the “steering was on the economic side”.127 In a similar vein, Richard Youngs contends that the “External Action Service […] struggled to gain overall strategic direction, as the lead role in DCFTA negotiations was played by DG Trade officials.”128 Hence, while DG Trade was naturally dealing only with the technical aspects of the trade negotiations, it seems that the EEAS had difficulties providing the overall foreign and security policy steering.129 An EEAS official, who when asked whether the EEAS had difficulties ensuring the overall strategic steering, responded: [T]he short answer is: yes. The long answer is: that there was of course only one negotiation where there was one chief negotiator, which is the EEAS. But of course then you have three subgroups negotiating the political part, the sectoral part and the trade part. And these subgroups always had to report back to the plenary, which was chaired by the EEAS [...] DG Trade does not lack self-confidence. And sometimes it was difficult to keep this unity of a single negotiation and this reporting back. [...] the coordination was sometimes difficult because indeed DG Trade thought sometimes perhaps of the DCFTA as being separate from the Association Agreement in the sense that this is all pure EU competence.130

124

Interview #20. Interview #43. 126 See Thomas Gehring, Kevin Urbanski and Sebastian Oberthür (2017), The European Union as an Inadvertent Great Power: EU Actorness and the Ukraine Crisis, Journal of Common Market Studies, 55(4), pp. 734–735. 127 Interview #20. 128 Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis, p. 61. 129 On the limited discretion of the EEAS in EU external affairs more generally, see Hrant Kostanyan (2014), Examining the Discretion of the EEAS: What Power to Act in the EU-Moldova Association Agreement?, European Foreign Affairs Review, 19(3), pp. 373–392. 130 Interview #25. 125

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This explanation points to the fact that, while there was some level of formal coordination through the EEAS’ chairing of the plenary group, each subgroup proceeded on its own merits and according to its distinctive practices. To be sure, this is not unusual per se, in fact, most complex negotiations that embrace multiple subchapters tend to be conducted this way. However, in the lead-up to the Ukraine crisis, it does appear to have contributed to “[a]n element of ‘sleepwalking’”, as the official report on the Ukraine crisis by the British House of Lords puts it, in that “any awareness of Russian hostility was not felt ‘at a high enough political level in the EU for people who really understand Russia actually to be asked how tough the Russian reaction was likely to be.’”131 The fragmentation of the EU’s external relations bureaucracy, which made that “the actual negotiations on the DCFTA saw no interference from the EU’s political actors and the foreign and security policy branch”,132 has certainly been one factor that accounts for this ‘sleepwalking’. The other factor that most likely contributed to the misinterpretation of Russia’s intentions was the belief that promoting international trade, following the EU’s own history of integration, will almost inexorably lead to stability and security; a belief that is by no means idiosyncratic to DG Trade but is rather an all but universally held one among EU officials. Not a single interviewee questioned this assumption. As a consequence, the EU appears to have been too convinced, as it were, of the integrating power of trade policy; hence the aforementioned references to the mutually beneficial impact of the DCFTA. But the integrating effect of trade policy can unfold only if all involved parties practice it according to the liberalist beliefs that undergird the CCP, which envisage a separation between trade policy and foreign and security policy to the largest extent possible. The notion that—rather than flanking the trade negotiating process with an accompanying diplomatic initiative aimed at proactively addressing the foreign and security policy issues raised by the AA/DCFTA—the EU premised the DCFTA on the belief that its commercially-driven external trade policy will have positive security externalities is neatly captured in the following quote of an EU official who explained that the EU does not necessarily distinguish itself by geostrategic visions and by long-term foreign and security policy. But it does have a strong economic rationale and it has overcome with its economic rationale centuries of wars, civil wars, dictatorships in our own member states. So, if that works for our member states, it can also work for neighbouring countries.133

The belief that it is a quasi-intrinsic property of international commerce to propel peace and stability is a mainstay of liberalist theory. Neorealist literature, by contrast, and in particular the application of the neorealist paradigm to international economic relations, as encapsulated in the concept of geoeconomics, emphasises the conflictual dimension of international trade. Both strands of thinking are at the spectrum’s opposing ends and “in their exclusivity oversimplify ‘the multiplicity of political 131

House of Lords (2015), The EU and Russia: Before and Beyond the Crisis in Ukraine, European Union Committee, 6th Report of Session 2014–15, London: The Stationery Office Limited, p. 63. 132 Bossuyt, Orbie and Drieghe (2020), EU External Policy Coherence, p. 59. 133 Interview #14.

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contexts’ that exist in trade relationships”, Nicholas Ross Smith explains.134 Instead, as Smith argues, trade policy “is not simply a positive-sum or zero-sum game […] rather international trade between states creates a corrugation between economic and political/strategic aims in a state’s foreign trade policy.”135 In other words, echoing Alexander Wendt’s famous dictum that “anarchy is what states make of it”136 : trade policy is what states make of it. Thus, whether trade brings about peace or strife is determined through an intersubjective understanding, or misunderstanding for that matter, between the concerned actors. It is also a question of whether the practices that structure their trade policies are compatible. Accordingly, it is difficult to cultivate trade relations on the basis of free market principles if one state considers trade policy a legitimate instrument of power politics and consequently securitises the other state’s trade policy initiatives. This implies that one state’s trade policy may likewise generate negative security externalities if it challenges the perceived security interests of the other state.137 The risk of this happening is particularly accentuated when trade policy is used as an instrument of foreign and security policy in a geographic area where two or more states concurrently seek to extend their political and economic influence. The countries to which the EU refers as its Eastern neighbourhood and which Russia calls its ‘near abroad’ are doubtlessly such a case. Because the EU’s trade policy practices are to a large extent informed by liberalist beliefs, it is only consequential that the EU’s external relations bureaucracy was convinced that “economic integration would not elicit such ire and therefore tended to dismiss Russian objectives in the region owing to its belief in the sovereign right of each country to make its choices on free trade agreements.”138 The Kremlin, however, did perceive the ENP/EaP and the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine in particular as a threat to its own integration project, the Eurasian Union.139 It appears that although “the EU knew that the Russians ‘did not like what was happening’”, it “assumed ‘Ukraine could simply ride over that’”,140 as the House of Lords report summarises, before adding:

134

Nicholas Ross Smith (2018), The EU’s Foreign Trade Policy Towards its Eastern Frontier: Assessing its Triangular Trade Relationship with Ukraine and Russia in the Context of the Ukraine Crisis, in: Sangeeta Khorana and Maria Garcia (eds.), Handbook on the EU and International Trade, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 189. 135 Ibid. 136 See Alexander Wendt (1992), Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics, International Organization, 46(2), pp. 391–425. 137 See Gehring, Urbanski and Oberthür (2017), Inadvertent Great Power, pp. 728, 732–733. 138 Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 108. See also Kuzio (2017), Ukraine between a Constrained EU and Assertive Russia, p. 104; Giusti (2016), The EU’s Policy Towards Russia, p. 186. 139 See Igor Gretskiy, Evgeny Treshchenkov and Konstantin Golubev (2014), Russia’s Perceptions and Misperceptions of the EU Eastern Partnership, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 47(3– 4), pp. 379–381. See also Dragneva and Wolczuk (2015), Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, pp. 116–117. 140 House of Lords (2015), The EU and Russia, p. 63.

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Officials in Brussels as well as Member States’ embassies all participate in the EU foreign policy process, but all seem to have missed the warning signs. […] The lack of an integrated and co-ordinated foreign policy was also evident. Collectively, the EU overestimated the intention of the Ukrainian leadership to sign an Association Agreement, appeared unaware of the public mood in Ukraine and, above all, underestimated the depth of Russian hostility towards the Association Agreement. While each of these factors was understood separately, Member States, the European External Action Service and the Commission did not connect the dots.141

The failure to connect the proverbial dots does not appear to have been the result of a fundamental difference between the EEAS and DG Trade in their assessment of the role of Russia in the post-Soviet space. The interview data, at least, do not offer conclusive evidence to corroborate the view that the two services held substantially different views on this issue. Rather, as one official opined, “the EEAS, at the time of the negotiations, was as bureaucratic and short-sighted as DG Trade. So, it was, I think, a collective failure.”142 However, there seem to have been differences between DG Trade and the EEAS about the trade concessions to be made to Ukraine, with DG Trade only reluctantly acquiescing to demands for greater trade concessions made by the EEAS and Kiev.143 One interviewed official explained that the EEAS demanded in particular that DG Trade agree to removal of tariff quotas for imports from Ukraine, which, as the official explained, was a request DG Trade could not acquiesce to, because “the DCFTA had to be consistent with other trade negotiations […] and had to be put in the overall context of EU trade policy.”144 This finding mirrors the aforementioned observation that DG Trade considered the DCFTA as a ‘real’ trade agreement and negotiated it accordingly, whereas the EEAS viewed it primarily as a foreign and security policy tool. It is, furthermore, consistent with the abovementioned criticism voiced by EEAS officials of DG Trade’s alleged lack of flexibility in its conduct of trade negotiations. Interestingly, DG Trade opposed the so-called trilateral talks between the EU, Ukraine and Russia as well as the postponement of the entry into force of the DCFTA to 1 January 2016, arguably because trade officials considered it a ‘political’ interference into the trade policy process. Interviewed member state diplomats and EU officials confirmed that it was considerable pressure on behalf of Germany and France that nudged a hesitant Commission and a reluctant DG Trade to engage in the trilateral talks.145 The trilateral talks themselves dealt only with the economic consequences of the implementation of the DCFTA, not the pressing foreign and security policy issues prompted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its meddling in Eastern Ukraine. That these issues were negotiated in the so-called Normandy format where representatives of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia met, thereby circumventing the EEAS, bears testimony to the continued fragmentation of EU external action. 141

Ibid., pp. 63–64. Interview #20. 143 Interviews #13, #25. 144 Interview #13. 145 Interviews #11, #14, #51, #52, #53. See also Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis, p. 105, who makes a similar observation. 142

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While the blame for the breach of international law committed by the Russian Federation can, of course, not be attributed to the EU, the EU nevertheless failed to see in time that in the Eastern neighbourhood its practice of seeking to further security and stability through an extension of trade relations had, in the eyes of the Kremlin, become a strategic challenge on par with NATO enlargement.146 Owing to its belief that international trade is a positive-sum game, the EU external relations bureaucracy played down the possibility that the AA/DCFTA, which was ostensibly only about trade and regulatory issues, would come to be seen as a geostrategic threat by Russia. Because the central piece of the agreement with Ukraine was a trade deal, the EU believed that Russia would ultimately acquiesce to it. This view persisted right until the Vilnius summit despite numerous warning signs.147 Thus, with its insistence that, in principle, Russia was also set to benefit from the EU-Ukraine AA/DCFTA if only Russia aligned its regulatory regime with EU norms and standards, as stipulated in the EU-Russia Partnership for Modernisation, the EU overestimated the integrating power of trade policy while underestimating the disintegrating foreign and security policy dynamics at play in the Eastern neighbourhood.148 From a practice theory perspective, the way the CCP is currently practiced renders it ill-suited to deal with questions of foreign and security policy. Nevertheless, because of the pre-eminence of the CCP as an EU external policy and the resulting dominance of trade policy practices in EU external action at large, EU foreign and security policy is to a large extent defined by its dependence on a policy whose distinctive practices are mostly unconcerned with foreign and security policy considerations. This lop-sidedness in EU external action “carries the risk that the EU as a whole ‘sleepwalks’ into major security crises, as in the case of Ukraine.”149 In some respects, the EU has thus almost by default continued to practice a type of ‘twotier system’ of its own in that foreign and security policy and trade policy are kept on separate tracks. Yet, at the same time and owing to the lack of a genuinely ‘common’ foreign and security policy, the EU has pursued its own foreign and security policy objectives through its trade policy, which renders the very notion of a depoliticised

146

See Sakwa (2015), Frontline Ukraine, p. 41; Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy (2015), Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, p. 358. 147 See, for example, Popescu and Wilson (2009), The Limits of Enlargement-Lite, p. 13: “If the EU continues to ignore the looming crisis on its doorstep, not only will it be expected to pick up the pieces later and at much greater cost, it may find that its core values of democracy, stability and the rule of law are undermined as Russia steps in to fill the vacuum.”; Greene (2012), Russian Responses, pp. 17–18: “[I]f a country in its sphere moves towards a Western politico-economic system, Russia will make it ungovernable; if the West does not come to an understanding with Russia on European security, Russia will make Europe less secure.” 148 Buzan (1983), People, States and Fear, p. 128, contrasts the international political system with the international economic system and contends that the former is characterized “much more by its pattern of fragmentation than by what binds it together”, whereas the latter “presents a more balanced structure in which substantial elements of division are matched by powerful forces of integration.” 149 Gehring, Urbanski and Oberthür (2017), Inadvertent Great Power, p. 739.

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trade policy ad absurdum.150 Indeed, EU trade policy has arguably become ever more politicised at least since the controversy surrounding the TTIP negotiations. But this politicisation of EU trade policy has thus far barely altered existing trade policy practices. From a pure trade perspective, the DCFTA can indeed be seen as a positivesum game—provided that Russia also adopts EU norms and standards and that the long-term vision of a free trade area from Lisbon to Vladivostok renders regulatory differences and incompatibilities between the DCFTA and the Eurasian Customs Union negligible. From a foreign and security policy perspective, the DCFTA may be regarded differently, namely as an attempt by the EU to align Ukraine politically and economically with the EU, thereby reducing Russian influence on Ukraine’s political and economic system. There appears to have been a mismatch of beliefs and practices between the EU and Russia, which both use trade policy very differently. That the EU, up until the Vilnius summit, “failed to grasp that what they saw a benevolent—almost herbivorous—power could be viewed by others as a treat”,151 underscores that the CCP has never been systematically informed by foreign and security policy considerations. Indeed, the very notion of using trade policy as an instrument of power politics runs against established trade police practices at the EU level. For this reason, any treating by others of EU trade policy as a strategic challenge or threat is met with incomprehension and disapproval in Brussels, as it runs counter the belief that trade policy should not be used for power politics. In line with this interpretation, the interviewed officials stated that they did not see any tensions between the DCFTA and foreign and security policy issues, other than Russia’s reaction, which they considered disingenuous.152 The paradox, then, is that the EU believes that international trade should not be used as an instrument of geopolitics, while at the same time using its trade policy to pursue foreign and security policy objectives in the Eastern neighbourhood that can be described as geopolitical in the sense that the EU seeks to re-structure the political and economic systems of the countries lying in the geographic space adjacent to its

150

Besides, as the debate around TTIP has demonstrated, trade policy itself, even without the grafted foreign and security policy objectives, is anything but depoliticised. 151 Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard (2014), The New European Disorder, London: European Council on Foreign Relations, p. 3. 152 Interview #9: “[I]t would not be serious to be saying this was a security consideration from the perspective of Russia.” Interview #10: “Where we see tensions, of course, is through the reaction of Russia, which sort of instrumentalises, if you like, the agreement that we have negotiated with Ukraine.” Interview #13: “On the DCFTA, no, we didn’t see any tension when it comes to security issues.” Interview #41: “Russia created the security problem. It wasn’t the EU that created by using trade, opening trade created the security problem. It was a Russian decision to take this as an offensive step and then to use illegal means to try to reverse the situation. But it’s not the fault of the trade policy.” See also Jean-Luc Demarty (2014), Corrected Transcript of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee on the European Union, Sub-Committee C (External Affairs), Inquiry on the EU and Russia, Evidence Session No. 9, London, 28 October: “Russian concerns are more political than really commercial, even if they are presented as commercial.”

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Eastern border to its own advantage.153 While it is true that EU membership was not on offer for the foreseeable future, in retrospect one must call the EU’s stance on this issue one of destructive ambiguity. It was too ambiguous for Ukraine to embark wholeheartedly on the path of reforms.154 And it was ambiguous enough for Russia to believe that the AA/DCFTA was merely an interlude on the path towards eventual EU membership of Ukraine. Indeed, the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of 10 February 2014 state that the AA/DCFTA is not “the final goal in EU-Ukraine cooperation”,155 opening Pandora’s box full of speculation about what this formulation could mean. The same language is used again in a joint statement by the presidents of Ukraine, the European Council and the European Commission on 31 October 2014, the eve of the provisional application of the AA (excluding the DCFTA part).156 Moreover, the aspirations of the Ukrainian people for closer relations with the EU are underscored. Rather than approaching, from the very beginning, the DCFTA negotiations as an undertaking which will likely produce foreign and security policy repercussions, the EU did only belatedly and reluctantly treat the DCFTA as the foreign and security policy issue, instead insisting that it is merely a legal question.157 From a trade law perspective, the answer is indeed clear: a country that is a member of a customs union cannot independently negotiate its own free trade agreements. Ukraine could accordingly not have both concluded the DCFTA and joined the EACU. All interviewed officials underlined this point. However, the question of the incompatibility 153

See, for example, Cadier (2014), Eastern Partnership vs Eurasian Union?, p. 77: “At its origins, the creation of the ENP was mainly motivated by geopolitical considerations: stabilizing the European peripheries and laying the foundations of an EU foreign policy beyond enlargement.“ Cadier (2019), Geopoliticisation, pp. 78–79, subsequently qualifies his argument and contends that “[t]he EaP’s does partly proceed from a geo-strategic rationale, namely stabilising the periphery, but it can be regarded as geopolitical only in the maximalist understanding of the term, not in the minimalist definition adopted here.” The maximalist definition of geopolitics to which he refers designates “the practice by which states and their representatives spatialise international politics, order the space at their border and define relations with their neighbours.” His minimalist definition understands geopolitics as the use of hard power in relation to territory against or in consideration of other powers. 154 See, for example, Kuzio (2017), Ukraine Between a Constrained EU and Assertive Russia, p. 106. 155 Council of the European Union (2014), Foreign Affairs, 3291st Council Meeting, PRESS RELEASE, 6264/14, Brussels, 10 February. 156 See European Commission (2014), Joint Statement by the Presidents of Ukraine, the European Council and the European Commission on the occasion of the beginning of the provisional application of the Association Agreement, STATEMENT/14/349, Brussels, 31 October. 157 The speech by then commissioner for enlargement Stefan Füle is an example of this. See Stefan Füle (2013), Statement on the pressure exercised by Russia on countries of the Eastern Partnership, SPEECH/13/687, European Parliament, Strasbourg, 11 September: “It is true that the Customs Union membership is not compatible with the DCFTAs which we have negotiated with Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Armenia. This is not because of ideological differences; this is not about a clash of economic blocs, or a zero-sum game. This is due to legal impossibilities.” (emphasis added) Also interview #37: “The DCFTA is business-related mainly and not political as such.”

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of the DCFTA and the EACU is not merely a legal question, but it is deeply political and has tangible geopolitical ramifications, which the EU either did not see or did not want to acknowledge publicly. It is indeed difficult for the EU to acknowledge that its trade policy has geopolitical implications, as it runs counter EU trade practices, which seek to keep the CCP distinct from geopolitics. In sum, the EU underestimated the foreign and security policy dynamics of its trade policy vis-à-vis Ukraine and the wider EaP; and this despite the fact that the DCFTA was the quid pro quo for wide-ranging political and economic reforms whose objective has been to align Ukraine politically and economically with the EU. As the interviewed officials stated, the EU was aware that Russia opposed the EaP, but it seemed to assumed that a disagreement about a trade agreement could be solved in the realm of trade policy alone. It appears to have been unthinkable for the EU that Russia was ready to employ military means, although Moscow had set a precedent in its war against Georgia in 2008.158 What is more, the interviewees stated that it had been inconceivable for the EU that a dispute over two economic integration regimes would spiral into a security crisis and military conflict, given that the DCFTA and the Eurasian Customs Union could in principle have been designed in a mutually compatible way.159 However, as Bruno Maçaes points out, “[t]he problem with the European Union is that it seems to assume that there is a neutral framework of rules, whereas the real issue is which rules will prevail, an issue that no rule can decide.”160 Paradoxically, then, on the one hand, the EU, through its trade policy practices, seeks to structure the international economic system in a way that inoculates economic questions and disputes from questions of foreign and security policy. On the other hand, it uses the CCP to wield its formidable market power and economic attractiveness in an attempt to pursue foreign and security policy objectives. It is this incongruence of practices, which came to the fore in the Ukraine crisis, that defines the EU’s ‘conflictedness’ between trade policy and foreign and security policy in external action. The conduct of international economic relations and international security relations respectively proceeds differently because they are structured by 158

Indeed, in the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, there were concerns that Ukraine and in particular Crimea, could become the target of a Russian military operation, see Andrey Kurkov (2008), Ukraine Between a Rock and a Hard Place, New Statesman, 8 September, pp. 31– 33; Freedman (2014), Crisis Management, pp. 16–17, 31; Ben Judah (2013), Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 164– 166; Andrew Wilson (2008), Is Ukraine Next?, The Guardian, 5 September; Hill and Gaddy (2015), Mr. Putin, p. 360; Larrabee (2010), The Return of Geopolitics, pp. 41–43; Popescu and Wilson (2009), The Limits of Enlargement-Lite, p. 57. See also Wikileaks (2009), ‘Scenesetter for the visit of deputy secretary Steinberg and senior director Lipton’, 22 April 2009: “The August conflict and Russian occupation of Georgian territory and Russia’s subsequent recognition of Georgia’s breakaway regions, has raised specific worries about Russian intentions toward Crimea and whether Russia intends to pursue a ‘South Ossetia strategy’ in this autonomous Ukrainian region.” 159 Interview #14: “[I]t’s a kind of geo-economic fault line, which developed there, which was not foreseeable that it would become also a geostrategic and a security fault line,” given that, as the interviewee emphasised, the AA/DCFTA “was always an issue done by people who are dealing with economic issues.” 160 Maçães (2019), The Dawn of Eurasia, p. 236.

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distinctive and often divergent sets of practices, and yet both systems are inextricably interwoven and cross-policy effects the norm rather than an aberration.161 Therefore, if trade policy is tasked with realising foreign and security policy objectives but in its actual conduct is structured by practices that are fundamentally economics-driven, then any potential achievement of those foreign and security policy objectives is more accident than design.

3.4 Conclusion The objective of this chapter has been to foreground and analyse the interactions between the practices of trade policy and foreign and security policy in the EU’s approach towards Ukraine, bearing in mind that trade and security were not the only factors that lie at the origins of the Ukraine crisis, although both arguably played an important role. Adopting a practice approach has been proven to be particularly fruitful in examining the different beliefs and rules for action that structure EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy respectively. First, the chapter has argued that the EU’s ‘sleepwalking’ into the Ukraine crisis is a direct corollary of the dominance of trade policy practices in EU external action. It was thus not so much trade objectives, on the one hand, and foreign and security policy objectives, on the other hand, that were contradictory in the EU’s approach towards Ukraine. Indeed, since security and prosperity are co-dependent in the long term, a stable Ukraine could have led to a more prosperous Ukraine and a more prosperous Ukraine was the guarantor of long-term stability. Rather, there was an incongruence between the EU trade policy practices of conducting trade negotiations according to economic criteria and the foreign and security policy practice of using trade policy as a vehicle for foreign and security policy purposes. Second, it has been argued that there was insufficient foreign and security policy oversight and steering provided by the EEAS. Since the practices of trade policy follow beliefs and rules for action that are different from those that structure foreign and security policy, the issue with delegating the pursuit of foreign and security policy objectives to trade policy without ensuring sufficient strategic steering and oversight, as appears to have happened in the case of the ENP/EaP, is that trade officials will conduct trade negotiations according to economic criteria, because they are neither trained nor equipped to deal with foreign and security policy. For this reason, trade policy proved to be an ill-suited substitute for a genuinely ‘common’ foreign and security policy in EU-Ukraine relations. If trade policy is nonetheless tasked with the pursuit of foreign and security policy goals, then, as Fredrik Erixon colourfully phrases it, “decisions about stability and security are outsourced to the haggling merchants at the bazaar of trade politics.”162 161

See Buzan (1983), People, States and Fear, p. 128. Fredrik Erixon (2015), How Trade and Security Became Europe’s Unhappy Couple, Carnegie Europe, 24 March.

162

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Third, as a result, whereas the DCFTA was highly political in foreign and security policy terms, given that it was the centrepiece of the Association Agreement and the vehicle by means of which the EU sought to redress a security imperative, the negotiations were conducted in a strangely apolitical, technocratic fashion that reflected the commercially-driven practices of the CCP. Prior to the outbreak of the crisis, there had been no apparent reflection on the security policy reverberations the AA/DCFTA might produce in the triangular relationship between the EU, Ukraine and Russia.163 Instead, the EU was convinced that it could dismiss Russian concerns as unsubstantiated and disingenuous, as any acknowledging that the DCFTA had geopolitical implications would have been incongruous with the belief that trade policy should be conducted according to economic criteria, not geopolitical ones. Believing that Russia would likewise view the AA/DCFTA as merely an exercise in EU trade policy, the EU lulled itself into a false sense of security. As this chapter has shown, the EU has pursued foreign and security policy goals through the offer of a DCFTA to Ukraine. The AA/DCFTA’s objectives were indeed more about foreign and security policy than about trade interests. The prospect of a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement was used merely as a “goodie”164 to incentivise Ukraine to implement far-reaching reforms whose purpose has been to align Ukraine politically and economically with the EU in the absence of a membership perspective. The ENP/EaP is therefore by no means a purely altruistic exercise in the sense that the EU was simply responding to a demand for membership voiced by its neighbouring states. Rather, the EU sought to ensure its own security by structuring its neighbourhood according to its own model of political and economic governance. This has given the AA/DCFTA with Ukraine “solid geopolitical implications”165 for Russia. The Ukraine crisis was the first direct challenge by military means to the EU’s practice of seeking to increase security through economic integration, which prior to the events in Eastern Ukraine and on the Crimean peninsula had proceeded on the assumption of the almost inexorable incorporation of the EU’s neighbourhood into its system of political, economic and security governance. The EU’s approach of bringing a “low-politics toolbox to a high-politics construction site”166 was met with an aggressive Russian reaction, which Brussels had not expected. By failing to give due consideration to the security dynamics and the Russian approach towards the region, the EU inadvertently got “the worst of both worlds: while it eschewed overt geopolitics, Russia now treated it as a geopolitical rival in the region.”167 Rather than identifying and seeking to pre-emptively address the likely foreign and security policy ramifications and a possible Russian reaction, the dominant thinking inside 163

As a matter of fact, the so-called Impact Assessments the EU carries out before opening trade negotiations do not analyse the foreign and security policy impact of a prospective free trade agreement. 164 Interview #13. 165 Giusti (2016), The EU’s Policy Towards Russia, p. 190. 166 Jan Techau (2014), Europe’s Five Deadly Sins on Ukraine, Carnegie Europe, 4 March. 167 Youngs (2017), Europe’s Eastern Crisis, p. 62.

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the EU institutions continued to be influenced by the beliefs and rules for action that structure EU trade policy, thus failing to give due consideration to the fact that Russian trade policy practices are informed by different beliefs and rules for action about what role trade policy should play in international politics. This diagnosis is to draw attention to the fact that, contrary to the dominant belief inside the EU institutions, the extension of international economic exchanges is by no means the unfailing propellant of peace and security. That trade can in fact also propel strife goes against the deeply-engrained notion of the EU’s very own “founding myth”168 and its long-established trade practices. In this respect, the Ukraine crisis has served as a wake-up call for the EU in that it was confronted, for the first time, with another power that considers trade policy more as an instrument of power politics than economic efficiency.

168

Schimmelfennig (2001), The Community Trap, p. 66.

Chapter 4

The EU Trade-Security Nexus in EU-ASEAN Relations

[T]he EU has compelling economic, sectoral and political interests in enhancing its cooperation with this pivotal player in a region of strategic importance.1

The ten states of Southeast Asia, which together form the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN),2 are in aggregate the world’s seventh largest economy and are moreover projected to become its fourth largest by 2050.3 At the same time, Southeast Asia has become the site of what some call the “strategic rivalry among great powers in Asia.”4 This makes the region both home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a flashpoint of rising tensions between China and the United States. In short, Southeast Asia is—similar to Ukraine and the Eastern neighbourhood— situated at the junction of geopolitics and geoeconomics. It is a region where various states vie for export markets as well as access to energy and raw materials supplies, for control over shipping lanes and fishing grounds, for political influence as well as military and security alliances. This poses particular challenges for the EU, which has long deemed great power competition a relic of the past; indeed, it has all but considered itself the very antidote to such rivalries. Yet, in Southeast Asia, it needs to pursue its interests and promote its values while navigating the treacherous waters of US-Sino great power competition without, however, pretending to play in the same league as these ‘great powers’—at least not in security and defence terms. The United States and China are, respectively, the EU’s biggest and second biggest trading partners; ASEAN is its third largest. What 1

European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (2015), The EU and ASEAN: A Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, JOIN(2015) 22 final, Brussels, 18 May, p. 2. 2 The term Southeast Asia, here, refers to the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. ASEAN is furthermore used to designate both the organisation and its individual member states. 3 See European Commission and High Representative (2015), Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, p. 2. 4 Fenna Egberink and Frans-Paul van der Putten (2010), ASEAN and Strategic Rivalry Among the Great Powers in Asia, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 29(3), pp. 131–141. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Stueber, The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_4

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is more, most EU member states are in a military alliance with the United States and depend on US security guarantees, much like some East and Southeast Asian states.5 While the EU, in spite of the turbulence in transatlantic relations under the Trump administration, still has more commonalities with the United States than with China, it cannot afford to put its economic relations with either country at risk. Therefore, the EU has tried to avoid having to choose a side, whether in the ASEAN region or elsewhere, in the global power struggle that pits the United States and China against each other. At the same time, the EU competes for economic influence, market share and export opportunities in Southeast Asia both with the United States and China as well as other economies. Owing to a certain similarity between the two organisations as the world’s two largest regional integration projects, ASEAN has been the EU’s preferred point of entry to the region.6 Over the past almost 50 years of its relations with ASEAN, the EU has, with varying levels of priority, sought to expand its economic presence and political influence in the region. Only after 2012, though, has Brussels seriously begun to ponder over ways and means to become a security actor in its own right in Southeast Asia. Given ASEAN’s growth prospects and the EU’s dependence on external trade, the EU’s economic interests in the region are obvious, even if the priority the EU has attached to pursuing them has continually surged and waned in accordance with the economic dynamics in both Europe and Southeast Asia. It is, however, less obvious what specific security interests the EU seeks to uphold and defend in Southeast Asia—a region that lies over 10,000 kms away and where it has no territory of its own—and how these interrelate with its economic interests in the region.7 Even less obvious are the means the EU intends to employ to establish itself as a security actor in its own right in the region. The bulk of the existing literature has analysed EU-ASEAN relations predominantly from the perspective of interregionalism, the EU’s promotion of regional integration in its external action and comparative EU-ASEAN regionalism.8 The 5

States that are in a military cooperation with the United States include Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand. 6 The EU at times uses the term “natural partners”, see, for example, EU Delegation (2013), EUASEAN: Natural Partners, Jakarta, January. 7 See Maaike Okano-Heijmans (2014), Trade Diplomacy in EU-Asia Relations: Time for a Rethink, Clingendael Report, September, p. 19. 8 See Laura Allison (2015), The EU, ASEAN and Interregionalism: Regional Support and Norm Diffusion between the EU and ASEAN, London: Palgrave Macmillan; Matthew Doidge (2011), The European Union and Interregionalism: Patterns of Engagement, Abingdon: Routledge, Ch. 3; Julie Gilson (2005), New Interregionalism? The EU and East Asia, European Integration, 27(3), pp. 307–326; Anja Jetschke and Philomena Murray (2012), Diffusing Regional Integration: The EU and Southeast Asia, West European Politics, 35(1), pp. 174–191; Mosung Lee and Thomas Diez (2016), Introduction: The EU, East Asian Conflict and the Norm of Integration, Asia Europe Journal, 14(4), pp. 353–366; Naila Maier-Knapp (2020) Contemporary Inter-Regional Dialogue and Cooperation between the EU and ASEAN on Non-Traditional Security Challenges, Abingdon: Routledge; Philomena Murray and Nicholas Rees (2010), European and Asian Regionalism: Form and Function, International Politics, 47(3/4), pp. 269–275; Philomena Murray (2010), Comparing Regional Integration in the EU and East Asia: Moving beyond Integration Snobbery, International

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EU and ASEAN being the world’s two most advanced regional integration projects, appear to be only a natural object of study for interregionalism. Region-to-region—as opposed to country-to-country relations—are a relatively new phenomenon in international relations and the EU plays a central role in promoting regional integration around the world as a framework for global governance. The political dimension of EU-ASEAN cooperation, however, has long been neglected in the literature.9 The analysis of economic issues, in particular, scholarly discussions of the proposed EUASEAN FTA and the actually negotiated bilateral FTAs with individual ASEAN states have been dominant in the literature. This focus of the scholarly inquiry is in itself indicative of the relative weight of the different policy issues in EU-ASEAN relations. Only in recent years has security cooperation between the two organisations gradually crept into the limelight of scholarly interest. The key question in this string of research is whether, and if so to what extent, the EU can be classified as a security actor in its own right in Southeast Asia. The common view among scholars is that while the EU is very far from being a security actor in the traditional understanding of the concept, it has carved out a role for itself as a non-traditional security actor,10 albeit with limited influence on the hard security issues in Southeast Asia.11 The IPE literature, on the other hand, has put the focus on trade relations and other economic aspects of the relationship.12 The actorness of the EU in trade policy not being in question, this strand of research puts the focus of analysis on the EU’s trade initiatives in the region,13 its economic diplomacy and other economic and financial Politics, 47(3/4), pp. 308–323; Nicholas Rees (2010), EU and ASEAN: Issues of Regional Security, International Politics, 47(3/4), pp. 402–418. 9 See Daniel Novotny and Clara Portela (2012), Prospects for EU and ASEAN Relations in the 21st Century: Growing Closer Together or Drifting Further Apart?, in: Daniel Novotny and Clara Portela (eds.), EU-ASEAN Relations in the 21st Century: Strategic Partnership in the Making, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 1. 10 See Naila Maier-Knapp (2015), Southeast Asia and the European Union: Non-Traditional Security Crises and Cooperation, Routledge: Abingdon; Maier-Knapp (2020), Contemporary InterRegional Dialogue and Cooperation; Angela Pennisi di Floristella (2017), The EU-ASEAN Relationship: Cooperation on Non-Traditional Security Threats between Discourse and Practice, in: Ariadna Ripoll Servent and Florian Trauner (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Justice and Home Affairs Research, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 371–382; Reuben Wong and Scott Brown (2016), Stepping Up EU-ASEAN Cooperation in Non-Traditional Security, in: Olivia Gippner (ed.), Changing Waters: Towards a New EU Asia Strategy, LSE IDEAS, Special Report SR021, London, April, pp. 79–85; Michael Reiterer (2014), The EU’s Comprehensive Approach to Security in Asia, European Foreign Affairs Review, 19(1), pp. 1–22. 11 See Lay Hwee Yeo (2018), EU-ASEAN Security Cooperation, in: Spyros Economides and James Sperling (eds.), EU Security Strategies: Extending the EU System of Security Governance, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 67–81; Fraser Cameron (2010), The Geopolitics of Asia: What Role for the European Union?, International Politics, 47(3/4), pp. 276–292. 12 See Christopher M. Dent (1999), The European Union and East Asia: An Economic Relationship, London: Routledge, Ch. 3; Alfredo C. Robles Jr. (2004), The Political Economy of Interregional Relations: ASEAN and the EU, Aldershot: Ashgate. 13 See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, Ch. 4; Katharina L. Meissner (2016), A Case of Failed Interregionalism? Analyzing the EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement Negotiations, Asia Europe Journal, 14(3), pp. 319–336.

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linkages.14 A central theme is a degree to which the EU succeeds in opening up the markets of Southeast Asia through trade policy initiatives. This chapter will draw on the insights of the existing literature to chart the developments in EU trade policy and foreign and security policy, respectively, towards ASEAN, thereby analysing how the two policy fields’ respective practices interrelate with one another. The gathered interview data and official documents will be used to bring to the fore the nexus of trade policy practices and foreign and security policy practices in the EU’s approach towards Southeast Asia. An analogous disclaimer as in the previous case study also applies here: this chapter is about the EU, about how the EU practices its trade policy and foreign and security policy in Southeast Asia. It is not about ASEAN or Chinese political developments, although some elements of these will to the extent necessary for the purposes of this analysis be included. Even though EU-ASEAN relations have over the years widened to comprise the full panoply of international affairs—be it in the political, security, economic, environmental, cultural realms—and many interactions between the different policy areas exist, the focus here is on the interplay between trade policy and foreign and security policy, putting other policy issues to the side. The chapter is structured as follows: first, the genesis and history of EU trade and economic interests in Southeast Asia are examined. Second, the EU’s foreign and security policy interests and how they are derived from its trade and economic interests are analysed. Both sections use the prism of practice theory to explain the interactions between the two policy fields.

4.1 EU Trade and Economic Interests in Southeast Asia The EU is ASEAN’s oldest dialogue partner. Since the establishment in 1972 of informal group-to-group discussions between the EU and ASEAN, which were subsequently in 1977 upgraded to ministers and senior officials’ level, trade and development cooperation have been the bearing pillars of EU-ASEAN relations and defined bloc-to-bloc relations in these first years. The 1980 Cooperation Agreement, which formalised relations, was “essentially economic in nature”.15 Although there was some degree of dialogue on political questions, trade and development cooperation were undoubtedly the defining issues in the relationship. On the whole, however, cultivating its relations with ASEAN was not a priority for the EU during the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of which relations were “more rhetorical than substantial in nature.”16 And, by the early 1990s, EU-ASEAN relations had deteriorated over 14

See Paul J. J. Welfens, Cillian Ryan, Suthiphand Chirathivat and Franz Knipping (2009), eds., EU-ASEAN: Facing Economic Globalisation, Heidelberg: Springer. 15 David Camroux (2008), The European Union and ASEAN: Two to Tango?, Notre Europe, Research & Studies 65, p. 31. 16 Evi Fitriani (2014), The Impact of the EU Crisis on EU-ASEAN Relations, Geopolitics, History and International Relations, 6(1), p. 82.

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human rights issues, democratic standards and the rule of law.17 ASEAN member states rejected the EU’s attaching political conditionality to trade and development cooperation and the ensuing disruption in diplomatic relations quickly forestalled the plan, adopted only at the 1991 Kuala Lumpur summit, to negotiate a new cooperation agreement.18 The ensuing deadlock in EU-ASEAN relations, thus caused by differences over political issues, also carried the risk that the EU’s economic presence in East and Southeast Asia could be marginalised by the actions and initiatives of the United States, Japan and China. There was moreover a general sense of an almost pre-destined loss of the EU’s global economic standing in light of the heralded ‘Pacific’ twenty-first century.19 Therefore, out of a concern to lose access to some of the world’s most rapidly growing economies,20 the EU sought to pragmatise its relations with East and Southeast states by reinvigorating their economic dimension. The 1994 Towards a New Asia Strategy, which in spite of its title was, in reality, the EU’s first Asia strategy, is an open acknowledgement that the EU had thus far not accorded Asia the importance commensurate with its burgeoning economic growth dynamics. The document is consequently decidedly tilted towards economic issues with a view “[t]o strengthen[ing] the Union’s economic presence in Asia in order to maintain the Union’s leading role in the world economy.”21 Securing improved market access to Asian economies was thus posited as the conditio sine qua non for maintaining the EU’s leading role in the global economy. A view that underlines the importance the EU believed Asia and in particular East and Southeast Asia would have for ensuring Europe’s continued prosperity by benefitting from the projected economic rise of Asia and tapping into the growing consumer markets of East and Southeast Asia. Although the strategy tentatively lays out elements for gradually enhancing the EU’s role in security affairs in the region through the expansion of political dialogue, focussing 17

See Yeo Lay Hwee (2009), The EU as a Security Actor in Southeast Asia, in: Wilhelm Hofmeister (ed.), Security Politics in Asia and Europe, Singapore: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, p. 10. 18 See Eero Palmujoki (1997), EU-ASEAN Relations: Reconciling Two Different Agendas, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 19(3), p. 273. See also Evi Fitriani (2017), Europe and Southeast Asia: The Nature of Contemporary Relations, in: Fredrik Erixon and Krishnan Srinivasan (eds.), Europe in Emerging Asia: Opportunities and Obstacles in Political and Economic Encounters, London: Rowman and Littlefield International, p. 75. 19 See Christopher M. Dent (2001), ASEM and the ‘Cinderella Complex’ of EU-East Asia Economic Relations, Pacific Affairs, 74(1), pp. 29–30. 20 See European Commission (1994), Towards a New Asia Strategy, COM(94) 314 final, Brussels, 13 July, p. 17: “The Union stands to lose out on the economic miracle taking place there because of the strong competition: from Japan and the United States and also increasingly from companies within the region’s newly industrialised and capital rich countries such as Korea or Taiwan. […] If European companies are unable to take a full share of the world’s main centre of growth in the next decade this will affect their profits and competitiveness, not only in Asian markets, but also world-wide. If the Union loses out on the economic miracle taking place in Asia, this will have political costs and at the very least it will exacerbate the calls for more defensive policies from those who view Asia as a threat rather than as a valuable partner, which in turn will further reduce the benefits to be gained from Asia and so on, in a spiral of decline.” 21 Ibid., p. 3.

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on non-proliferation, human rights and drug trafficking, the document unambiguously underscores that “[t]he main thrust of the present and future policy in Asia is related to economic matters”,22 thereby conjuring up the impression that security is seen mostly instrumentally as a necessary framework condition for ensuring the expansion of uninhibited trade and investment flows.23 The specification that the focus not only of ‘present’ but also of ‘future’ EU policy would be laid on economic issues moreover testifies to the dearth of genuine ambition on the part of the EU to increase its security presence in Asia in parallel with its economic interests. Put differently, the EU did not see the need to back up an increase of its economic stakes in the region by stepping up its security policy involvement. Hence, although the EU must, of course, be assumed to have had an interest in the stability of the region, it did not appear to be willing to muster the necessary resources to pursue this security interest. With the Balkan wars raging in its backyard, there were also more pressing security issues to be dealt with.

4.1.1 Economic Interests and ASEAN’s Centrality ASEAN was attributed a “key position” in the EU’s objective of expanding its influence in the Asia–Pacific.24 By the mid-1990s, the Commission was gripped by “a certain anxiety” that the EU would lose out on its economic competitors in Southeast Asia and thus be “shut out of the region by the dynamic action of other great economic powers.”25 The reference to the ‘actions of other great economic powers’ is instructive of the general approach that characterised EU policy towards ASEAN at the time. First, the concern of being shut out refers to economic matters only. Although the 1996 ASEAN strategy refers to the need to develop a new security architecture in the Asia–Pacific and assumes that ASEAN will play a pivotal role in these efforts, little indicates that the EU itself had the ambition to play a role in formulating this new security framework, instead referring to the security dominance of the United States. It is important to note that, in 1996, the Common Foreign and Security Policy had barely been launched three years prior and the Common Security and Defence Policy would only be established three years later. Second, ‘other great economic powers’ implies that the EU saw itself as a great economic power and as

22

Ibid. Indeed, with reference to the projected economic rise of Asia, the strategy states: “In order to seize these new opportunities the Union should seek to make a positive contribution to regional security dialogues and to follow closely developments in particular in the area of arms control and non-proliferation, regional disputes (Korea, Spratly, Kashmir) and the security of sea lanes. Matters relating to good governance, including human rights, should also play an important role in the Union’s relations with Asian countries.” (p. 2). 24 European Commission (1996), Creating a New Dynamic in EU-ASEAN Relations, COM(96) 314 final, Brussels, 3 July, p. 4. 25 Ibid., p. 10. 23

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such somewhat as a matter of principle claimed a right to shape the economic environment in Southeast Asia to its own advantage. It was indeed the concern that East and Southeast Asian economies would align their regulatory framework with that of the United States, thereby leaving EU businesses at a competitive disadvantage, that underpinned EU engagement with the region.26 In this regard, strengthening ties with ASEAN was premised on the notion of “ensur[ing] that Asian regional integration occurs in a way compatible to EU interests.”27 In other words, the EU, as a great economic power, wanted to structure Asian markets in a way that benefits EU businesses, both out of rationally-calculated economic self-interest and to live up to its self-image of a great economic power. Lastly and most importantly, the phraseology suggests that EU trade policy towards Southeast Asia has in no small measure been influenced by the trade policy initiatives of the United States, Japan and China and the relative commercial advantages these countries had already secured or were poised to secure in ASEAN.28 Two practices can be identified, here, that are characteristic of EU trade policy more generally. First, structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations by including the adoption by the trading partner of significant parts of the EU acquis communautaire in any prospective trade agreement. As highlighted in the previous chapter, this practice serves the objective of eliminating, or at least reducing, non-tariff barriers to trade and investment, thereby rendering the foreign market more easily accessible for EU businesses, including relative to economic competitors, which may not be familiar with EU rules and regulations. Second, balancing commercial advantages, through concluding ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements, negotiated by economic competitors. This latter practice requires that prospective trade agreements meet a certain standard of ambitiousness, for otherwise the EU would not improve its competitive position in important growth markets vis-à-vis its economic competitors. It also pushes the EU to negotiate trade agreements with countries or regions where its economic competitors have already concluded trade agreements or are poised to do so. It is a practice in the sense of a pattern of actions that EU trade officials routinely engage in when selecting prospective trade partners and negotiating trade agreements. The practice of balancing commercial advantages is composed of a range of doings and understandings that reflect beliefs about what constitutes a competent performance in the realm of trade policy; or, more precisely, how to select trade partners and how to design specific provisions so as to retain and improve the EU’s competitive position in key markets. Specific doings include comparing provisions on specific issues the 26

See European Commission (1995), Free Trade Areas: An Appraisal, SEC(95) 322 final, Brussels, 8 March, p. 7: “Failure on our part to engage in this type of wider economic co-operation may well result in important economic regions developing a regulatory framework which will potentially hurt the Union’ interests. […] If the countries of East Asia were, as a result of regulatory co-operation within APEC, to align their regulatory systems practices to those of the United States, this would place the EU at a competitive disadvantage, at least to the extent that a large and dynamic part of the world economy developed as a result a system which diverged significantly from that of the Union.” 27 Ibid., p. 8. 28 See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, pp. 136–138.

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trade partner has negotiated with EU competitors and adjusting the EU’s negotiating position accordingly (i.e. demanding at least the same or a more favourable provision).29 It is, moreover, suggestive of a particular way of understanding (i.e. apprehending, reading) international trade relations, to wit as a competitive undertaking whereby states compete for market share and trade volume. This specific way of understanding international trade relations is an inseparable part of the practice of balancing commercial advantages, for if international trade were not considered to involve competition among states, there would be no need for balancing.30 Consequently, the EU tried to position itself as an influential player in “the emergence of a new balance among the evolving actors”31 in Southeast Asia. This choice of language may appear evocative of classic balance of power diplomacy and the Commission did indeed expect that ‘balance of power’ would become the concept of choice for managing diplomatic relations in Asia.32 However, when buttressing the EU as “a counterbalance to the presence of Japan and the United States” in the region, the Commission referred to the EU’s then status as ASEAN’s second biggest export market—an economic category, that is.33 All of this underscores a fundamentally economic understanding of the developments occurring at the time in Southeast Asia. To be sure, the 1994 Asia strategy contains a fairly comprehensive, if concise, analysis of the upheavals in the Asian security landscape in the aftermath of the Cold War. And the Commission’s 1996 ASEAN strategy emphasises the strategically important geographic position of ASEAN at the intersection of important sea lines of communication and maritime chokepoints. It moreover notes ASEAN’s “pivotal role” in upholding security and stability and in designing a new security framework for the region during the “period of readjustment” ASEAN was traversing after the fall of the Soviet bloc.34 But while the Commission declared that the “[e]ffective recognition of ASEAN’s leading role should push the European Union to make it a focal point of its political presence in Asia”,35 in practical terms the EU saw its own contribution as essentially economic in nature. Whereas the Commission defined clear economic interests in Southeast Asia and outlined the ambition to make the EU a key economic player in the region, no similar process of defining, let alone aligning, ends and means was discernible in the realm of foreign and security policy. 29

From my own experience as a trainee in DG Trade, I can attest that EU trade negotiators are very well informed about the concessions and specific provisions that the country they are negotiating with has granted and included in its trade agreements with others countries. Preparing for trade negotiations consequently involves careful examination of the trade agreements the prospective trade partner has already concluded with others. 30 As highlighted in the Chapter 4, this competitiveness-focused understanding of international trade relations has been on the rise in EU trade policy since the Global Europe trade strategy of 2006. 31 European Commission (1996), Creating a New Dynamic, p. 11. 32 See European Commission (1994), Towards a New Asia Strategy, p. 9. 33 European Commission (1996), Creating a New Dynamic, p. 10. 34 Ibid., p. 11. 35 Ibid. (emphasis added).

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In fact, there was no EU foreign and security policy engagement in Southeast Asia to speak of. In terms of how the EU intended to apply its trade policy instruments in the pursuit of its economic interests in Southeast Asia, it is worth pointing out that, even though the Commission feared losing out on its economic competitors in the region, it called on reducing barriers to trade and investment in the ASEAN region not by means of a preferential trade agreement but through multilateral trade negotiations at the WTO.36 Yet negotiating multilaterally at the WTO would have deprived the EU of securing relative commercial advantages vis-à-vis its competitors, as according to the WTO’s most-favoured nation rule all benefits must be extended to all WTO members. The spurning of preferential trade agreements, which according to Art. XIV GATT is the only permitted exception to the most-favoured nation principle, reflected the EU trade policy practice at the time—one year after the inception of the WTO—to pursue trade and investment liberalisation exclusively through the multilateral channel. It is a clear example of applying available trade instruments (i.e. means) in a patterned way (i.e. multilaterally) in the pursuit of trade and investment liberalisation (i.e. ends). The impression that the EU’s interest in intensifying relations with ASEAN was motivated primarily by economic considerations is furthermore pointedly illustrated by the EU’s losing interest in the region after the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 had dampened, if only temporarily, ASEAN’s economic growth dynamics.37 The— in retrospect overly hastily—perceived end of the Asian miracle seemingly lessened the need for the EU to enhance its economic presence in Southeast Asia, because the economic downturn of Southeast Asia made any commercial advantages secured by the EU’s competitors less valuable and thus less threatening to the EU’s very own economic interests. By counterfactual reasoning, if the EU’s interest had been equally or primarily propelled by the ambition to shape the Southeast Asian security environment, a task that had by no means become less relevant through the Asian financial crisis, the EU should not have shifted its focus away from following the crisis.

4.1.2 Losing Out on Competitors At the turn of the millennium, the EU was largely occupied with preparing the historic 2004 EU enlargement, which entailed a period of introspection that negatively affected its economic engagement with Southeast Asia.38 Hence, despite the swifter-than-expected recovery of Asian economies, ASEAN had fallen out of the 36

Ibid., p. 15. See Sebastian Bersick (2009), Die Rolle der EU in der Sicherheitsarchitektur Ostasiens, SWP Arbeitspapier FG7, 2009/05, July, p. 21. See also Fitriani (2014), Impact of the EU Crisis, p. 78. 38 See Dent (2001), ‘Cinderella Complex’, p. 32; Maria Garcia (2010), Fears and Strategies: The European Union, China and their Free Trade Agreements in East Asia, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 6(4), p. 499. 37

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limelight for the EU and the EU effectively left it to other countries to create economic partnerships and alliances. When Singapore approached the EU in 2003 with the proposal to launch free trade negotiations, Brussels rejected it.39 On the one hand, this refusal is to be explained with the EU’s then practice not to negotiate preferential trade agreements, but rather to pursue trade liberalisation multilaterally through the WTO. This practice, which lasted from 1999 until 2004 while Pascal Lamy was EU commissioner for trade,40 is observable in the absence of a number of actions that would normally be undertaken when negotiating free trade agreements, such as conducting a so-called ‘scoping exercise’ with the other party to determine the scope and the level of ambition of the prospective agreement, engaging in the necessary consultations with member states with a view to obtaining a negotiating mandate from the Council, allocating additional staff and resources to the relevant units in DG Trade, and undertaking in-depth analyses of the trade agreements ASEAN concluded with other countries. In short, all actions that are undertaken in preparation for launching negotiations on preferential trade agreements were either absent or, in the case of staff and resources, allocated to those units that deal with multilateral trade negotiations and the Doha round at the WTO. This practice reflects the belief that, because the EU professed to be one of the main supporters of the Doha Development Round, any negotiating of preferential trade agreements would have left the impression of undermining the Doha process. In other words, it was not considered ‘right’ and ‘appropriate’ to launch negotiations on preferential trade agreements while simultaneously negotiating at the WTO. The Commission was therefore convinced that an eventual EU-ASEAN free trade agreement should only be envisaged after the successful conclusion of the Doha round of trade negotiations.41 The practice of not negotiating any new bilateral trade agreements, which de facto amounted to a moratorium, had the effect of making the EU a later-comer in terms of negotiating free trade agreements with Southeast Asian economies. On the other hand, a more trivial reason for the EU to be wary about opening trade negotiations with ASEAN was the deficit in goods trade the EU had been running with ASEAN in all but two years (1983, 1995) since 1980. It was therefore arguably also the fear of seeing its trade deficit with ASEAN grow that made the EU refuse to negotiate an FTA with ASEAN.42 However, as the deadlock at the WTO increasingly frustrated EU efforts to internationalise its ‘deep trade’ agenda through multilateral trade liberalisation,43 the decisions to launch and the successful conclusions of trade negotiations between ASEAN and China (2001–2004), Korea (2004–2006), Japan (2002–2007), India 39

See Alfred C. Robles Jr. (2008), An EU-ASEAN FTA: The EU’s Failures as an International Actor, European Foreign Affairs Review, 13, pp. 544–545. 40 See Meunier (2007), Managing Globalization?, p. 912; Heron and Siles-Brügge (2012), Competitive Liberalization, p. 252. 41 See European Commission (2003), A New Partnership with South East Asia, COM(2003) 399 final, Brussels, 9 July, p. 18. 42 See Robles (2008), An EU-ASEAN FTA, p. 544. 43 See Alasdair R. Young and John Peterson (2006), The EU and the New Trade Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, 13(6), p. 807.

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(2003–2009) as well as the trade agreement struck between the United States and Singapore (2001–2003) put the EU under pressure to review its practice of not negotiating preferential trade agreements.44 Concerns about competitive pressures are readily discernible in EU publications of the time: Most of Europe’s main economic partners and competitors are currently forging economic partnerships and alliances with the region and/or its individual members, which could challenge EU interests in the region. Therefore the EU will have to play its part in this intense inter-weaving of economic ties with South East Asia. Its strategy should be both ‘offensive’, seeking to improve the EU’ position in this important market and ‘defensive’, protecting its existing economic interests in the region.45

Interestingly, this paragraph was published in the 2003 update of the ASEAN strategy, that is, in the very same year the EU turned down Singapore’s request of opening free trade negotiations. This underscores that even though the Commission clearly perceived the problematic consequences of the practice of not negotiating preferential trade agreements, the EU was nevertheless hard-pressed to part with this practice. In addition to structural developments in the global trade policy environment that made the EU’s practice increasingly difficult to uphold, it required the arrival of a new trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, who was eager to dispose of the moratorium on FTAs associated with his predecessor, as well as a sufficient rotation of staff in DG Trade, which saw proponents of the moratorium move to other DGs, to usher in change.46 In other words, it required an evolution of beliefs inside DG Trade about the usefulness and desirability of preferential trade agreements relative to multilateral trade agreements to alter an existing trade policy practice.47 In line with the view that practices are the transmission belt between structure and agency, the structural changes in international trade policy induced a change in EU trade policy, while the change in EU trade policy towards competitiveness-driven FTAs has, in turn, inevitably shaped the structure of the international trade system due to the sheer economic weight of the EU as a global trade actor. Indeed, the reversal of the EU’s previous refusal to negotiate with ASEAN and thus the decision to abandon its moratorium on preferential trade agreements has to be seen in the context of the general shift in EU trade policy towards focussing on competitiveness issues occurring under the stewardship of trade commissioner Peter Mandelson (2004–2008). The launch of trade negotiations with ASEAN in May 2007 44

See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, pp. 136–138; Camroux (2008), Two to Tango?, p. 28; Ludo Cuyvers (2007), An EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement: Reflections on Issues, Priorities, Strategies, CAS Discussion Paper, No. 53, October, pp. 4, 7. 45 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 8. 46 See Stephen Woolcock (2007), European Union Policy Towards Free Trade Agreements, p. 5; Garcia (2010), Fears and Strategies, p. 509. 47 It is noteworthy in this regard that the moratorium on FTAs was not a formal policy but an informal policy practice inasmuch as it reflected a consensus between the Commission and Member States, see Woolcock (2007), European Union Policy Towards Free Trade Agreements p. 2. See also Elizabeth Shove, Mika Pantzar and Matt Watson (2012), The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How It Changes, London: Sage, p. 64 (emphasis in original): “[T]he contours of any one practice depend on changing populations of more and less faithful carriers or practitioners.”

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was made possible only through the shift in trade policy ushered in by the Global Europe strategy of 2006. The strategy lays down economic criteria for selecting potential trade partners and launches the paradigm of “new competitiveness-driven FTAs […] aiming at the highest possible degree of trade liberalisation including far-reaching liberalisation of services and investment.”48 Based on the criteria for selecting trade partners, ASEAN is singled out as a priority, as are Mercosur and South Korea. Moreover, Global Europe postulates a general policy of securing equally good or better access to third markets than its economic competitors.49 It was the concern of losing out on competitors more than the actual expected gains from an FTA with ASEAN that affected the transformation of EU trade policy practices regarding the question of a possible FTA with ASEAN.50 Thus, the practices of selecting potential trading partners according to economic criteria and negotiating ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements began to shape EU trade policy. Little in the Commission declarations, the Council conclusions granting the negotiating mandate or the interview material indicates that factors other than those related to economic and competitiveness concerns have played a decisive role in the decisionmaking process that led to the opening of trade negotiations with ASEAN in 2007.51 The Council endorsed the Commission practice of selecting FTA partners on the basis of economic criteria, as outlined in the Global Europe strategy while demanding that these new FTAs should be ambitious, comprehensive and offer far-reaching trade liberalisation. Particular attention was to be paid to improving the EU’s competitive position and market access condition relative to competitors in third markets. In other words, member states fully endorsed the Commission approach. A senior DG Trade official prominently involved in the negotiations replied in the negative when asked whether foreign and security policy considerations influenced the launch of

48

European Commission (2006), Global Europe, p. 11. See European Commission (2006), Global Europe, p. 11: “Where our partners have signed FTAs with other countries that are competitors to the EU, we should seek fully parity at least.” 50 See Maria Garcia (2012), From Bottom of the Pyramid to Top Priority: Explaining Asia in the EU’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Strategy, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies, 4(1), pp. 49–51. 51 See Council of the European Union (2007), General Affairs and External Relations, 2795th/2796th Council meetings, PRESS RELEASE, 8425/07, Luxembourg, 23–24 April, p. 36: “The new WTO-compatible Free Trade Agreements with emerging countries should contribute to improving competitiveness and growth in Europe and globally and support further integration of partner countries into the international trading system. They should be ambitious and comprehensive and comprise far reaching liberalisation of trade in goods and services and investment. Special attention will be given to the elimination of non-tariff barriers. The Council supports the Commission’s approach for Free Trade Agreements based on economic considerations, especially the market potential of possible partner countries, the current level of trade barriers between them and the EU and their ongoing or concluded Free Trade Agreement negotiations with EU competitors. While respecting the priority of the multilateral trade negotiations, Free Trade Agreements with countries of ASEAN, India and the Republic of Korea should be taken forward rapidly to improve the external competitiveness and market access conditions of European industries on these important markets vis-à-vis competitors.” 49

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trade negotiations with ASEAN.52 In short, the decision to launch trade negotiations with ASEAN was taken in the context of competition among large economies for improved market access and competitive advantages in Southeast Asia.53 But even though the decision of whether or not to launch trade negotiations with ASEAN countries was mainly motivated by economic considerations, choosing to do so with ASEAN as a whole, rather than with individual ASEAN countries, did have a supplementary foreign and security policy rationale to it. Opting for an interregional negotiating format was believed to strengthen ASEAN as an organisation, which would, in turn, be conductive to the overall security and stability of Southeast Asia and the entire Asia–Pacific. Furthermore, having a trade agreement with the whole of ASEAN rather than with an individual country would also enhance the EU’s overall political presence in the region, which the EU did not want to leave to its competitors.54 Of course, a region-to-region agreement would potentially also offer greater economic gains and the standard-setting effect of an interregional agreement would likewise be more far reaching. However, given that Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam have consistently accounted for well over half of EU-ASEAN trade over the last twenty years,55 foreign and security policy considerations appear to have been more important than purely economic considerations in the initial choice for an interregional negotiating format. Even so, while the Council conclusions contain the standard language on policy coherence and strengthening political ties,56 the lack of high-level political attendance at the EU-ASEAN summit in Singapore in November 2007, which served as the commemorative event for celebrating 30 years of EUASEAN relations, illustrates how little political relevance was actually attached to 52

Interview #6: “No, I don’t think that, frankly, it was a significant factor during the negotiations with Korea or even ASEAN at that point in time. I think those negotiations were really fundamentally driven by economic interests, trying to get a as solid as possible trade agreement in terms of our offensive economic interests. So, the broader situation in Asia, the role of China, I don’t think that when it came to—at least at that phase—the negotiations with Korea or with ASEAN countries that it was really a particularly significant factor […] it was probably much more significant that we were not left behind in terms of free trade agreements negotiated by the United States. And when the United States policy process was paralyzed, it was also, I would say, getting a first mover advantage vis-à-vis the United States.” 53 See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, p. 137. 54 See Meissner (2016), Failed Interregionalism?, p. 333. 55 The share of Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in total EU-ASEAN trade by volume steadily grew from 55.7% (2002) to 59.6% (2010) to 61.9% (2019). While Singapore and Malaysia have consistently been the EU’s top two trading partners as a share of total EU-ASEAN trade by volume over the same timeframe, Vietnam’s share rose from 6.1% (2002) to 21.5% (2019). By comparison, Indonesia’s share in the same measurement dropped from 14.5% (2002) to 10.9% (2019), even though total EU-Indonesia trade by volume rose by a bit more than one and a half fold in absolute numbers (All data are retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/home; calculations are my own). 56 See Council of the European Union (2007), 2795th/2796th Council Meetings, p. 36: “The Council welcomes and supports the Commission’s analysis and proposals to ensure, in each case, that these agreements will be part of an overall and coherent framework of EU relations with each partner. The Council underlines its interest in also achieving a further strengthening of political ties with ASEAN countries, India and the Republic of Korea through new Partnership- and Cooperation Agreements or an updating of the existing Framework Agreements including the EU political clause.”

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these negotiations.57 This absenteeism, which ASEAN states and in particular Singapore as the summit’s host took as a diplomatic affront,58 demonstrates how much the EU treated its relations with ASEAN as an issue of ‘low’ trade politics. Interestingly, David Camroux makes the argument that by 2005 it was not ASEAN demanding a free trade agreement with the EU so much as the other way round.59 Indeed, given that ASEAN states had been enjoying a trade surplus with the EU, it is not clear what commercial advantages they could have expected to gain from a free trade agreement,60 whereas the EU was impatient to gain ground in the scramble for access to the markets of Southeast Asia.61 Whereas ASEAN seemed to favour a tariff-only agreement,62 the EU wanted an agreement that would above all address non-tariffs barriers, trade in services as well as other ‘new’ issues, such as competition rules, public procurement and intellectual property law. In line with its practice of seeking to structure foreign markets according to the rules of the EU single market, the Commission advocated a trade agreement that would harmonise the regulations of ASEAN states with those of the EU; this meant, of course, that ASEAN states had to converge to EU standards rather than vice versa. The rationale underpinning this practice is neatly summarised by Alfred C. Robles, who stresses that “[o]nce EUstyle regulations were in place in Southeast Asia, European firms would obviously enjoy a considerable advantage over both Southeast Asian firms and firms from the rest of the world, none of whom would be familiar with EU-style regulations.”63

57

See Jörn Dosch and Naila Maier-Knapp (2017), EU-ASEAN Relations: Taking Stock of a Comprehensive Inter-Regional Relationship Between Natural Partners, in: Christian Echle, Megha Sarmah and Frederick Kliem (eds.), ASEAN at 50: A Look at Its External Relations, Singapore: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, p. 129. 58 See ibid. 59 See Camroux (2008), Two to Tango?, p. 29. 60 See ibid. 61 See Koh Gui Qing (2007), EU Trade Chief Impatient on Doha and Southeast Asia Deal, Reuters, 22 November. 62 See Dosch and Maier-Knapp (2017), EU-ASEAN Relations, p. 135. 63 Robles (2008), An EU-ASEAN FTA, p. 545. See also Garcia (2013), From Idealism to Realism?, p. 531, who makes a similar argument when pointing out that the export of EU values and standards “serves the dual purpose of enhancing EU influence and also exporting its standards thus placing its own producers on a par with, or even at an advantage over, those from other parts of the world.” More generally, see also Robert Gilpin (2001), Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economy Order, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 21: “[I]n a highly integrated global economy, states continue to use their power and to implement policies to change economic forces favourable to their own national interests and the interests of their citizenry. These national economic interests include receipt of a favourable share of the gains from international economic activities and preservation of national autonomy.”

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4.1.3 From Interregional to Bilateral Negotiations The Commission initially entertained the hope of concluding the negotiations within a two-year timeframe.64 More than an overly optimistic reading of the differences between the EU and ASEAN, it is an indicator that the Commission felt under considerable pressure to balance the commercial advantages secured by its economic competitors with a free trade agreement of its own or to pre-empt those where no competitor had yet concluded an FTA with ASEAN. Yet the negotiations, launched in May 2007, quickly reached an impasse; in fact, they never went beyond the stage of preparatory talks and no exchange of market offers was ever made.65 Officially, the Commission cited differences over Myanmar’s participation in the negotiations as the principal stumbling block.66 But the suspension of negotiations in March 2009 and their resumption in bilateral format in December that same year with individual ASEAN states were, in fact, more likely to be driven by the EU’s realisation that a comprehensive and ambitious trade agreement covering services, investment, public procurement and NTBs in addition to tariffs would not be feasible with ASEAN as a whole,67 or at best, if at all, only at the end of a long-drawn-out negotiating process that would have presumably overstretched the EU’s patience. DG Trade’s practice of negotiating only ambitious and far-reaching trade agreements, which shapes its approach to virtually all trade negotiations, in this instance conflicted with ASEAN’s political and economic heterogeneity. Rather than allowing this practice to be adapted to the exigencies of the complex ASEAN environment and thus be able to continue the negotiations with ASEAN as a whole, an option that would have also served the EU’s foreign and security policy objective of reinforcing ASEAN as a regional organisation, DG Trade favoured the continuation of negotiations in bilateral format with those countries that “were willing to and capable of sharing their [the EU’s, J.S.] ambitions.”68 The decision to continue negotiating with individual ASEAN member states, which was underpinned by the “belief that key economic markets could be dealt with easier in bilateral FTA talks”,69 amounted to a superposing of the EU’s trade practices over its foreign and security policy practices. In particular, the practice of negotiating only ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements took precedence, in the sense of defining the EU’s overall approach vis-à-vis ASEAN, over the practice of using trade agreements as a tool of foreign and security policy to promote regional integration, in this instance, with a view to promoting ASEAN as a regional organisation. When the 64

See Alfredo C. Robles Jr. (2008), The EU and ASEAN: Learning from the Failed EU-Mercosur FTA Negotiations, ASEAN Economic Bulletin, 25(3), p. 338. 65 See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, pp. 152, 156. 66 See Dosch and Maier-Knapp (2017), EU-ASEAN Relations, p. 135. 67 See ibid. 68 Fitriani (2017), Europe and Southeast Asia, p. 77. See also Garcia (2012), Bottom of the Pyramid, p. 48. 69 Hanna Deringer and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama (2018), Europe and South-East Asia: An Exercise in Diplomatic Patience, ECIPE Policy Brief , No. 5/2018, p. 4.

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EU became aware that holding on to the region-to-region format would be detrimental to its economic interests, it switched the negotiating format rather than lower its ambition for the prospective trade agreement.70 It moreover displays the EU’s desire to swiftly deliver tangible results in terms of enhanced economic growth. The onset of the global financial and economic crisis in 2008–2009 may have contributed to this sense of urgency of needing to tap into new foreign markets sooner rather than later.71 In other words, substituting bilateral negotiations for the region-to-region format was also motivated economically by the recognition that the new format would serve the EU’s trade policy interests better.72 It is, therefore, no coincidence that bilateral negotiations were first initiated with Singapore (2009), Malaysia (2010) and Vietnam (2012), which accounted for the lion’s share of EU-ASEAN trade,73 and which were moreover implementing the ASEAN-China FTA and, in the case of Singapore, had a trade agreement with the United States in place.74 With its decision to give precedence to bilateral over interregional negotiations, the EU decoupled its trade policy from its foreign and security policy in Southeast Asia. Under the compulsion of competitive pressures, the EU prioritised its short-term trade policy interests over its longer-term strategic foreign and security policy interests in order to conclude FTAs with individual ASEAN states as quickly as possible so as to be able to keep up with the trade policy initiatives of the United States, Japan and China. But negotiating trade agreements incrementally with individual ASEAN states is potentially inimical to the EU’s foreign and security policy objective of strengthening ASEAN as an organisation and reinforcing regional integration among Southeast Asian states as well as enhancing the EU role as a foreign and security policy actor across the region because it risks driving a wedge in-between the organisation’s member states.75 Starting negotiations with Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, countries that a priori seemed in a position to negotiate ambitious trade agreements, creates a fait accompli, which the remaining ASEAN states will have to meet if the web of bilateral trade agreements is to remain a stepping stone to an eventual interregional trade agreement.

70

See Fitriani (2017), Europe and Southeast Asia, pp. 81–82. In his foreword to the 2010 trade strategy, then trade commissioner Karel de Gucht advises “to trade our way out of the current crisis”, see European Commission (2010), Trade, Growth and World Affairs, p. 2. See also David O’Sullivan (2013), Priorities for EU Diplomacy in East Asia, GRIPS Forum, Tokyo, 12 February: “In economic terms we know that recovery at home depends on the ability to harness growth and open new markets many of which are in Asia.” 72 See Meissner (2018), Commercial Realism, pp. 159–160. 73 See footnote 55 above. 74 See Garcia (2012), Bottom of the Pyramid, p. 48. 75 See Fitriani (2017), Europe and Southeast Asia, p. 82. The Commission had already previously had recourse to what Robles (2008), An EU-ASEAN FTA, pp. 544–545 calls a “divide-and-rule strategy” when, in 2003, instead of engaging Singapore on its request to open free trade negotiations, it proposed the creation of the Trans-Regional EU-ASEAN Trade Initiative (TREATI) to enter into a dialogue on regulatory harmonisation and approximation, added with the remark that the process could start as soon as two ASEAN member states would be posed to join. 71

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The change of negotiating format also reflects the structuring effects of the aforementioned EU trade policy practices, which disposes EU trade officials to pursue a certain standard, form and ambition when negotiating trade agreements. In the EU, the success of a trade agreement is ultimately measured against the welfare gains generated through the increase in trade volume—not in terms of the foreign and security policy influence gained, which is anyways difficult to measure and quantify. With any given trade agreement, DG Trade and by extension the Commission, need to demonstrate that gains will outweigh costs, that there is a net welfare gain flowing from concluding and implementing the agreement. In other words, trade agreements are assessed according to economic criteria, which is the corollary of selecting potential trade partners according to economic criteria. Even if the EU uses trade policy to further non-trade objectives, a trade agreement that would incur a net welfare loss is unlikely to gain much political, business as well as societal support. Therefore, any suggestion to lower the ambition of the prospective agreement, i.e. ask for less, so as to continue negotiating with ASEAN as a group with a view to retaining and expanding foreign and security policy influence was likely to meet the resistance of DG Trade. Then trade commissioner Karel de Gucht consequently declared that the EU would not be available for “shallow” trade agreements76 ; agreements, that is, which are limited to tariff reductions and which, as opposed to the EU’s ‘deep’ trade agenda, do not cover rules and regulations, norms and standards. Ultimately, then, the EU’s practice of negotiating only ambitious and comprehensive trade agreements was incongruous with its practice of promoting regional integration around the globe, as the latter practice would have required the EU to abandon significant parts of its ‘deep’ trade agenda in order to be able to continue the negotiations on a trade agreement with ASEAN as a whole. The interview results indicate that the question of whether to resume region-toregion trade negotiations continues to be a controversial topic inside the EU’s external relations bureaucracy. Whereas the EU’s official position is that an interregional free trade agreement remains the ultimate objective and that the individually negotiated FTAs are building blocks towards that end,77 this is not a universally-shared view among EU officials. Interviewed EEAS officials confided that DG Trade vigorously resisted even mentioning the possibility of resuming region-to-region negotiations, pointing to differences between DG Trade’s economically-based trade practices and the EEAS’ practice of using trade agreements as a diplomatic tool, whereby a blocto-bloc agreement would serve to strengthen political ties and contribute to the EU’s security goal of fostering ASEAN integration: We really had to sweat a lot, because our colleagues in DG Trade did not want to mention the possibility of arriving at a region-to-region FTA. For them, it was off the table. They had been negotiating it with ASEAN between 2007 and 2009. They arrived at the conclusion that it was absolutely hopeless. […] So, they didn’t want to hear about that. But I mean in our 76

Karel de Gucht (2010), Europe and Singapore: Partners in Trade, Partners for Growth, SPEECH/10/58, Singapore, 3 March, p. 4. 77 See, for example, European Commission and High Representative (2015), Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, p. 5.

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opinion here in the EEAS, from a more political point of view, mentioning that possibility – not as an obligation, but as a possibility in the future – would have been a good candy for our ASEAN friends. So, we had to discuss – some would say fight – we had to discuss with them for a long time and then a decision on how to mention that was taken at the cabinet’s level between Malmström’s and Mogherini’s people.78

From a practice theoretical point of view, the statement reflects a certain incongruence between the different beliefs and rules for action prevalent in DG Trade and the EEAS on how to engage with ASEAN states and the role trade policy should play in that. While it is arguably simpler to impose a deep and comprehensive trade agenda in a negotiation with an individual country rather than with a group of countries, the foreign and security policy goal of strengthening ASEAN as a guarantor for peace and stability in Southeast Asia is not contingent upon meeting a predefined threshold of (economic) ambitiousness in a trade agreement. Instead, as the official continued to explain, it is much more important to engage with ASEAN at a political level and a trade agreement with ASEAN as a whole would lend further diplomatic credence to ASEAN as an organisation as well as underline the EU’s intention to engage with ASEAN politically rather than pursuing merely its own economic interests. This, the official further explained, could also imply lowering the ambition for a trade agreement with a view to keeping ASEAN engaged in a political process: With ASEAN you have a political interest to engage them in a free trade agreement. Maybe I’m ignorant, but I think one could also be happy with kind of 50 per cent and then try to adopt an incremental, gradual approach, then you add more bricks. […] [T]his very ambitious attitude of DG Trade sometimes is a bit of a kamikaze strategy, because then partners get a bit discouraged. They say: ‘Ah no, we will never manage to do it. Just laissons tomber.’ I would take kind of a bit more subtle approach. This seems to me a bit of a limit of DG Trade.”79

A similar contrasting between the different beliefs and rules for action that inform EU trade policy practices and EU foreign and security policy practices, respectively, is apparent in the remark by another EEAS official, according to whom DG Trade was opposed to a region-to-region agreement because in the eyes of DG Trade such an agreement would be “very shallow and have a lot of carve outs”,80 whereas bilateral agreements promised to be more ambitious and comprehensive. This was contrasted with the EEAS, which. has overarching political goals: a stronger ASEAN is good for the regional balance, not only in the South China Sea, but also for other reasons, but including for the South China Sea. So we’re keen to unify, help unify ASEAN. DG Trade is interested in maximizing business opportunities and they’d rather fight for GIs [geographical indications, J.S.] than other things.81 78

Interview #29. Ibid. 80 Interview #31. 81 Ibid. The reference to geographical indications, which are distinctive names related to the geographical origin of the product (e.g. ‘Feta’ cheese, ‘Parma’ ham, ‘Cognac’ brandy, etc.) and whose protection the EU seeks to improve internationally in order to fight violations, is to be read 79

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The practice of negotiating deep and comprehensive trade agreements, which need to contain stipulations on specific issues, such as geographical indications and meet predefined standards of ambitiousness and the practice of using trade agreements flexibly as a diplomatic tool, are incommensurable insofar as they are the enactment of different beliefs and rules for action about how to engage with ASEAN. Whereas trade officials have a checklist of items that need to be ticked off, also in view of the precedent that any trade agreement sets for potential future trade negotiations with other countries, EEAS officials have no similar list of obligatory deliverables, with the exception of the ‘essential elements’ clause (see below). To accentuate this difference just a bit for the sake of driving the argument home: trade officials would prefer no agreement over a shallow one, whereas EEAS officials would rather have a shallow one than no agreement.82 Yet, in the end, judging from the 2015 ASEAN strategy, DG Trade had to acquiesce to mentioning a region-to-region agreement as to the ultimate objective.83

4.1.4 Trade Versus Non-trade Objectives Even if negotiating with individual ASEAN member states, rather than with the group as a whole, may at first have facilitated the negotiating process, the limited success of actually bringing these negotiations to conclusion raises questions about the EU’s decision to substitute ‘economic’ bilateral FTAs for a ‘political’ interregional FTA. As of the summer of 2020, the EU has concluded and applied FTAs with only two ASEAN states, Singapore and Vietnam. The conclusion of an FTA with Vietnam is proof that the EU is ready to sign trade agreements with countries whose human rights record and democratic credentials do not meet the standards the EU professes to promote as part of its foreign and security policy towards ASEAN. Regarding the FTA with Vietnam, the remarks of a senior foreign policy official leave no doubt that the overriding considerations were economic: With Vietnam, we concluded on economic terms. There was no political reason to have a free trade agreement with Vietnam. It was only economic reasons, because it was an emerging country, growing population, economic growth. So, it made a lot of sense to do it. Now, as an example of one of the many specific items DG Trade wants to have included in a trade agreement. It is indeed unlikely that, e.g. Greece would consent to a trade agreement that would not adequately protect the use of the name ‘Feta’ cheese. By contrast, the use of a trade agreement as a diplomatic tool does not necessarily require the protection of geographical indications, all the more so if the protection of geographical indications leads to a dispute between the negotiating parties. 82 The differences between DG Trade and the EEAS on whether and, if so, how to resume the stalled negotiations on an EU-India free trade agreement are another case in point (see main chapter). 83 See European Commission and High Representative (2015), Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, p. 5: “Specific initiatives in this area will include […] working towards an ambitious region-to-region FTA building on bilateral agreements between the EU and ASEAN Member States as stepping stones towards this objective.”

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from the political point of view – communist country, dictatorship, no respect for human rights, relatively small – it’s not a strategic partner. So, there was no real [foreign policy, J.S.] interest.84

It appears that the Commission tried to deliberately keep the negotiations on the trade agreement and those on the political framework agreement, where human rights issues were discussed, on separate tracks so as to avoid as much as possible any interference in the conduct of trade negotiations.85 Although the ratification of trade agreements requires, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the approval of the European Parliament, which effectively compels the Commission to acquiesce to some of the Parliament’s demands, keeping trade policy questions and human rights issues separate for as long as possible, ensures that the trade negotiations can proceed largely on their own merits and according to the beliefs and rules for action prevalent inside DG Trade—in other words, that trade negotiations are run according to economic criteria and for economic purposes. By contrast, negotiations with Thailand, launched in 2013 and suspended after the military coup in May 2014, are an illustration of trade negotiations that were put on hold on account of foreign and security policy concerns. Yet the controversial debate that preceded the suspension of the trade negotiations, which pitted both DG Trade and the EEAS as well as member states’ economic and foreign affairs ministries against each other, highlights the tendency in much of the EU’s trade policy bureaucracy to try to keep trade policy and foreign and security policy in discrete, all but impermeable compartments.86 Of the other ASEAN states, negotiations on a trade agreement with Malaysia, launched in October 2010, were paused in April 2012 at Malaysia’s request and have since not been resumed. After the carefully controlled opening of Myanmar in 2012, the EU began a process of engagement, which in February 2015 gave rise to the launch of negotiations on an investment protection agreement. However, those were halted in 2017 after only four negotiating rounds. Similarly, negotiations on a trade agreement with the Philippines, embarked upon in December 2015, were discontinued after just two rounds of negotiations, with currently no further rounds 84

Interview #17. See Daniela Sicurelli (2015), The EU as a Promoter of Human Rights in Bilateral Trade Agreements: The Case of the Negotiations with Vietnam, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 11(2), pp. 230–245. 86 Interview #17: “Thailand, a very good case where the political considerations have stopped the trade negotiations. […] it was very, very difficult at the beginning with [then trade commissioner Karel] de Gucht to conclude that we have to suspend the free trade agreement. […] They [DG Trade] said: ‘This is trade! This is not politics!’ So, the debate was: ‘Trade is trade. Foreign policy is foreign policy. Let’s keep it separate!’ There was a big, big debate on that. […] At the end, he [Karel de Gucht] understood: ‘I cannot stop it. I cannot stop the Foreign Affairs Council to agree on Council conclusions that we have to stop the free trade agreement.’ […] in some member states, there was this discussion between foreign affairs ministries and economic ministries, when the competences are separated, which is the case in several member states. The economic ministries saying: ‘I don’t care! Thailand is an important economy. Let’s go for it!’ […] the same division happens in member states. When you talk to diplomats in foreign affairs [ministries] or officials in the trade or economic ministries, different, I mean, you see the discussions in the Foreign Affairs Council and in the Trade Council, I mean, this is very different, because they still see things differently.” 85

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scheduled; though a PCA entered into force in March 2018. At the time of writing, the only ongoing trade negotiations with an ASEAN state are those with Indonesia. Indonesia is ASEAN’s largest economy, accounting for a little over one third of regional GDP in 2019. With more than 260 million inhabitants, Indonesia boasts not only, by far, the region’s largest population but is moreover the world’s fourth mostpopulous country as well as the largest Muslim country on the globe. This makes it both an attractive consumer market for EU exports and an influential regional actor and therefore an important political partner for the EU. The EU and Indonesia signed a PCA in 2009 but did not launch trade negotiations until July 2016. Ten rounds of negotiations were completed by June 2020. However, the negotiations have long been overshadowed by a trade dispute over EU countervailing subsidies against alleged Indonesian subsidies on biofuels and a diplomatic rift over the EU’s adoption of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II.87 With the RED II, the EU sets itself the target of phasing out, by 2030, the use of biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels produced from food and feed crops whose cultivation involves a significant expansion of plantations into high-carbon stock land (i.e. deforestation).88 Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s largest and second-largest palm oil producers, called the RED II “discriminatory” and accused the EU of unfairly targeting palm oil, with both countries announcing their intention to file a complaint at the WTO.89 Interestingly, it seems that the RED II does not enjoy universal support inside the Commission itself.90 The first tangible consequence of the RED II is the postponement by ASEAN of the signing of the ‘strategic partnership’ with the EU, which had in principle been agreed upon at the 22nd EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in January 2019.91 EUASEAN relations have eventually been belatedly elevated to a ‘strategic partnership’ in December 2020.92 In a policy paper, Hanna Deringer, Hosuk Lee-Makiyama and 87

See Ashutosh Pandey (2019), EU vs. Indonesia: Is It Really a Trade War?, Deutsche Welle, 16 August; Jorge Valero (2019), Malaysian minister: ‘Palm oil is a deal-breaker for EU-ASEAN trade relations’, Euractiv, 21 June. 88 See Article 26 of the Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (recast). 89 See Gayatri Suroyo and Fransiska Nangoy (2019), Indonesia to Challenge ’Discriminative’ EU Directive on Palm Oil, Reuters, 31 January; Mei Mei Chu (2020), Malaysia to File WTO Legal Action Against EU Over Restrictions on Palm Biofuel, Reuters, 1 July. 90 Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP for the European Green Party, states: “There is no precedent for a phase-out of the use of specific crops. The importance of this [palm oil and soy] provision is shown by the reaction of the European Commission, who have expressed their reservations. Apparently, there are some Directorates where trade agreements with Indonesia and Malaysia are more important than the environment”, quoted in: Dave Keating (2018), Palm oil to be phased out in EU by 2030, Euractiv, 20 June (emphasis added). While Eickhout does not specify which DG he is referring to, it is reasonable to assume that DG Trade is one of them. 91 See Council of the European Union (2019), Joint Statement of the 22nd EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, PRESS RELEASE, 21/19, Brussels, 21 January. 92 See Council of the European Union (2020), Co-Chairs’ Press Release of the 23rd ASEANEU Ministerial Meeting, PRESS RELEASE, 843/20, Brussels, 1 December. See also Jan Willem Blankert (2020), The EU-ASEAN Dance: An EU Diplomat’s Account, Brussels, 11 December.

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Danny Murty argue that the RED II and the “pre-conditions on sustainability” have made an FTA with the EU “politically dispensable” for ASEAN.93 Furthermore, it seems that for some ASEAN states FTA negotiations with the EU have also lost their economic priority relative to the plans for the creation of an ASEAN single market, the ASEAN Economic Community, by 2025, the ongoing negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea and Chinese proposals to update the ASEANChina FTA.94 This also suggests that the EU, increasingly running out of large enough trade partners to achieve relevant welfare gains, would have more to lose than Southeast Asian economies from not concluding FTAs, a scenario that would be inimical to the EU’s competitive position in the region.95 Moreover, ASEAN states are increasingly cognisant that their own economic negotiating power vis-à-vis the EU is likely to be improving, as ASEAN’s share of global GDP is projected to be growing, while the EU’s is set to decline.96 A view that is accentuated by the perception by ASEAN states of the economic decline of the EU as a result of the financial crisis and the general shift of economic power to Asia.97 Attaching political conditionality, such as human rights and sustainability standards, to trade agreements qualifies as a practice in that it constitutes a patterned action the EU repeatedly engages in, by the mere fact that it is legally required to do so, though the legal binding effect of the linkage is not the same across agreements, as argued below. As a practice, it appears to interfere with both its trade policy practices and its foreign and security policy practice of using trade agreements as a tool to improve diplomatic relations. On the one hand, seeking to attach political conditionality to trade agreements follows different beliefs and rules for action about the right and appropriate way to use available economic leverage and political capital than the practice of negotiating trade agreements according to economic criteria, which uses economic leverage to secure economic concessions from the other country. On the other hand, even though using trade instruments to further political conditionalities could be described as a distinctive EU practice in the realm of foreign and security policy, reflecting its image as a normative power,98 it nevertheless also creates tensions with the practice of using trade policy as a diplomatic tool to establish the EU as a foreign and security policy actor in its own right. This latter practice tends to treat trade agreements largely as ‘nice’ foreign policy gestures in a bid to cultivate and improve diplomatic relations—and in the case of ASEAN, turning the EU into 93

Hanna Deringer, Hosuk Lee-Makiyama and Danny Murty (2019), Europe and South-East Asia: Shifting from Diplomacy to Unilateralism, ECIPE Policy Brief , No. 1/2019, p. 11. 94 See Fitriani (2017), Europe and Southeast Asia, p. 78. 95 See Deringer and Lee-Makiyama (2018), Diplomatic Patience, p. 5. 96 Katharina L. Meissner, Imke Pente, Nelly Stratieva, Boonwara Sumano (2014), Unlocking the Potential of Interregionalism: Mutual Perceptions and Interests in EU-ASEAN Relations, IFAIR Impact Group ‘EU-ASEAN Perspectives’ Policy Paper, p. 12: “ASEAN is well aware that the EU is not the only game in town and that the Southeast Asian market successively gains attraction to balance the stumbling performance of the European market.” 97 See Fitriani (2014), Impact of the EU Crisis. 98 On normative power, see Manners (2002), Normative Power Europe.

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an influential actor in Southeast Asia. Having a trade agreement in place is, therefore, more important than what specific form and shape it takes and insisting too emphatically on the inclusion of human rights clauses may prompt a deterioration in diplomatic relations as the history of EU-ASEAN relations shows. Indeed, ASEAN states appear to become increasingly irritated at the EU’s front-loading of prospective trade agreements with political conditionalities. As a result, “ASEAN countries are turning their attention to more compatible and apolitical partners within their own region”.99 The EU would consequently be losing both its economic and its political influence in Southeast Asia. The repercussions of the global financial crisis of 2008/09 and the ensuing eurozone crisis heightened the sensation that the EU should use trade policy to trade its way out of the crisis.100 The EU rediscovered, as it were, Southeast Asia and therefore intensified its economic diplomacy in the region and the number of high-level visits markedly grew.101 The success of the different trade negotiations was, however, limited, as argued above. As of 2012, EU officials started voicing the expectation that the EU should play a greater role in ASEAN security affairs.102 The Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action 2013–2017 documents this intention of injecting a new dynamism into EU-ASEAN relations, turning the relationship into an ‘enhanced’ one, which would “reflect the multifaceted character of ASEAN-EU relations.”103 The 2016 EU Global Strategy draws an unequivocal link emphasising the direct connection between European prosperity and Asian security: There is a direct connection between European prosperity and Asian security. In light of the economic weight that Asia represents for the EU – and vice versa – peace and stability in Asia are a prerequisite for our prosperity. We will deepen economic diplomacy and scale up our security role in Asia.104

Conceptualised as a practice, economic diplomacy can be understood as a way of employing political instruments to promote economic interests.105 The practice of economic diplomacy in the EU context (EU economic diplomacy, EED) is instantiated by a range of actions that serve the objective of advancing EU economic interests and the EU’s standing in the global economy. Many of these actions are 99

Deringer and Lee-Makiyama (2018), Diplomatic Patience, p. 5. See European Commission (2010), Trade, Growth and World Affairs, p. 2. 101 See Fitriani (2014), Impact of the EU Crisis, pp. 89–90. 102 See ibid., p. 90. See also Council of the European Union (2012), Guidelines on the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy in East Asia, 11492/12, Brussels, 15 June. 103 Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action to Strengthen the ASEAN-EU Enhanced Partnership (2013–2017), p. 1. 104 EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, p. 37. 105 See Michael Smith (2014), EU-China Relations and the Limits of Economic Diplomacy, Asia Europe Journal, 12(1–2), p. 36. Smith writes that economic diplomacy is sometimes also defined as the use of coercive instruments, e.g. sanctions. This understanding of economic diplomacy is somewhat confusing, as the use of economic tools for foreign and security policy is more commonly called economic statecraft, see David A. Baldwin (2020), Economic Statecraft: New Edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press. See also European Commission (2017), Reflection Paper on Harnessing Globalisation, COM(2017) 240, Brussels, 10 May, p. 14. 100

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performed by the commercial counsellors in EU delegations, which are usually DG Trade officials and, as such, are in principle observable if one were to be granted an ‘over-the-shoulder look’. These actions include inter alia identifying and prioritising specific EU economic interests to be included in EED initiatives; drawing up action plans; assessing and proposing priority actions on how to promote identified interests (e.g. through high-level political visits, political lobbying at the level of delegations, diplomatic demarches, economic dialogues at expert level, press statements, trade fairs, export credits, development funding); liaising with and supporting the private sector through necessary political backing; coordinating with member states’ commercial counsellors in order to ensure the complementarity of EED initiatives between the EU and member states; exchanging information with member states on political developments, macroeconomic trends, economic policy and regulatory issues in the host country that is an opportunity or threat to EU economic interests and suggesting actions to address these. This list highlights that the practice of EU economic diplomacy is in essence about putting political tools and resources at the service of furthering economic interests. As such, it is the opposite of the practice of using trade means to further non-trade objectives, for instance by including human rights and sustainability standards into trade agreements. The crux, here, is about the use of available, and unavoidably finite, economic leverage and political capital. The beliefs about how best to muster available resources and, importantly, for which ends outline possible and desirable paths forwards (i.e. rules for action). As argued above, there appear to be substantial differences between DG Trade and the EEAS in this regard. This does not necessarily mean that trade officials do not hold the promotion of fundamental values to be a worthwhile endeavour. It may not even imply that trade officials have not reluctantly accepted the need to attach political conditionality to trade agreements. But the interview results indicate that they would rather that ‘their’ trade policy is not used for non-trade objectives and could instead proceed on economic terms alone.106 In summary, when the EU decided to launch negotiations on a trade agreement with ASEAN, economic considerations were decisive. Foreign and security policy considerations played little to no role in the decision to start these negotiations, but they were a factor in the initial choice for an interregional format. This does not mean that the EU had no or had not already been pursuing its foreign and security policy interests in Southeast Asia. But those did not decisively influence the decisionmaking and negotiating processes in the domain of trade policy. What is more, the suspension of the region-to-region negotiations and their resumption in bilateral format highlights how established trade policy practices structured the EU’s decisionmaking process and tilted it towards allowing the trade negotiations to proceed largely 106

Interview #33: “If it’s a trade agreement, then I would say it makes sense to stick to what is working and not to overload it with all sorts of … There are other types of agreements that can then be done [instead].” Interview #26: “[T]here is a number of things being done on the back of our trade policy because it’s where we have more leverage. […] From a practical point of view, it means that we are including more and more things in FTAs. What people probably don’t think necessarily is that this has a price. […] that leverage that one can have is only as valuable as you don’t yet use it. From the moment that you use it, then that’s it, you don’t have leverage anymore.”

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on economic terms. This conflicted with the foreign and security policy practice of promoting regional integration around the globe, in this instance in the ASEAN region.107

4.2 EU Foreign and Security Policy Interests in Southeast Asia For more than a quarter of a century, trade and development cooperation set the tone and content of EU-ASEAN relations. It was not until the early 2000s that the Commission first attempted to draw up an agenda that put forward the ambition to put the relationship on a broader basis, including (non-traditional) security issues. Under the impression of the structural changes in the international system induced by the rapid progress of globalisation, the 2003 A New Partnership with South East Asia communication posits that “many hard strategic, political and economic facts now demand that our relations with South East Asia be reinvigorated.”108 After having relegated Southeast Asia in importance in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis 1997/98, the Commission thus wanted to inject new dynamism into the relationship. The new ASEAN strategy builds upon the Europe and Asia: A New Strategic Framework for Enhanced Partnerships communication, published two years prior. Both documents part from the assumption that, while “the world has moved on since 1994”,109 EU-ASEAN relations have “so far failed to realise the true potential of this relationship.”110 As a consequence, the Commission suggested “strengthening the EU’s political and economic presence across the region and raising this to a level commensurate with the growing global weight of an enlarged EU.”111 Unlike the first Asia strategy from 1994, which only calls for an increase in the EU’s economic presence, the strategy now calls for enhancing both its political and economic stakes in the region. In view of the increasingly global nature of policy issues, which require coordinated multilateral efforts to address them, the Commission singled out six strategic priorities to improve relations with ASEAN and to make a contribution to addressing these global challenges. In addition to reinforcing trade and investment ties, which in 2003 still did not include the prospect of an FTA, the new partnership agenda envisages promoting regional stability and fighting terrorism, promoting human rights and 107

See also Michela Astuto (2010), EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement Negotiations, ISPI Analysis, No. 26, October, p. 7: “The complexity and sensitivity of the trade negotiations conflicted with the larger strategic goals; the Commission came to the realization that trade issues could be more easily solved through bilateral negotiations, while strategic regional interests were better served in different settings—such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) or Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM).” 108 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 5. 109 European Commission (2001), Europe and Asia: An Enhanced Framework for Strategic Partnerships, COM(2001) 469 final, Brussels, 4 September, p. 5. 110 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 5. 111 European Commission (2001), Europe and Asia, p. 15.

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democratic standards, mainstreaming justice and home affairs issues, supporting economic development and intensifying sectoral policy dialogues.112 Specifically singled out as security issues and concerns are global terrorism, regional instability, illegal migration, human trafficking, money laundering, piracy, organised crime and drug smuggling. The list reflects the EU’s broad understanding of security, in line with the comprehensive security concept introduced into the European security discourse with the European Security Strategy (ESS) in 2003—though the ESS itself barely touches upon Southeast Asia. Although alluding to the ‘hard’ facts which demand that the EU step up its engagement in the ASEAN region, the issues mentioned fall broadly into the category of ‘soft’ security issues, as the strategy does not deal with hard security let alone military issues.113 The EU’s ambition to make foreign and security policy cooperation part of its relationship with ASEAN poses the question of how this emerging ‘political’ agenda has been combined with the existing ‘economic’ agenda and, more specifically, how the respective practices interrelate. The Commission, in this regard, vowed to take “a holistic approach to its broadening policy agenda, acknowledging the interrelationship of different issues and addressing them through integrated policies.”114 This sub-chapter will hence put the focus of analysis on the interplay between EU trade policy practices and EU foreign and security policy practices with regard to three distinct security issues in Southeast Asia: regional stability, human rights and maritime security. Despite the comprehensiveness of the security concept and its broad understanding in EU foreign policy thinking, the argument is made here that these three are the EU’s most salient foreign and security policy concerns in Southeast Asia, as will be elaborated upon in the following.

4.2.1 Regional Stability Regional integration and stability have been “a core objective of the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy and has been seen as part of its attempt to transform international society and to make the world a more peaceful place to live.”115 Accordingly, although A New Partnership with South East Asia does not explicitly order the different security concerns in terms of their relative salience and urgency to the EU, the continued stability of Southeast Asia and the cohesiveness of ASEAN emerge as the EU’s overarching foreign and security policy interest in the region, as all other security concerns hinge, directly or indirectly, upon the continued stability of Southeast Asia. And, in the EU’s eyes, ASEAN as an organisation has been and continues to be “the best guarantee for peace and stability in the region.”116 For this 112

See European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, pp. 11–22. See ibid., p. 5. 114 Ibid., p. 10. 115 Lee and Diez (2016), Introduction, p. 353. 116 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 3. 113

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reason, strengthening the regional integration of ASEAN states as well as reinforcing ASEAN as an organisation is the quintessence of the EU’s foreign and security policy interest in Southeast Asia. It is also an illustration of the EU’s long-standing practice of promoting regionalism around the world, which follows two distinct yet interwoven objectives, a political and an economic one.117 This two-pronged approach is clearly visible in the 2003 ASEAN strategy: “A strong ASEAN […] mutually reinforces member countries in their relations with powerful neighbours. It strives to create an economic space that is attractive to foreign investors and trade and that stimulates wealth creation.”118 On the one hand, strengthening ASEAN as a regional political actor serves the purpose of creating a like-minded partner which, as a regional organisation, shares a similar outlook as the EU on the world and is presumed to hold a common interest in upholding the rules-based multilateral order. While concerns about the permanence of the rules-based multilateral order were less acute in the early 2000s, they have grown in recent years and today ASEAN is regarded in Brussels as an important partner in upholding this order.119 ASEAN is hence seen as a partner in multilateralism. On the other hand, a stronger ASEAN is also in a better position to assert itself in its relations with other countries, a concern the EU appeared to have already in 2003 as the reference to ‘powerful neighbours’ suggests, arguably a thinly-veiled allusion to China. China has, by its sheer size alone, always been an important cornerstone in the Southeast Asian regional order. The Brussels’ view on China has morphed from admonishments in the early 2000s that “China’s growing importance should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat”,120 to the carefully-worded phrase in the 2019 Commission/EEAS joint communication on China that “there is a growing appreciation in Europe that the balance of challenges and opportunities presented by China has shifted.”121 The China factor looms large in current EUASEAN relations and it accentuates the difficulties the EU has in finding a coherent strategy to deal with the “Asian paradox”,122 that is, the simultaneous occurrence of dynamic economic growth and integration with a fragmented and disintegrating security landscape. China’s characterisation as simultaneously being “a cooperation partner”, “a negotiating partner”, “an economic competitor” and “a systemic rival” encapsulates these contradictions, which prompted the Commission and the EEAS to call for “a flexible and pragmatic whole-of-EU approach enabling a principled defence of interests and values”.123 Put in the context of the EU’s ASEAN policy, 117

See Lee and Diez (2016), Introduction, p. 354. European Commission (2003), A New Partnership with South East Asia, p. 12. 119 Interview #29: “[I]f you manage to have a solid ASEAN, it’s already two big partners betting on the rules-based order, multilateralism, international law, a free and fair and open trading environment and so on.” 120 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 8. 121 European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (2019), EU-China: A Strategic Outlook, JOIN(2019) 5 final, Strasbourg, 12 March, p. 1. 122 Fraser Cameron (2017), “It’s Asia, Stupid”: Time for the EU to Deepen Relations with Asia, GIGA Focus Asia, No. 6, November, p. 3. 123 European Commission and High Representative (2019), EU-China: A Strategic Outlook, p. 1. 118

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this means that the EU’s practice of promoting regional integration is no longer merely the external policy expression of the EU’s own founding history. Rather, the objective has become to help ASEAN attain “strategic autonomy” so that Southeast Asia is characterised by “more strategic balance and China is less able to divide and rule in the wider region”,124 as an EEAS official pointed out. Another official seconded, “[b]ecause of China’s increasingly assertive stance on a number of issues, […] it’s important to support ASEAN, because, I mean, some of those things China stands for are not exactly in line with our thinking”, adding that when ASEAN is strong “EU values and interests might be better preserved, including vis-à-vis China.”125 Strengthening ASEAN vis-à-vis its ‘powerful neighbours’, then, also serves to promote a regional political, security and economic order with ASEAN at its centre, rather than China.126 The EU’s declared support for ASEAN regional integration, which some scholars view merely as a way to compensate for its otherwise latent absence as a foreign and security policy actor in Southeast Asia,127 contrasts however with the EU’s limited means to actively nudge ASEAN states towards further integrative steps.128 Insisting on concluding an FTA with ASEAN as a whole would arguably have served that purpose, as it would have incentivised ASEAN member states to iron out their differences and undertake further integrative steps. But the interregional format was sidelined when it seemed to become a hindrance to the practice of negotiating ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements, as argued above. Furthermore, the EU’s support for empowering ASEAN in its dealings with neighbouring countries and other regional powers does not translate into leniency or extra concessions in the trade negotiations. There were no ‘political’ instructions to conclude a trade agreement at any cost so as to offer ASEAN states an economic alternative to the rise of China.129 Such an approach, which would presumably allow for a more rapid diversification of Southeast Asian economies, thereby lessening their dependence on China, would be difficult to reconcile with the practice of conducting trade negotiations according to economic criteria, which is inimical to cross-linking trade concessions to foreign and security policy objectives. At the same time, the EU’s interest in the stability and security of ASEAN is also always an interest in the stability of Southeast Asian markets. While any destabilisation of Southeast Asia could potentially have security repercussions—through its becoming a hotbed of international terrorism, unleashing flows of illegal migrants, the sprawling of organised crime or the spreading of WMDs—all of which could potentially affect the EU’s security, independent of any economic impacts, it is noticeable 124

Interview #31. Interview #29. 126 See Reiterer (2014), The EU’s Comprehensive Approach to Security in Asia, p. 13. 127 See Anja Jetschke and Clara Portela (2013), ASEAN-EU Relations: From Regional Integration Assistance to Security Significance?, Research Collection School of Social Sciences, Paper 1434, p. 2. 128 See Lee and Diez (2016), Introduction. 129 Interview #6. 125

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that official documents in the first place often have recourse to the EU’s economic stakes in the region in order to substantiate the EU’s interest in ASEAN’s stability.130 If practices are conceptualised as a routinised and patterned way of understanding and doing, thereby both reflecting and providing interpretative filters for practitioners to make sense of reality, then this argumentative pattern can be taken to indicate a relative dominance of trade-related interpretation schemes in EU external relations discourse, in this case, on Southeast Asia. In other words, Brussels still has a predominantly economic understanding of Southeast Asia, despite the up-scaling of security cooperation. It is, then, not surprising that trade policy considerations are also attached relatively more weight when it comes to practical policymaking, which consequently finds its expression in a pre-eminence of trade policy practices. In addition, from a purely economic perspective, promoting regional integration is, for Brussels, also a means “to foster the development of integrated markets and free trade areas with which it could do business, rather than forging trade links between the EU and individual countries on a bilateral basis.”131 When the Commission commends ASEAN’s objective of establishing “an economic space that is attractive to foreign investors and trade”,132 it is no stretch to suppose that for the Commission this implies, in the first place, being attractive for and open to exports and investments from the EU. But the history of EU-ASEAN trade negotiations demonstrates that, in case of doubt, DG Trade favours FTAs with individual ASEAN states that are poised to meet the EU’s ambitious trade agenda over an interregional FTA that would offer a larger market but with less ambitious provisions and narrower coverage. The decision, in 2009, to continue trade negotiations in bilateral formats is therefore revealing not only because it interfered with the foreign and security policy practice of promoting ASEAN regional integration, but also because it equalled clinging to DG Trade’s established beliefs and rules for action that a ‘proper’ trade agreement requires a certain level of ambitiousness; the sort of inflexibility that several interviewed nonDG Trade officials criticised.133 130

See European Commission and High Representative (2015), Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, p. 11: “Given the EU’s trade, investment and other links, it has a clear interest in stability in the region and thus in promoting a security architecture that is better able to manage the region’s political tensions and in which it plays a key role, including through future accession to the EAS.”; EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, p. 37: “There is a direct connection between European prosperity and Asian security. In light of the economic weight that Asia represents for the EU—and vice versa—peace and stability in Asia are a prerequisite for our prosperity.” 131 Lee and Diez (2016), Introduction, p. 354. 132 European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 12. 133 Interviews #15, #21, #29. See also Meissner (2016), Failed Interregionalism?, p. 329, who found similar evidence in her interviews: “The main reason for the EU to turn down interregionalism was the inflexibility and the fear to reach the lowest common denominator in the negotiations. This would have inhibited the EU’s goal of an ambitious agreement. The driving force behind the talks was to open foreign markets in trade in goods but also in other areas such as public procurement and IPR. Furthermore, the EU feared to lose the region politically and economically to actors like China. Thus, interviewees revealed that the EU wants to be present in Southeast Asia and not leave it to the Chinese.” See also Dosch and Maier-Knapp (2017), EU-ASEAN Relations, p. 135, who argue that the Commission “has a standard approach to international trade agreements which lacks flexibility

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The practices of negotiating ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements and of balancing commercial advantages negotiated by economic competitors appear to have superseded, at least for the time being, both the practices of creating integrated markets and of promoting regionalism through trade instruments. As for the practice of structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations, the EU patently prioritised doing so in key ASEAN markets (Singapore, Vietnam) rather than with the whole of ASEAN.

4.2.2 Human Rights and Democratic Standards The second security issue, which falls into the category of non-traditional security, points to the EU’s practice of promoting human rights and democratic standards in its relations with third countries. Following the 2003 ASEAN strategy, the Council authorised, on 25 November 2004, the launch of individual partnership and cooperation agreements (PCAs) with six ASEAN states: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand.134 The PCAs are designed to supersede the 1980 EU-ASEAN cooperation agreement and are to provide a legal basis for developing political relations between the EU and ASEAN states in a number of fields. It is in these PCAs that the EU seeks to include specific political clauses, including on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the respect for human rights, accession to the International Criminal Court and the rule of law. Strictly speaking, only the respect for human rights and the commitment to the nonproliferation of WMDs are considered ‘essential elements’, which must be included in any EU agreement with a third country.135 The political framework agreements are usually linked to the free trade agreements by means of a non-execution clause, which allows either party to the agreement to take ‘appropriate measures’ in case and thus did not play well with ASEAN negotiators. Brussels’ insistence on a comprehensive ‘new generation’ FTA that includes far-reaching legally binding provisions on inter alia services, intellectual property rights and governance issues, clashed with ASEAN’s understanding of a more limited approach that focuses on trade liberalisation only.” 134 Opting for individual bilateral PCAs allowed the EU to avoid having to negotiate with Myanmar, see Naila Maier-Knapp (2011), The Case of the European Union Partnership and Cooperation Agreement Negotiations with Thailand, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies, 2(2)/3(1), pp. 59–60. 135 See Okano-Heijmans (2014), Trade Diplomacy in EU-Asia Relations, p. 17. There appears to be some leeway, as some trade officials indicated that it might be imaginable to conclude a trade agreement without provisions on WMDs (interview #6). The relevant Council document—Council of the European Union (2009), Common Approach on the Use of Political Clauses, 10491/1/09 REV 1 EXT 2, Brussels, 2 June—is in part classified, which might be an indication that it contains guidelines for negotiators under which circumstances it could be acceptable to forgo the inclusion of certain political clauses. Although this appears to be a plausible interpretation, it cannot be verified and should therefore be treated with circumspection. In any case, any non-inclusion of political clauses will likely meet the resistance of the European Parliament, whose consent is required for the ratification of any agreement with a third country.

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the other side fails to honour the obligations arising under the agreement.136 There is no exhaustive list of what measures are considered ‘appropriate’, but any measure taken would doubtlessly need to respect international law, stand in proportion to the severity of the violation and could generally be applied only after consultations between the parties.137 Any suspension of trade preferences, whether in part or in full, is considered a measure of last resort. While the actual legal relationship between the FTAs and the PCAs and thus the legal threshold for triggering the non-execution clause, varies from case to case,138 it is telling that, to date, the EU has never actually activated the clause with respect to trade preferences granted under a free trade agreement with any country.139 There is hence no practice of activating the clause, as the definitory criterion of repetitiveness is not met. Interviewed officials were very much aware of this discrepancy between the EU’s notional power as the world’s largest economic bloc and its actual use of this leverage. One DG Trade official laconically remarked: “The EU is not known for pulling its weight.”140 So, why is it that the EU rhetoric on promoting human rights seems to be stronger than its practical pursuit? It appears that, as a general rule, the degree of assertiveness with which the EU practices the promotion of fundamental values and human rights through its trade policy tends to vary according to the negotiating partner’s economic importance to the EU.141 This tendency is facilitated by the fact that there are no predefined rules on when trade preferences should be withdrawn or sanctions be imposed. Instead, such decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis and economic interests naturally are a factor of considerable importance.142 Hence, although signing a PCA, which must include the essential elements clauses,143 is supposed to be a precondition to concluding an FTA with the EU, Brussels was not willing or able to impose this sequencing in all cases with Southeast Asian states. Singapore and Malaysia, for instance, the two ASEAN countries with which the EU had first started FTA negotiations, refused to sign a PCA prior to an FTA,144 and the EU eventually acquiesced in view of its overriding interest to conclude the trade negotiations, thereby avoiding further interference with its trade policy practices. Vietnam, on the other hand, agreed to conclude a PCA first, presumably as a sign of its goodwill, but the country’s human rights record and democratic credentials fall short of EU standards, which has not 136

See Ionel Zamfir (2019), Human Rights in EU Trade Agreements: The Human Rights Clause and Its Application, EPRS Briefing, July, pp. 8–9. 137 See ibid., p. 8. 138 See Sicurelli (2015), The EU as a Promoter of Human Rights, p. 235. 139 See Zamfir (2019), Human Rights in EU Trade Agreements, p. 7. 140 Interview #3. 141 See Stephen Woolcock (2014), Differentiation within Reciprocity: the European Union Approach to Preferential Trade Agreements, Contemporary Politics, 20(1), pp. 36–48. 142 Interview # 17: “It’s on a case-by-base. I mean, we don’t have to same standards. We don’t have the same standards when it comes to condemn a military coup here or there, or the violation of human rights here or there. […] There is no clear rule. And it also depends on the moment in time.” 143 In case the essential elements clauses are not included in the PCA, they are to be incorporated directly into the trade agreement. 144 See Sicurelli (2015), The EU as a Promoter of Human Rights, p. 236.

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prevented the EU from concluding and implementing the EU-Vietnam free trade agreement, an approach Daniela Sicurelli characterised as “ambiguous” with regard to the EU’s professed promotion of human rights standards.145 A useful explanation attempt can be undertaken by viewing the PCA and FTA negotiations, respectively, as structured by distinctive practices. It is worthwhile recalling that the launch of the PCA process coincided with the prioritisation of competitiveness-driven practices in EU trade policy ushered in with the Global Europe strategy of 2006.146 While the EU has set itself the task to make the promotion of the fundamental values that underpin its own foundation a core theme in all parts of its external action,147 individual policies have continued to proceed mostly on their own merits. What is more, in order to avoid as much interference as possible with the trade negotiating process so as to clear the way for a swift conclusion of the trade negotiations, the Council and the Commission agreed to separate the PCA and the FTA negotiations with ASEAN states.148 The trade negotiations were thus entrusted with DG Trade, while the EEAS (and prior to 2010, DG Relex) was in charge of the PCA negotiations. The institutional separation of the two negotiations makes it possible for the trade negotiations to proceed largely according to DG Trade’s beliefs and rules for action, thereby keeping linkages that could interfere with the trade negotiating process, in particular regarding human rights issues, to a minimum. The then head of DG Trade’s Southeast Asia desk voiced the concern that “political difficulties overshadow the [trade] negotiations”, cautioning that attaching too many political strings to the FTA talks could prompt the “failure of the [trade negotiating, J.S.] process”,149 or—to put it simply—exacting too many political conditionalities in exchange for access to the EU single market could prompt a breakdown of negotiations. Noteworthy is his reference to ‘failure of process’, which indicates a concern about the right and appropriate course of action. That is to say, he expresses the apprehension that being too assertive in promoting political conditionality through trade policy means risks impeding established trade policy practices, in particular the practice of negotiating trade agreements according to economic criteria—which in the eyes of trade officials represents the only or at least the most promising course of action for a successful conclusion of the negotiations—by diverting the means (i.e. trade instruments) to a different objective, in this case, the promotion of human rights rather than the attainment of commercial advantages for EU businesses. The statement is another illustration that trade officials have a different understanding than EEAS officials of what constitutes a competent performance in trade policy: 145

Ibid., p. 232. See also Jetschke and Portela (2013), ASEAN-EU Relations, p. 3. See David Bailey and Fabienne Bossuyt (2013), The European Union as a ConvenientlyConflicted Counter-Hegemon Through Trade, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 9(4), pp. 560–577. See also pp. 69–73 in this book. 147 See, for example, European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 3: “New bilateral agreements with countries of the region should all contain the ‘essential element’ clause regarding human rights, while the EU and particular countries in the region may decide to launch Human Rights-specific bilateral dialogues.” 148 See Sicurelli (2015), The EU as a Promoter of Human Rights, p. 234. 149 Philippe Meyer, quoted in Robles (2008), An EU-ASEAN FTA, p. 558. 146

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using trade policy instruments to pursue non-trade objectives is not a competent trade policy performance but rather a necessary evil in the eyes of trade officials. In a similar vein, then trade commissioner Karel de Gucht (2009–2014) aired his opinion in a leaked declaration that the trade negotiations with Vietnam should proceed irrespective of the country’s respect for human rights.150 Such declarations display the prioritisation of trade policy practices and ultimately the subordination of foreign and security policy practices to the objective of swiftly concluding ambitious trade agreements with Southeast Asian states. Concluding trade agreements with economically important countries and with those that had FTAs in place with economic competitors of the EU were clearly given priority over an ex ante improvement of the human rights situation. Interestingly, the European Parliamentary Research Service points out that the primary objective of linking human rights clauses to trade agreements is “not [to] serve as a stringent benchmark for selecting potential EU trade partners” nor to withdraw preferential trade access granted under the trade agreement.151 Rather the clause serves as a legal basis for addressing human rights in “more constructive ways”, for example, through political dialogue.152 There is a legitimate case to be made for choosing dialogue over withdrawing trade preferences or imposing economic sanctions and the EU has in fact repeatedly conducted dedicated human rights dialogues. But dealing with issues of human rights and democratic standards in a separate dialogue format is also a way of keeping those questions distinct from trade policy issues, thereby minimising interferences with the trade negotiating process. This does not mean that the EU does not address human rights issues, but the separate forum in which it does so shields, as it were, trade policy practices from having to incorporate non-trade-related considerations into their rules for action. Trade negotiations can thus proceed on their own terms and at their own pace, while foreign and security policy considerations, including human rights issues, remain merely an abstract factor for trade negotiators. This would seem to explain why the interviewed trade officials stated that foreign and security policy considerations do not influence the actual conduct of trade negotiations, i.e. the practice of negotiating. Moreover, such a separation also reduces the EU’s economic leverage. On the one hand, because it signals to the negotiating partner that the linkage between trade policy and human rights is not as tight as purported. On the other hand, because once a trade agreement is being implemented and trade and investment flows increase, so do the economic stakes for either side, making it all the more difficult, from a political economy point of view, to withdraw those preferences. Even as the world’s largest trade power, the EU is reluctant to withdraw preferences granter under the terms of a preferential trade agreement. Furthermore, a look at how the EU substantiates its foreign and security policy interests in Southeast Asia puts into relief the fundamentally “market-oriented nature of EU trade policy”.153 A case in point is the following passage in the 2003 ASEAN 150

See Sicurelli (2015), The EU as a Promoter of Human Rights, p. 238. Zamfir (2019), Human Rights in EU Trade Agreements, p. 5. 152 Ibid. 153 Bailey and Bossuyt (2013), Conveniently-Conflicted Counter-Hegemon, p. 571. 151

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strategy where the Commission emphasises that “economic and trade development can best flourish in countries that not only encourage economic freedom but also respect human rights and the rule of law, practice good governance and rule democratically.”154 Human rights, the rule of law, good governance and a democratic political system are all ends that are worth pursuing on their own merits. But allusions in official documents to the links between the respect for fundamental values and stronger economic growth leave the impression that these values are seen instrumentally as a means to an end. The tensions between, on the one hand, conducting trade negotiations according to economic criteria and using available economic and political leverage to extract economic concessions and, on the other hand, using trade policy as an instrument to promote human rights and other fundamental values as part of a non-traditional security agenda bring to the fore the incongruences between the underlying practices. While the objectives of increasing economic exchanges and improving human rights may not be incompatible, the distinctive practices of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy often are, which is why they are, to the extent possible, kept on separate tracks. Thus, rather than treating the promotion of human rights as a core theme of trade policy, it is—public declarations to the contrary notwithstanding—kept as much as possible on a separate track to allow for an unhindered unfolding of trade policy practices with a view to strengthening trade and economic relations with Southeast Asia. This refers back to the argument made above (see 1.3) that the social world is not governed by a single superordinate logic that would put order into the many strings of human action. Accordingly, EU external action as a whole cannot be considered coherent and consistent simply because its goals may be deemed compatible. Instead, as argued in this book, if the different external policies that constitute EU external action, in this case, the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP, are structured by distinctive practices, then EU external action as a whole will be characterised by tensions to the extent that the beliefs and rules for action underlying these practices are incongruous. As argued above, practices conceived of as competent performances refer to the perception by self and other—not an objective and neutral standard of competence. That is to say, even if EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy are respectively each conducted in a way that the responsible officials deem a competent performance, this does not in and of itself imply that EU external action as a whole can be considered coherent and consistent.

4.2.3 The South China Sea and Sea Lines of Communication The third security issue analysed here concerns maritime security in the South China Sea and the safety of sea lines of communication in Southeast Asia. The South China Sea and its maritime throughways, the Straits of Malacca, Sunda and Lombok, are the shortest maritime route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and therefore of 154

European Commission (2003), A New Partnership with South East Asia, p. 10.

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“tremendous maritime strategic value”.155 The Commission first flagged the territorial disputes in the South China Sea as a potential threat to EU interests in its 1994 Asia strategy and has continued to do so ever since in different strategy papers.156 The Commission and the EEAS emphasise that the EU’s continued prosperity is contingent upon free, safe and stable shipping lanes through the South China Sea and its adjacent waterways, in particular, the Strait of Malacca: “Almost 50% of world shipping (by tonnage) passes through the South China Sea. […] The EU, therefore, has a strong interest in maintaining stability and security in the South China Sea”.157 Here, too, a distinction needs to be drawn between traditional and non-traditional maritime security. The former covers territorial disputes, seaborne state-to-state armed conflicts and other acts of interstate aggression. The latter refers to the panoply of maritime threats and risks encompassing issues as diverse as, inter alia, piracy, maritime environmental pollution, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, port security and other maritime infrastructure and maritime resource management. The EU’s comprehensive understanding of maritime security comes to the fore in its definition of the concept as “a state of affairs of the global maritime domain, in which international law and national law are enforced, freedom of navigation is guaranteed and citizens, infrastructure, transport, the environment and marine resources are protected.”158 The EU Maritime Security Strategy singles out the network of intercontinental shipping lanes and certain regional maritime areas for their strategic importance and proneness to instability or crisis.159 While the EU’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders are not directly at risk in the South China Sea, the EU undoubtedly has an interest in preserving the freedom of navigation, protecting global EU supply chains and maritime trade and upholding the right of innocent and transit passage of vessels.160

4.2.3.1

Traditional Maritime Security Issues

The territorial disputes between China and several ASEAN member states as well as among some ASEAN member states themselves fall into the category of traditional security issues. The tensions in and around the South China Sea have risen since 155

Quang Minh Pham (2010), The South China Sea Security Problem: Towards Regional Cooperation, Asia Europe Journal, 8(3), p. 428. 156 See European Commission (1994), Towards a New Asia Strategy, p. 2; European Commission (2001), Europe and Asia, p. 6; European Commission (2003), A New Partnership, p. 12. See also Council of the European Union (2012), Guidelines on the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy in East Asia, pp. 5, 19. 157 European Commission and High Representative (2015), Partnership with a Strategic Purpose, p. 12. Also interview #29: “80 per cent of our trade passes through the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait et cetera. So, if anything happens there, we have a big problem in Europe.” 158 Council of the European Union (2014), European Union Maritime Security Strategy, 11205/14, Brussels, 24 June, p. 3. 159 See ibid., p. 4. 160 See ibid., p. 7.

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2012 with China’s increasingly assertive stance on its maritime boundary claims, its land reclamation activities, involving the installation of military infrastructure, and the emerging global power struggle between the United States and China, which has given rise to a certain degree of militarisation of the waters in and around Southeast Asia.161 A development that puts commercial vessels at risk of potentially being caught up in a conflict, similar to the seizing by Iranian forces of the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz in July 2019.162 As the EU’s dependence on external trade and its economic ties with Southeast Asia have been increasing, so has its vulnerability to any flare-up of tensions in the region and around the waterways in particular.163 The Commission reckons that as much as EUR 4.74 trillion per year of maritime trade are at risk of being affected by the different territorial disputes in the South China Sea.164 Any impairment of the freedom of navigation in the waters of the South China Sea would therefore have immediate and direct economic effects on the EU and its member states. For this reason, the EU has a vested interest in ensuring that the disputes around maritime borders, shoals and reefs in the South China Sea are managed in such a way that they do not impact the freedom of navigation. Brussels’ aim is to help bring about a framework for managing them in a peaceful and cooperative manner, in accordance with international law, in particular, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It has repeatedly admonished all sides to agree upon a code of conduct for the South China Sea, an undertaking that has proven elusive to this day.165 But the means at the EU’s disposal to make an effective contribution to helping find an amicable solution to the different disputes in the South China Sea is limited.166 The EU has little leverage to change the disputants’ incentive structure for agreeing upon a code of conduct, let alone resolving their territorial disputes, in the same way as it could incentivise the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, by way of offering an EU membership perspective, to change its name to North Macedonia and put an end to the dispute with Greece. In theory, the investment protection agreement currently being negotiated with China 161

See Volker Stanzel (2016), Danger on the High Seas: The East Asian Security Challenge, ECFR Policy Brief , No. 156, January. 162 See BBC (2019), Iran seizes British Tanker in Strait of Hormuz, 20 July. 163 See, for example, Antonio Missiroli (2015), Towards an EU Global Strategy: Background, Process, References, Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, p. 142: “The EU has a huge stake in the continued success of Asian economies, including China’s reform efforts. But the EU is also vulnerable to the ramifications of underlying political and security tensions. Disputes and conflicts in the region would affect trade routes, financial flows and a regional order in a part of the world which is of paramount importance to the EU.” 164 European Commission (2014), European Union Maritime Security Strategy: Responding Together to Global Challenges. A Guide for Stakeholders, Brussels, p. 3. 165 See, for example, European External Action Service (2019), Statement by the Spokesperson on Recent Developments in the South China Sea, Brussels, 28 August; European External Action Service (2016), Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on Recent Developments in the South China Sea, PRESS RELEASE, 126/16, Brussels, 11 March. 166 See Yeikyoung Kim (2016), The EU, Regional Integration and Conflict Transformation in the South China Sea Territorial Disputes, Asia Europe Journal, 14(4), pp. 388–395.

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or the prospect of opening negotiations on a free trade agreement could be used as leverage and incentive. But it is not clear that the balance of economic power is in the EU’s favour in this regard, nor that the EU would in fact be willing to employ its trade policy in such a way. As highlighted in Chap. 2, there is an uneasiness among trade officials to see trade policy being used as a geopolitical tool, because such a course of action would conflict with the belief that trade negotiations should heed economic criteria, not geopolitical ones.167 Therefore, any attempt to interfere, for foreign and security policy reasons, with the negotiating process of the prospective investment protection agreement would doubtlessly meet the resistance of DG Trade. Given the disunity among EU member states on how to deal with China’s growing assertiveness, it is moreover improbable, for the time being, that a decision by the European Council or the Foreign Affairs Council would draw a link between the investment protection agreement and China’s behaviour in the South China Sea.168 The same goes for imposing coercive measures, which is similarly unlikely given China’s economic importance to the EU and member states unwillingness to jeopardise their economic relationship with China for non-trade objectives.169 And, as highlighted above, the EU’s interest in strengthening ASEAN, including in its relations with China, has not caused the Commission to subsume its trade policy under this objective, which would have implied no longer to conduct the trade negotiations according to economic criteria. Another option, which, according to EEAS officials, has been discussed in internal meetings, is the possibility of an EU naval mission in the South China Sea.170 The conduct of regular freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) by the US navy in the South China Sea has raised calls on the EU to engage in similar naval patrols in the region. The French and British navies have already conducted naval patrols in the area but have done so in their national capacity—and the United Kingdom has since exited the EU. The interviewed officials treated the prospect of a distinct EU naval mission in the area sceptically. Asked whether it is conceivable to have an EU naval mission in the South China Sea, an EEAS official working on Southeast Asia replied: “Of course, not! I don’t think that it would be feasible […] Unlike other operations—Sofia, Atalanta et cetera—there would be political problems because even in the EU there might [be] political problems in antagonising China so openly.”171 Hence, despite the significant amount of EU trade passing through the South China Sea, the official states that an EU maritime mission “would be politically impossible. We shouldn’t fantasise about that!”172 The apprehensiveness inside the EU institutions and among 167

See pp. 74–81 in this book. Indeed, it does not seem that events surrounding the entry into force of the Hong Kong security law on 30 June 2020 have in any way affected the EU’s intent to conclude an investment protection agreement with China. On 30 December 2020, the EU and China announced an agreement in principle on an investment protection agreement. 169 The arms embargo in place since the Tiananmen Square massacre has little more than symbolic value. 170 Interview #48. 171 Interview #29. 172 Interview #29. 168

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member states of provoking Beijing’s displeasure, which could potentially result in retaliatory measures, thus emerges as one reason for why the EU rules out conducting its own naval mission in the South China Sea, despite calls by then French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the 2016 Shangri-La Dialogue for a “regular and visible” presence by EU navies in the area.173 The other reason is linked to resource constraints and operational limitations. The EU disposes of no naval vessels of its own and any CSDP mission requires the unanimous approval of all member states,174 on whose resources a prospective EU naval mission would depend. Aware of this, the EU appeals to its member states to use their navies to “play a strategic role at sea and from the sea and provide global reach, flexibility and access that enable the EU and its Member States to contribute to the full spectrum of maritime responsibilities. Their sustained presence needs to support freedom of navigation.”175 Among EU member states, it is arguably only the French navy that is capable of conducting such long-range missions, but neither the French nor indeed the British navies can ensure a naval presence comparable to that of the United States in the South China Sea.176 The two naval operations thus far conducted under the EU banner (Operations Atalanta and Sophia/Irini) have been praised as examples of EU power. But they may in fact not be all that instructive as regards the EU’s long-range (naval) power projection capabilities. Operation Atalanta was launched in 2008 to protect the highly-frequented shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa, through which an important share of world trade passes, against piracy.177 Operation Sophia was conducted in the Mediterranean, close to European shores and was temporarily suspended due to differences among member states, then later relaunched as Operation Irini with a slightly different mandate.178 Both missions were operating close or, in the case of Operation Atalanta, relatively close to EU shores compared to the South China Sea. Moreover, they have dealt with non-state actors and as such do not offer a blueprint for conducting naval patrols in an area of heightened interstate tensions. Member states do not seem to be willing to take this risk. Even inside the EEAS, officials showed themselves sceptical about the usefulness of sending an EU naval mission to the area.179 173

Jean-Yves Le Drian (2016), Shangri-La Dialogue Speech, Singapore, 5 June. Cf. Article 42(4) TEU. 175 Council of the European Union (2014), Maritime Security Strategy, p. 10. 176 Interview #49: “We can intervene on security issues from a certain perspective. This is very different from the Americans having a fifth fleet in a region. We’re not in that league and we certainly don’t pretend to be.” 177 Cf. Council Joint Action 2008/851/CFSP of 10 November 2008 on a European Union military operation to contribute to the deterrence, prevention and repression of acts of piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast, Official Journal of the European Union, 12 November 2008. 178 Cf. Council Decision (CFSP) 2015/778 of 18 May 2015 on a European Union military operation in the Southern Central Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED), Official Journal of the European Union, 19 May 2015; Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/472 of 31 March 2020 on a European Military Operation in the Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED IRINI), Official Journal of the European Union, 1 April 2020. 179 Interview #48: “In the case of a freedom of navigation, the only benefit is to send a message that you’re still attached to freedom of navigation. There is no need to send a ship every week. There is 174

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In short, the EU’s limited track record of conducting naval operations, its lack of resources and the disunity among member states as well as the scepticism among EEAS officials does not manifest any kind of established EU practice of conducting naval operations under EU flag. Nor have there been any joint naval manoeuvres under EU flag or naval exchange programmes with ASEAN states.180 There are simply not enough instances of EU naval missions to meet the definitory criteria of repetitiveness, nor is it possible to discern any kind of sustained pattern in how the EU conducts its naval operations or what a competent performance in this regard would look like. At the very most, one could speak of a nascent EU practice of conducting naval operations, albeit in a very early stage, and it is not yet clear whether it will develop into practice in the sense of a repeated and patterned doing and understanding. Commensurate with this, EU level exhortations to upholding the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea have remained rather vague and unspecific and offer no indication as to how and what the EU intends to do.181 The EU is hence not directly involved in the hard security aspects of the South China Sea disputes. What is more, the EU does not attend any of the high-level security forums other than the ASEAN Regional Forum; it is neither a member of the East Asia Summit (EAS) nor of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), even though Brussels has long sought to join the EAS.182 Instead, the EU’s involvement in the traditional security aspects of the South China Sea is limited to what could be qualified the practice of issuing statements and

no need for twelve ships. One ship is enough! And one ship a year is enough! Also because it’s just a political message: ‘we haven’t given up, we still believe that there should be freedom of navigation.’ And basically we’re sending the message that what China has been doing is illegal. That’s it. And we don’t have to do it with twenty ships. […] This is not about protecting trade militarily. It’s just about sending a message to China. So, you send a message, you send it as cheaply as you can.” 180 See Felix Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, in: Leszek Buszynski and Do Thanh Hai (eds.), The South China Sea: From a Regional Maritime Dispute to Geo-Strategic Competition, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 162. The EU attended, as an observer, the Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo 2016 hosted by Indonesia. In addition, the EU and Vietnam signed a Framework Participation Agreement on 17 October 2019, which allows for the participation of Vietnam in CSDP operations. While no such operation with Vietnamese participation has taken place yet, the EU and Vietnam held their first security and defence dialogue in Brussels on 22 November 2019, see European External Action Service (2019), The European Union and Vietnam held the First Security and Defence Dialogue, Press Release, Brussels, 26 November. 181 See, for example, EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, pp. 38, 41: “In East and Southeast Asia, we will uphold freedom of navigation […]. We will help build maritime capacities and support an ASEAN-led regional security architecture. […] The EU will contribute to global maritime security, building on its experience in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and exploring possibilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.” 182 The EU expressed its intention of becoming an observer state to the EAS as early as 2006, see Benita Ferrero-Waldner (2006), New Visions for EU-Japan Relations, Opening of Joint EU-Japan Symposium, SPEECH/06/227, Brussels, 6 April. The ADMM-Plus format, launched in 2010, is a dialogue platform for security and defence issues that brings together ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States.

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declarations,183 which is readily observable in its many instantiations in the form of written documents and press conferences, which are often video-streamed and recorded. In its statements and declarations, the EEAS follows the rules and codes of diplomatic language as well as an EU-specific grading of formats.184 Thus, the EU’s practice of issuing statements and declarations reflects a certain understanding of a competent performance, i.e. of how these statements and declarations ought to be written and presented in order to convey the intended message without causing a diplomatic stir. By maintaining a stance of principled neutrality on the territorial and maritime border disputes in the South China Sea, Brussels’ “declaratory diplomacy”185 is visibly circumspect not to irritate China. A case in point is the use of weak diplomatic language in the declaration of the HR/VP on behalf of the EU on the award rendered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which rejected China’s claims of historical rights in South China Sea.186 The statement does not ‘welcome’ the award, but merely ‘acknowledges’ it. It moreover does not call upon China to respect and implement the award. In fact, China is not named at all. That it took the EU three days to agree upon this toned-down declaration attests to the profound divergences among member states regarding China.187 The EU’s takingno-sides approach seems to be motivated in large part by concerns about potential economic retaliatory measures by China, which diminishes the EU’s credibility as a promoter of the rule of law. Moreover, the South China Sea is curiously absent in a number of high-level declarations and statements,188 which raises the question of how much of a political priority the South China Sea really is in the EU’s foreign and security policy bureaucracy. While there unquestionably is a well-established EU practice of issuing statements and declarations, the EU does not appear to be willing

183

See Mathieu Duchâtel (2016), Europe and Maritime Security in the South China Sea: Beyond Principled Statements?, Asia Policy, 21, January, pp. 54–58. 184 The typical formats are, in declining order, a ‘Declaration of the HR/VP on behalf of the EU’, a ‘Declaration from the HR/VP’, a ‘Statement by the Spokesperson of the HR/VP’ and ‘Local EU Statements’. 185 Duchâtel (2016), Europe and Maritime Security, p. 55. 186 See European External Action Service (2016), Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the Award rendered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China, PRESS RELEASE, 442/16, Brussels, 15 July. 187 See Eva Pejsova (2019), Increased Relevance for EU Policy and Actions in the South China Sea, ISEAS Perspective, No. 52, Singapore, 26 June, p. 3; Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, pp. 152, 160. 188 See Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, p. 156.

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to jeopardise its economic relations with China by discursively interfering with its trade policy practices, thereby putting the protracted negotiations on an EU-China investment protection agreement at risk.

4.2.3.2

Non-traditional Security Issues

The EU is not a mere bystander in Southeast Asian maritime security affairs. As a founding member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and a contracting party since 2012 to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the EU has over the past decade stepped up its security engagement with ASEAN, focussing, however, almost exclusively on non-traditional aspects of maritime security.189 The EU’s emphasis on non-traditional maritime security cooperation is, on the one hand, simply a reflection of its limited (naval) hard power capabilities. On the other hand, this approach also allows Brussels to draw upon its well-established practices in the domain of non-traditional security more generally. Conducting political dialogue, engaging in confidence-building measures, sharing lessons learnt as well as offering technical advice and expertise are core practices of EU foreign and security policy. As repeated and patterned sets of action, they structure the EU’s approach to maritime security in Southeast Asia, thereby reflecting how the EU pursues its interest in the stability and security of the South China Sea, in particular free, safe and stable sea lines of communication. It illustrates that practices equal neither means nor ends. Rather, practices as the patterned and routinised enactment of beliefs and rules for action reflect how means are used in the pursuit of ends as well as which means and ends are selected in the first place. Thus, the routinised patterns of action that constitute practices are indicative of how means and ends are aligned. It is in situations of crises that these patterns of action break and new ones emerge. The Bandar Seri Begawan Plan of Action (2013–2017) and the EU-ASEAN Plan of Action (2018–2022) indicate that EU engagement in Southeast Asian maritime security affairs has been and continues to be confined to holding dialogue forums and sharing lessons learnt through seminars and workshops.190 The EU initiated a HighLevel Dialogue on Maritime Security Cooperation with ASEAN in 2013 and several instalments have been held since. The EU also assumed the role of co-chair, together with Australia and Vietnam, of the ARF Inter-Sessional Meeting on Maritime Security from 2017 until 2020. The dialogues held thus far have indeed mostly revolved around the exchange of lessons learnt, knowledge and expertise on different aspects of maritime-related security issues, including port security, regional maritime policies, inter-agency cooperation, joint sustainable management of maritime resources, maritime connectivity, law enforcement at sea as well as how to enhance trust, build confidence and reduce tensions.191 Cooperation between the EU and ASEAN, 189

See Maier-Knapp (2020), Contemporary Inter-Regional Dialogue and Cooperation, pp. 54–66. See Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, p. 161. 191 See Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand (2016), Press Release: The 3rd ASEAN-EU High Level Dialogue on Maritime Security Cooperation, Bangkok, 20 September; 190

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furthermore, encompasses the fight against piracy, armed robbery and hijacking at sea and, in this context, the EU cooperates with the ASEAN-centric Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) by exchanging information and lessons learnt.192 Strengthening cooperation in maritime search and rescue through inter alia technical cooperation and exchanging visits of relevant officials are another area of EU-ASEAN maritime security cooperation, as listed in the Plan of Action. The aforementioned practices, which are rather low profile in nature compared with the freedom of navigation operations or joint naval manoeuvres and which could be considered to be constitutive of the practice of preventive maritime diplomacy, serve the purpose of encouraging dialogue, fostering compromise and preventing conflict among the disputants to the overlapping maritime boundary claims in the South China Sea—in the absence of a final resolution of the sovereignty question for the foreseeable future. Even if the EU’s focus on non-traditional security does not qualify the EU, in the eyes of ASEAN states, as a genuine security player in Southeast Asia, the EU’s contributions to Southeast Asian maritime security should not be disregarded as unimportant. Nor does the EU currently have the resources to project hard naval power nor would such an approach, which risks provoking economic reprisals from China, be conducive to furthering its economic interests in Southeast Asia. Instead, the practice of preventive maritime diplomacy is arguably the best way of applying available means in the pursuit of its overarching objective of ensuring peace, security and stability for trade and investment to flourish. Because the EU’s interests in Southeast Asia are mostly economic in nature and since it has no strategic military interests in the region, it is only sensible for the EU to focus its security engagement in Southeast Asia on non-traditional security cooperation and otherwise limit its actions to issuing statements and declarations.193 The threat perception in Brussels and member states’ capitals has put the focus of EU foreign and security policy on the EU’s neighbourhood, especially since the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s increasingly assertive actions in the post-Soviet space.194 China’s actions European External Action Service (2017), ASEAN-EU Co-Chairs Joint Press Release on the 4th ASEAN-EU High-Level Dialogue on Maritime Security Cooperation, Manila, 6 October. 192 See Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, pp. 162–163. Although Indonesia and Malaysia remain outside ReCAAP and several non-ASEAN countries are contracting parties to the agreement, ASEAN assumes a central role in ReCAAP, see Miha Hribernik (2013), Countering Maritime Piracy and Robbery in Southeast Asia: The Role of the ReCAAP Agreement, European Institute for Asian Studies, Briefing Paper 2013/2, March. 193 In similar vein, Duchâtel (2016), Europe and Maritime Security, writes that “the essence of the European approach is to remain at the general level of principles and avoid taking clear sides” (pp. 55–56) and “[a]s long as tensions in the South China Sea remain below the threshold of armed confrontation, the policy debate in Europe will remain focused on how to best formulate statements” (p. 54). 194 See Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, p. 157. See also Aggarwal and Govella (2013), Trade Linkages to Traditional and Non-Traditional Security, p. 240: “[S]ecurity concerns play a larger role in bilateral trade agreements with more geographically proximate states, particularly potential EU members, while FTAs with more distant partners are driven more by economic gains.”

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in the South China Sea are not seen as a threat to the EU’s territorial integrity in the same way as Russia’s assertive actions in the post-Soviet space are. While the EU’s upholding of the freedom of navigation is in part a principled defence of the law of the seas, especially UNCLOS, its interest in the stability of the South China Sea is essentially an economic one linked to ensuring the unimpaired flow of trade through the area and its maritime throughways. The EU’s cooperation with ASEAN on non-traditional maritime security can have a direct positive impact on EU trade and economic interests in Southeast Asia. The dialogues and exchanges the EU holds with ASEAN on maritime-related security issues proceed without linkages with its trade policy initiatives in the region. Moreover, the EU’s maritime security cooperation with ASEAN is also not dependent on trade policy instruments. Nevertheless, even though the EU is certainly not a decisive security actor in Southeast Asian security affairs, maritime or otherwise, its practices in non-traditional maritime security can help contribute to preventing the outbreak of open hostilities. As far as non-traditional maritime security issues, which may prove to be just as detrimental to seaborne trade as military skirmishes—piracy off the Somali coast is a case in point—the EU has more to offer in terms of experience, resources and instruments, reflecting its role as non-traditional security actor more generally. Even so, the EU seeks recognition by ASEAN as a fully-fledged security player. The EU’s attempts to enhance its security role in Southeast Asia have at times an almost desperate tone to them, as when then HR/VP Mogherini implored attendees to the 2015 Shangri-La dialogue: “Please, please do not look at us just as a big free trade area. […] but consider that the European Union is also a foreign policy community, a security and defence provider for our own people, within our borders and in the rest of the world”.195 Yet in the eyes of ASEAN states, the EU is still largely perceived to be an economic power, not a credible security actor. This is the main reason why, according to Sophie du Rocher, ASEAN continues to block the EU from joining the ADMM-Plus format and the East Asia Summit: “As pragmatic players, ASEAN Member States won’t rely on a partner with no achievement on the security side.”196 While the verdict ‘no achievement’ can only be justified with regard to hard security issues, it does indeed appear that “[a]s a matter of principle, Brussels wants to be ‘on the picture’ and to contribute to security activities but without having formulated a clear projection of its ambition and relevance for the coming decades.”197 In fact, the issue is not one of ambition so much as about the available means to live up to the expectations the EU creates, for example, when, as in the EU Global Strategy, it announces, “[i]n East and Southeast Asia, we will

195

Federica Mogherini (2015), Speech at the 14th Asia Security Summit: The IISS ShangriLa Dialogue, Fifth Plenary Session, Global Security Challenges and the Asia–Pacific: Building Cooperation Between Regions, 31 May. 196 Sophie Boisseau du Rocher (2014), The EU’s Strategic Offensive with ASEAN: Some Room Left But No Time…, GRIP Analysis Note, Brussels, 8 January, p. 15. 197 Ibid., p. 13.

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uphold freedom of navigation”,198 even though it seems evident that the EU will not be in a position to conduct freedom of navigation operations for the foreseeable future. Similarly high-flown is the self-stylisation in the EU Global Strategy as a “global security provider”,199 a term that is suggestive of the capability to extend (i.e. provide) hard security guarantees; something the EU is by no means capable of doing. The Council conclusions on Enhanced EU Security Cooperation in and with Asia, endorsed on 28 May 2018, consequently adopt the more sober term of a “global security partner”,200 which is arguably a more accurate description of the EU’s practices as a (non-traditional) security actor.

4.3 Conclusion EU-ASEAN relations have their origins in trade and economic interests, including development-related issues and for over a quarter of a century, trade and economics were virtually the only issues that defined the relationship. It was the region’s rapid economic recovery after the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98 and its burgeoning economic growth that have prompted the EU to launch trade negotiations, first with ASEAN as a bloc in 2007, then with individual ASEAN member states from 2009 onwards, in an attempt not to lose out on its economic competitors, which had already been negotiating and concluded trade agreements with ASEAN states in the early 2000s. Prior to the start of these trade negotiations, the EU first had to usher in a change in its trade policy practices, in particular the shift from pursuing trade liberalisation only multilaterally to negotiating bilateral trade agreements. After the turn of the millennium and even more so in the decade since 2010, the EU has sought to put the relationship on a broader basis, encompassing in particular foreign and security policy issues, in line with the EU’s ambition to play a larger role in global security affairs, as outlined in the 2016 EU Global Strategy. But the decision to launch trade negotiations with ASEAN in 2007 was nevertheless taken on the basis of economic considerations, not foreign and security policy considerations. The EU’s foreign and security policy interests in Southeast Asia are instead premised upon a two-fold concern. The first is intrinsically linked to its economic stakes in the region in that any conflict in or destabilisation of Southeast Asia, especially a flare-up of tensions in the South China Sea, would immediately affect EU economic interests. To that end, the EU has sought to cooperate with ASEAN on a number of security-related issues. The second is the conviction that many current and future challenges, including security-related ones, require global action that can 198

EEAS (2016), Global Strategy, p. 38. Ibid., p. 3 (emphasis added). 200 Council of the European Union (2018), Enhanced EU Security Cooperation in and with Asia, Council conclusions, 9265/1/18 REV 1, Brussels, 28 May, p. 2 (emphasis added). The third implementation report on the EU Global Strategy employs the terminology “global security provider” again, see European External Action Service (2019), The European Union’s Global Strategy: Three Years On, Looking Forward, Brussels, June, p. 10. 199

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only be successfully mustered if the rules-based multilateral international order is upheld. The EU sees ASEAN as a like-minded regional organisation and therefore seeks to strengthen ASEAN in order to gain a strong partner in multilateralism. However, despite an upscaling in non-traditional security cooperation and attempts by the EU to cast its relationship with ASEAN states as a comprehensive strategic partnership, the economic dimension of relations continues to supersede the foreign and security policy dimension. The argument, here, has been that this can be explained by the help of a practice approach. Although the EU has, in recent years, emphasised that it is a security actor in its own right, official documents and statements often refer to economic interests or the EU’s status as the world’s largest single market and a major exporter to substantiate the EU’s foreign and security policy interests in Southeast Asia. This rhetorical feedback loop weaves through several official EU documents that deal with Southeast Asia, which makes it difficult to escape the conclusion that “the dominant prism through which Europeans look at the South China Sea and the surrounding region is economic.”201 This prevalence of trade-related interpretative filters reflects the superposing of trade policy practices over foreign and security policy practices. The chapter has highlighted several instances of this superposing in the EU approach towards Southeast Asia. First, the decision for bilateral FTAs with individual ASEAN countries over a region-to-region trade agreement exemplifies the prioritisation of the practices of negotiating ambitious and wide-ranging trade agreements and of commercial balancing over the practice of using trade policy to further regional political and economic integration. Second, concluding trade agreements with countries whose human rights record and democratic credentials do not meet the standards the EU professes to promote and separating trade negotiations from human rights dialogues implies that the practice of negotiating trade agreements according to economic criteria is largely shielded from the practice of using trade instruments to promote human rights and other fundamental values. Third, although stability in the South China Sea and the safety of shipping lanes in Southeast Asia is of vital economic importance to the EU, the EU’s practice of preventive maritime diplomacy proceeds in almost complete insulation from its trade policy in the region. The EU does not use its trade policy instruments to seek to alter the incentive structure of the countries involved in the maritime boundary disputes in the South China Sea. For instance, it appears to be out of the question that the EU suspends its negotiations on an investment protection agreement with China as long as China continues to disrespect the award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Furthermore, the EU also makes no foreign and security policy-motivated economic concessions in its trade negotiations with ASEAN states with a view to strengthening them in their relations with China. Instead, EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy each proceed according to their characteristic beliefs and rules for action and are therefore structured alongside distinctive practices, which results in inconsistencies and contradictions in EU external action as a whole towards Southeast Asia.

201

Heiduk (2019), European Powers and the South China Sea, p. 165.

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Brussels’ reluctance to turn its economic weight into foreign and security policy leverage is facilitated by the continued institutional separation between DG Trade and the EEAS, which allows the former, given its stronger institutional standing, to conduct trade policy largely according to its beliefs and rules for action. The EEAS, by contrast, neither has the same homogenous beliefs nor the developed practices, let alone the institutional competence, as DG Trade. Its influence on the trade negotiating process is therefore limited. What nudges DG Trade to acquiesce to some of the foreign and security policy concerns, in particular those related to human rights, is the potential veto by the European Parliament, which has to ratify any trade agreement concluded by the EU. On the whole, this chapter has argued that the EU does not subsume its trade policy under its foreign and security policy in Southeast Asia. Instead, “the preeminence of geo-economic over geopolitical considerations conditions the possibilities of bilateral, multilateral and interregional initiatives for both Southeast Asia and the European Union.”202 For the time being, trade policy and foreign and security policy are still not consistently integrated into a more strategic approach, giving rise to tensions and contradictions in the EU’s approach towards ASEAN. From a practice theory perspective, this is not a conflict of objectives so much as an incongruence of the distinctive practices that structure trade policy and foreign and security policy, respectively, inasmuch as these practices are the enactment of differing beliefs and rules for action about the use and role of trade policy in the EU approach towards Southeast Asia.

202

Camroux (2008), Two to Tango?, p. 35.

Chapter 5

Conclusion

This book set out to analyse the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action as a nexus of practices. For want of a genuinely ‘common’ foreign and security policy, the EU has often had to resort to trade policy as a vehicle to pursue its foreign and security policy interests and to construct itself as a foreign and security policy actor in its own right. The concurrent use of the CCP as an instrument in the pursuit of both trade policy as well as foreign and security policy interests makes that the two policies are placed in an interconnected relationship with each other. Starting from the observation that EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy function differently, the argument was made that each policy is structured alongside distinctive practices. Distilling various definitions of practices, this book has understood practices as the routinised and patterned ways of understanding and doing of a designated collective based on the belief that a certain course of action is the right and appropriate one under a given set of circumstances. Thus defined, practices embody certain beliefs and rules for action of which they are the enactment. Furthermore, practices both shape and are shaped by the organisational culture of the corresponding community of practice; I argued that DG Trade and the EEAS each form such a community of practice. Contrary to approaches that seek to explain coherence and tension between trade policy and foreign and security policy by reference to their ultimate objective, prosperity or security, a practice approach makes it possible to zoom in both on the structures prevailing at a given point in time and the practitioners themselves, how they perceive the structural conditions and act upon them, thereby producing, reproducing or transforming practices. Each bureaucratic subsystem has a more or less developed and homogeneous organisational culture with its concomitant background knowledge, beliefs and rules for action, which contain behavioural guidelines and benchmarks of success for how to conduct ‘their’ policy competently. The research process has shown that the added value of using a practice approach in analysing the trade-security nexus in EU external action lies in the concept’s aptness in foregrounding and analysing the underlying background knowledge, beliefs and rules for actions of the respective communities of practice, which can differ, even if the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Stueber, The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_5

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ultimate long-term objectives (i.e. security and prosperity) are compatible. Insofar as these behavioural guidelines encapsulate incommensurable beliefs and rules for action, the practices that structure EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy, respectively, are incongruous and the two policies consequently run the risk of incoherence and inconsistency. In order to be able to reconstruct the practices that structure EU trade policy and the EU foreign and security policy, respectively, the interview material, obtained in 53 expert interviews with EU officials, national diplomats and MEPs, has been triangulated with official documents and secondary literature. In a first step, the different trajectories of European integration in the realms of trade policy and foreign and security policy have been traced in order to foreground the differences in action space in which DG Trade and the EEAS respectively produce, reproduce or transform ‘their’ distinctive practices. Whereas the CCP is an exclusive EU competence with a long institutional history that gives DG Trade more leeway in honing its practices, the CFSP/CSDP is a much more recent EU policy and purely intergovernmental, which leaves less action space for the EEAS. What the account of the institutional history has, moreover, highlighted is the historically-rooted lop-sidedness of EU external action towards economic issues. In a second step, the organisational cultures of DG Trade and the EEAS have been reconstructed by drawing on the extensive interview material. The interviewed officials perceive DG Trade as a homogenous, highly competent service with a strong sense of mission. By contrast, the EEAS is seen as a much less homogenous service that lacks the established institutional culture and the clear mandate that DG Trade disposes of. It has furthermore been highlighted that EU officials associate specific beliefs and rules for action with these cultural differences that shape the way officials in DG Trade and the EEAS respectively understand and deal with situations. The differences in bureaucratic culture prevalent between DG Trade and the EEAS have thus been deemed to be relevant insofar as they do give rise to distinctive practices. In a third step, the main trade policy as well as foreign and security policy strategy documents have been critically scrutinised with regard to the trade-security nexus and crosschecked against the interview material. It has been underlined that, even though official documents contain a high level of discursive coherence, this is achieved mostly by omitting any reference to potential inconsistencies between trade policy and foreign and security policy. Although the key trade policy strategy documents take note of the requirement for EU trade policy to be coherent with EU foreign and security policy, they nevertheless stress that trade partners have to be selected, first and foremost, on the basis of economic criteria. The role that trade policy is being assigned in the foreign and security policy discourse has shifted from the belief that trade policy will quasi-automatically contribute to achieving the EU’s foreign and security policy interests if the EU increases its economic exchanges with the rest of the world, to a much more down-to-earth assessment of what trade policy can achieve in a world of great power rivalries. Two conflicting sets of practices in EU trade policy have consequently been highlighted: One of a more autonomous and self-standing, competitiveness-driven trade policy that selects trade partners according to economic criteria and is assessed almost exclusively on the basis of commercial performance

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indicators. The other takes advantage of the CCP as one of the EU’s main levers of influence and puts it at the service of various foreign and security policy objectives. The CCP, then, becomes merely a means by which the EU seeks to project foreign and security policy influence. Underlying both sets of practices are differing beliefs about the role of trade policy in EU external action at large, which consequently results in different rules for action and, indeed, practices. On the basis of the careful examination of the institutional history in the realms of trade policy and foreign and security policy, the reconstruction of organisational cultures and beliefs and the in-depth analysis of official documents, a number of core practices have been identified for both policies. As regards the CCP, one of the most fundamental practices consists in conducting trade policy according to economic and commercial criteria. This includes the selection of potential trade partners on the basis of economic criteria, the conduct of trade negotiations according to economic criteria and for economic purposes as well as the assessment of the final agreement against predefined benchmarks of ambitiousness. Another key practice of EU trade policy is structuring foreign markets according to EU rules and regulations so as to facilitate market entry for EU businesses. This is usually achieved by making the adoption of significant portions of the acquis communautaire a precondition for the conclusion of a free trade agreement. Furthermore, the balancing, through ambitious and wideranging free trade agreements, of commercial advantages negotiated by economic competitors of the EU with third countries has been identified as another key practice of EU trade policy. This includes, inter alia, comparing the provisions that the EU’s economic competitors have negotiated with the potential EU trade partner with a view to securing an agreement that grants the EU similar or, preferably, better terms. The examination of these practices has highlighted that they follow relatively strict beliefs and rules for action, which makes it inherently difficult to adapt the CCP to the requirements of foreign and security policy, for this may imply a lowering of ambition and thus a potential economic loss or foregone economic gains. Concerning EU foreign and security policy, one of the most basic practices is cultivating diplomatic relations. This rather vaguely-circumscribed practice may involve a range of actions that all serve the fostering, deepening, strengthening or, if necessary, improving relations with a third country.1 With regard to trade policy, the practice of cultivating diplomatic relations often includes the offering of improved economic relations, for instance through a free trade agreement, as a positive foreign policy gesture. It is this latter aspect, i.e. using trade agreements to improve diplomatic relations, that was criticised by the interviewed trade officials, because it is difficult to reconcile with the practice of conducting trade policy according to economic criteria and for economic purposes. Another practice, which is distinctively European, is the fostering of security and stability through economic integration. Based on the history of European integration, the EU seeks to replicate its “founding myth”2 by granting selected third countries improved access to its single market in exchange for political and economic reforms. This is the key mechanism underlying the ENP and 1 2

Cf. Article 3 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Schimmelfennig (2001), The Community Trap, p. 66.

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EaP. Furthermore, conducting political dialogues on specific issues, such as human rights, has been identified as a practice. The EU’s practice of conducting distinct human rights dialogues effectively separates trade policy questions and human rights issues into compartmentalised processes, thereby allowing trade policy questions to be negotiated on their own merits. The analysis has shown that, as regards the use of trade policy instruments, EU foreign and security policy practices imply much greater flexibility, which is often incongruous with the more regimented practice of conducting trade policy according to economic criteria. This enumeration is not necessarily exhaustive, but it lists those practices that have been identified in this book as the key structuring factors in each of the two policy fields. Concerning the nexus of trade policy and foreign and security policy practices, it has been shown that due to the prevalence of distinctive practices, the EU is hard-pressed to combine its trade policy and its foreign and security policy into a more integrated and strategic framework of action. As a result, trade policy and foreign and security policy essentially still run on separate, parallel tracks and direct cross-linkages are few. Therefore, in contrast to the conceptual harmony between trade policy and foreign and security policy portrayed in official documents, in practice both policies are conducted largely on their own merits and any transactional approach, for example by linking specific market opening commitments to foreign and security policy concessions, is spurned. No evidence has been found that the EU uses its trade power as a lever to further specific foreign and security policy objectives in international political fora, such as the UN, by using economic incentives and disincentives with a view to aligning countries around its own position. Besides, it has been shown that foreign and security policy influence is usually strongest in the opening and closing phases of trade negotiations but not in the actual negotiating process. The purpose of the case studies for this book was two-fold. On the one hand, the general insights gained on the practices that structure EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy have been used as a framework of analysis to examine the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the EU’s approach towards Ukraine and ASEAN respectively. On the other hand, the case studies have served as a foil to identify and reconstruct instantiations of these distinctive practices. The approach pursued has hence been neither purely deductive nor inductive but rather falls into the category of abductive reasoning. The case study on the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the EU’s relations with Ukraine has shown that the EU’s ‘sleepwalking’ into the Ukraine crisis was a corollary of the relative dominance of trade policy practices in EU external action. Even though the DCFTA served primarily foreign and security policy purposes, it was negotiated as a regular trade agreement according to economic and commercial criteria, which did not take into consideration the foreign and security policy dynamics at play in the Eastern neighbourhood. What is more, there was no adequate foreign and security policy oversight and steering provided by the EEAS. As a consequence, whereas the DCFTA was highly political in foreign and security policy terms, given that it was the centrepiece of the Association Agreement and the

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vehicle by means of which the EU sought to redress a security concern, the negotiations were conducted in a curiously apolitical, technocratic fashion that reflected the commercially-driven practices of the CCP. The Ukraine crisis has unhinged the EU’s belief that the extension of economic exchanges can proceed in a depoliticised fashion in a geographical space that is politically contested. The case study on the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the EU’s approach towards ASEAN started from a different observation. Unlike in the case of Ukraine and the Eastern neighbourhood, instability and conflict in Southeast Asia pose no direct threat to the territorial integrity and physical security of the EU and its member states. But instability and conflict in the ASEAN region, in particular an interruption or impairment of sea lines of communication in the South China Sea and surrounding areas, will directly affect growth dynamics in the EU. Despite a significant increase in the EU’s involvement in non-traditional security affairs in ASEAN, commercial interests continue to enjoy unabated priority in EU external action vis-à-vis Southeast Asia as well as China for that matter. The EU is indeed wary of using its economic power resources for political purposes when this might hurt its economic interests. The ASEAN case study has put into relief several instances where trade practices overlaid foreign and security policy practices in the sense of defining the EU’s approach towards ASEAN. Unsurprisingly, given the EU’s own history, the practice of promoting regional integration constitutes a core activity of EU external action towards ASEAN. Fostering political integration thereby follows more of a foreign and security policy rationale, whereas furthering economic integration responds more to an economic rationale. First, the case study has shown that when the EU opted for bilateral FTAs with individual ASEAN countries and in the first place those that were economically significant and willing to engage the EU on its ambitious trade agenda, its trade practices superimposed on its foreign and security policy practices. Second, it has been argued that separating trade negotiations from human rights dialogues has the effect of shielding the practice of negotiating trade agreements according to economic criteria from the practice of using trade instruments to promote human rights. Besides, the EU’s objective of stepping up its economic diplomacy in East and Southeast Asia implies a reinforcement of the economic dimension of external action, because, as a practice, economic diplomacy describes the use of political tools for economic purposes and, as such, represents the opposite of using trade policy for foreign and security policy objectives. Third, concerning the maritime boundary disputes in the South China Sea and regional maritime security more generally, the EU’s various activities in the realm of non-traditional security cooperation have been qualified as the practice of preventive maritime diplomacy, which itself encompasses practices as diverse as fostering political dialogue, engaging in confidence-building measures, exchanging lessons learnt as well as offering technical advice and expertise. In terms of hard naval power, however, one can speak, at best, of a fledgling practice of conducting naval operations, which for fear of antagonising China have not (yet) been carried out in Southeast Asia. Instead, the EU accompanies the disputes in the South China Sea by issuing statements and declarations.

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The two case studies have made for interesting comparative analysis both for their similarities and differences. At an abstract level, the geopolitical constellations in Southeast Asia and in the Eastern neighbourhood are comparable in that in both cases the EU seeks to strengthen its political and economic ties with a region where at least one other external power strives to wield exclusive influence. In the Eastern neighbourhood and in particular as regards Ukraine, this other power is Russia. In Southeast Asia, it is China. Similar to Russia, which considers the post-Soviet space to be part of its sphere of privilege, China lays claim to a traditional sphere of influence in Southeast Asia and in particular in the South China Sea. However, even a cursory comparison quickly points to two obvious differences. First, Southeast Asia is a region that is geographically far more distant from the EU and security issues would not have the same immediate spill-over effect compared to the Eastern neighbourhood. Second, Southeast Asia is of obvious economic significance to the EU. ASEAN as a whole is the EU’s third largest trading partner, whereas the six EaP states are with the exception of Ukraine economically insignificant to the EU. In addition, China, as the other major player in Southeast Asia, is economically vastly more important to the EU than Russia. China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner, accounting for 13.8% of total trade in 2019. Russia is the EU’s fifth largest trading partner with 5.7% of total trade.3 Whereas the ENP/EaP sprang from a security concern and trade policy was the main tool employed to that end, the EU’s approach towards ASEAN is motivated by economic interests and (non-traditional) security policy instruments are used to help stabilise the region and establish a robust security architecture, with the chief objective being stable markets. The fact that the EU derives its foreign and security policy interests in Southeast Asia chiefly from its economic stakes in the region is the opposite of the ENP/EaP, where the EU’s economic and trade interests are of minor importance and trade and other economic instruments serve above all as a tool to address a security concern. By zooming in on the distinctive practices of EU trade policy and EU foreign and security policy respectively, it has been possible to put into relief the patterns and regularities that structure the conduct of practitioners in either policy and condition the interactions between the two policies. Hence, despite the differences between the two analysed cases, the EU’s conduct in trade policy and foreign and security policy has nevertheless followed largely the same distinctive practices in both cases. This is remarkable insofar as the fundamental rationale underlying the EU’s engagement, in either case, is in fact different, as aforementioned. This book has moreover highlighted that distinctive policy practices are the corollary of the institutional and functional division of labour in large-scale modern bureaucracies with their various organisational subsystems. Merging DG Trade and the EEAS into one external policy service, as some interviewees suggested, would not necessarily solve this problem. This is so because the larger a single bureaucratic 3

According to a first Eurostat estimate of EU trade data for 2020, China surpassed the United States as the EU’s top trading partner. Exports to China grew by 2.2% and imports from China rose by 5.6%, whereas exports to and imports from the US dropped by 8.2% and 13.2%, respectively. See https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/portlet_file_entry/2995521/6-15022021BP-EN.pdf/e8b971dd-7b51-752b-2253-7fdb1786f4d9 [25.02.2021].

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organisation becomes, the more likely it is that divergent policy practices emerge across different departments and sections within this organisation. Hence it appears that there is an inherent limit to the degree of coherence and consistency between trade policy and foreign and security policy in the external action of politico-economic systems that subscribe to the principles of liberal democracy and the rules of freemarket economy. Countries such as China and Russia seem to have less difficulties in casting trade policy and foreign and security policy from the same mould. In the EU, coherence and consistency between the CCP and the CFSP/CSDP should consequently not be pursued at any price. In other words, there are valid reasons for trade policy to be conducted according to economic criteria, even if this then implies that it is more difficult to use trade instruments for foreign and security policy. On the flip side, if the CCP is to contribute to making the EU a stronger foreign and security policy actor, it requires a stronger oversight and steering by the EEAS, which in turn is only achievable if the CFSP/CSDP is strengthened as a policy and the EEAS acquires more legal competence as a service. This calls for two policy changes. The first one implies that the CCP adapts to the changes in world trade by adopting a more transactional approach. This necessarily implies to part, to a certain degree, with the practice of running trade policy on the basis of competitiveness criteria and will thus come at an economic cost. As it is currently practiced, EU trade policy proceeds mostly according to economically-motivated beliefs and rules for action and is thus largely inconsiderate of strategic foreign and security policy considerations. As long as the beliefs and rules for action underlying a practice are not challenged by real-world events that make the practitioners aware that these are not adequate to successfully deal with a problematic situation, there is a self-perpetuating dynamic of practices. At the same time, the EU should adopt a more pragmatic approach in its trade relations with those countries that do matter from an economic perspective. Overly front-loading agreements with political conditionality risks frustrating potential trade partners. The case of ASEAN is an instructive example in this regard. Second, EU member states should agree on a genuinely Common Foreign and Security Policy that is as ‘common’ as the CCP. Adopting majority voting in the Council is a first necessary, albeit not sufficient, step, because it will not automatically create an acceptance among member stance to be bound by decisions taken by qualified majority in the realm of foreign and security policy. Moreover and most importantly, it will also take time for new foreign and security policy practices to emerge at the EU level once qualified majority voting is adopted. As outlined at the beginning of this book, practice theory encompasses a wide and diverse set of approaches to studying practices that range from focussing on the contingent unfolding of concrete actions to emphasising the repetitive nature of patterns of action, thereby highlighting the structural connotations of practices. The approach pursued in this book leans more towards the latter. The diversity of practice theory is both strength and weakness. A strength because it offers a common analytical framework and vocabulary, which allows scholars to engage with one another through a shared prism on a wide range of empirical phenomena of different scales in international relations. Even if “the identification of the elements within a practice

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varies from author to author”,4 practice theory provides a set of distinct theoretical perspectives which promises novel empirical insights on previously understudied developments and allows scholars to probe new avenues of research. A weakness because the “complicated network of similarities and dissimilarities”5 renders it more difficult to agree on a set of core tenets that would constitute the common agenda of practice theory, therefore being prone to criticisms that practice theory has little new to offer or that it is merely a new version of constructivism.6 This book has shown that practice theory does allow for a novel perspective and provides added value in IR research by zooming in on how differences in organisational culture, background knowledge, beliefs and rules for action give rise to distinctive practices that structure various policies. In particular, this book has made three distinct contributions. First, it contributes to the growing practice theory literature in IR by redrawing attention to the aspect of understanding in the definition of practice, which Reckwitz highlighted in particular, but which most definitions omit. The extensive use of interview material has made it possible to put into relief the routinised and patterned ways of understanding that distinguish DG Trade officials from EEAS officials in addition to their different patterns of action. Second, it expands on the literature on the trade-security nexus by drawing the focus away from the ultimate objectives to the practices that structure the respective policies. This approach adds a new dimension in that it helps understand occurrences of inconsistency between trade policy and foreign and security policy even when the long-term objectives of prosperity and security are widely deemed compatible. Third, it offers an empirically-based study of EU external action to enhance the understanding of the functioning of the EU’s external relations bureaucracy by way of examining the interactions between DG Trade and the EEAS. Thus, it sheds new light on the debate about coherence and consistency in EU external action through a new theoretical angle. The approach pursued in this book is innovative in that differences in organisational culture and practices across different DGs have never been systematically used to examine the interactions between trade policy and foreign and security policy in EU external action. Future research on EU external action should put more focus on reconstructing the beliefs and rules for action and identifying the resulting patterns of understanding and doing of the practitioners in charge of trade policy, foreign and security policy or other policy areas of interest for that matter. One promising way of achieving this is by producing extensive interview data to obtain a ‘behind-the-scenes look’ in order to reconstruct and understand what it is the officials in charge believe and which policy conduct they hold to be the most appropriate one. By adopting a practice approach, this book has done that for the trade-security nexus in EU external action. 4

Silvia Gherardi (2017), Sociomateriality in Posthuman Practice Theory, in: Allison Hui, Theodore Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove (eds.), The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 38. 5 Davide Nicolini (2013), Practice Theory, Work and Organization: An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 9. 6 For such criticism, see Ringmar (2014), Search for Dialogue; McCourt (2016), Practice Theory and Relationalism.

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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Stueber, The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9

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