European political cooperation

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As European Political Cooperation (EPC), a process was referred to by the Member States of the European Communities from 1970 to 1992 their cooperation in non-economic policies, especially in the area of foreign policy institutionalized.

The EPC was based on the decisions of the summit in The Hague in 1969 and the Davignon report of October 1970. It was intended to ensure close cooperation between the EC member states, including in areas not covered by the Community's founding treaties ( ECSC , EEC , Euratom ) were regulated.

The EPZ initially took place without its own contractual basis. It was based exclusively on the voluntary cooperation of the participating governments, so it was purely intergovernmental . The supranational organs of the EC - the European Commission and the European Parliament - did not have any competences; decisions were mainly made in the European Council at the level of the heads of state and government.

It was not until the Single European Act of 1986 that the EPZ was anchored in the contract, but it retained its intergovernmental character.

In the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 it was finally resolved. Instead, the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs (ZJI) have been incorporated into the European Union as so-called second and third pillars .

Chronological order

Sign
in force
contract
1948
1948
Brussels
Pact
1951
1952
Paris
1954
1955
Paris
Treaties
1957
1958
Rome
1965
1967
merger
agreement
1986
1987
Single
European Act
1992
1993
Maastricht
1997
1999
Amsterdam
2001
2003
Nice
2007
2009
Lisbon
  Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif Pix.gif
                   
European Communities Three pillars of the European Union
European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM)
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Contract expired in 2002 European Union (EU)
    European Economic Community (EEC) European Community (EC)
      Justice and Home Affairs (JI)
  Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (PJZS)
European Political Cooperation (EPC) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
Western Union (WU) Western European Union (WEU)    
dissolved on July 1, 2011
                     


prehistory

During the 1950s and 1960s, the EC member states made several unsuccessful efforts to achieve political as well as economic integration. In 1954 the plan to found a supranational European Defense Community and a European Political Community failed because the French parliament refused to ratify the founding treaty because of the associated loss of sovereignty. In 1960, in turn, the French government under Charles de Gaulle proposed the establishment of an intergovernmental European Political Union with the so-called Fouchet Plans , which would encompass all policy areas and to which the three communities ECSC, EEC and Euratom should also be subordinate. However, this failed because of the resistance of the other member states, who refused to accept such a devaluation of the supranational institutions. France then signed the Élysée Treaty with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1963 , which provided for intergovernmental consultations on foreign and cultural policy, but only on a bilateral level and not between all EC member states. The crisis of the empty chair in 1965/66 made it clear again how great the differences were between France and the other member states.

Only after de Gaulle's resignation in 1969 was the project of political integration taken up again at the summit in The Hague , where all the heads of state and government of the EC member states met for the first time. The summit tasked a commission chaired by the Belgian politician Étienne Davignon with the preparation of a report on how political cooperation between the Member States could be improved. European Political Cooperation was set up on the basis of this Davignon Report , which was adopted in 1970. Unlike the European Political Community planned in 1954, it was intergovernmental; unlike the Fouchet plans, the Davignon report did not imply disempowerment of the supranational organs. The competences of the European Commission in the field of economic policy were not affected, but it was not given any new competences to the already existing contracts. The EPZ was neither superordinate nor subordinate to the three communities, but assigned to them.

development

The EPZ was further expanded through two resolutions in Copenhagen in 1973 and London in 1981. It included extensive consultations, particularly in the field of foreign policy. The EC states tried to find a common position in order to have a stronger influence on world politics than the other states.

The EPZ's successes were mixed. Foreign policy coordination was particularly successful in the first few years. Nevertheless, the European states retained their respective independent foreign policies and were not prepared to submit them to a common body. From the then Secretary of State of the United States , Henry Kissinger , the bon mot has been passed down that as long as Europe does not have a telephone number, it cannot be a foreign policy actor.

An example of a successful coordination of European foreign policy within the EPZ is the Community's policy towards South Africa . In 1977, the Europeans agreed on a common code of conduct for European companies operating in South Africa, which called on them to treat black and white employees equally and to abolish racial segregation in the workplace.

One of the reasons for the EPZ's difficulties was the different positions of the member states towards the superpowers during the Cold War . While Great Britain and Germany were looking to model themselves on the United States, France was more oriented towards a European course independent of the USA and the USSR as a third power. In addition, the relationship between EPZ and NATO remained unresolved, as almost all EC member states were also members of NATO - with the exception of Ireland, which, as a neutral country, had expressly not joined either of the two blocs.

The EPZ was initially made easier by the détente policy in the 1970s, which was supported by all member states. The EC appeared at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) from 1973 as a largely homogeneous bloc and was thus able to successfully influence the course of the negotiations. With the renewed intensification of the Cold War at the end of the 1970s, however, the EPZ ran into increasing difficulties. After Margaret Thatcher took office in 1979, Britain also blocked any political initiative in the EPZ. The EC member states were therefore unable to come to a common position, neither when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan nor when the NATO double decision was taken.

Various initiatives (including the Genscher-Colombo Plan from 1981 and Altiero Spinelli's 1984 draft constitution ) therefore aimed at anchoring the EPZ in the early 1980s. However, this was only implemented with the Single European Act 1986, in which the establishment of a secretariat for the EPC was also decided in order to ensure better coordination. The European Council was confirmed as the main decision-making body for EPC. However, the EPC institutions continued to form a parallel structure to the European Communities.

The wars in Yugoslavia that broke out in 1991 once again showed the weakness of European political cooperation and made clear the need for a further deepening of foreign and security cooperation. In the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the areas of the EPC were therefore better dovetailed with the already existing communities under the umbrella of the newly founded European Union : The EPZ Secretariat was dissolved and integrated into the EU Council Secretariat . The common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and cooperation in the area of ​​justice and home affairs (ZJI) were contractually established alongside the communities as pillars of the European Union . At the same time, the term "European Political Cooperation" was given up when the European Union was founded.

Individual evidence

  1. Philipp Rock: Power, Markets and Morals - On the role of human rights in the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany in the sixties and seventies . Frankfurt a. M. (Peter Lang) 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-59705-7 , pp. 175f.
  2. Cf. Manuel Müller: Diplomacy or Parliamentarism. Altiero Spinelli's rejection of the Genscher-Colombo Plan 1981 , in: European history portal (2009).