Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
economic interdependence. The strict control of migration and surveillance-based
internal security policies sit uneasily with the EU
'
s rhetoric of positive-sum
'
col-
lective security
with its neighbours and partners.
10
European support for multilateralism has become slightly more conditional and
bounded. One team of academics argues that the EU has gradually adopted a more
ad hoc form of multilateralism, varying across issues and with select and varied clus-
ters of partners.
11
'
If the EU has
traditionally held to a strongly institutionalist
understanding of multilateralism
the process of international cooperation is valuable
in itself and socialises actors around common outlooks
-
it now judges the merit of
international coordination in a more results-oriented, problem-solving manner.
12
One academic writes of the EU su
-
ering
'
normative uncertainty
'
and shifting
'
'
'
towards a foreign policy based on
bi-multilateralism
: its commitment to
nego-
tiated order
still exists but is now moulded around the pursuit of more immediate
and material, national self-interest.
13
The importance attached to geo-economic
security appears to have gained relative to other forms of security. While the
desirability of positive-sum cooperation and multilateralism is still stressed, Eur-
opean governments have focused more increasingly on relative economic gain.
14
The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit was a crucial turning point. This seemed
to show that a very principled adherence to multilateral principles can easily back
'
re
and leave the EU isolated, if not accompanied by tougher and more contingent
negotiating strategies. Noted experts argue that the EU has increasingly used bilateral
strategic partnerships with key powers to lever tangible trade-o
s en route to deeper
multilateral cooperation.
15
Other thinkers concur that member states seek a more
direct form of engagement with rising powers that is not predicated so heavily on
abstract, EU-like multilateral principles.
16
Security is increasingly seen to require
practical and select cooperation through smaller groupings rather than ideal-type,
often-unattainable multilateralism. Academics talk of an increasing European pre-
ference for minilateralism as a response to more uncertain strategic challenges.
17
The
implication of these views is that the EU is becoming more like a traditional foreign
policy actor and not primarily one that exerts agency by virtue of itself representing a
microcosm of liberal
-
cooperative security governance.
How united a security actor?
A closely related question is how united EU member state governments are in their
foreign and security policy. Overall, EU foreign and security policy embodies the
dynamics of rule-based cooperation between member states
and
more traditional,
national security policies. This inevitably renders European external policies multi-
dimensional; it is an institutional foundation that, as we will see, deeply a
ects the
nature of climate security policies. The balance between cooperation between
