Institutionalization or Intergovernmental Decision-Taking in Foreign Policy: The Implementation of the Lisbon Treaty

Abstract

This chapter analyses the evolving nature of the foreign policy of the EU as a consequence of the set up of new structures such as the office of the High Representative/Vice President and the European External Action Service. It argues that while decision-taking in CFSP and CSDP remains intergovernmental for the most part, the strengthened power of initiative granted to the new services has introduced critical changes in EU foreign policy-making. The first developments under the Lisbon Treaty hint a process of institutionalisation by practice in EU foreign policy initiative, which relates to the personalities at the top of new EU structures, the changes of procedures in the elaboration of policy papers and meeting agendas and the management of crisis situations. This process of institutionalisation by practice, as well as the reaction of EU Member States to it, is examined particularly with regard to the working relations between the new foreign policy structures and the Political and Security Committee of the EU.

Pol Morillas—MSc International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Pol Morillas is Coordinator of Euro-Mediterranean policies at the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed), Barcelona, Spain. He was previously Coordinator at the Political and Security Committee of the EU during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU (January–June 2010). This chapter was first published as an article in European Foreign Affairs Review [2011] volume 16 (2), pp. 243–257. The editor of this volume is extremely grateful to the EFA Rev editors for allowing it to be reproduced here. The author would like to thank Professor Michael E. Smith from the University of Aberdeen for his valuable comments on previous versions of this chapter. I am also grateful to Dr Paul James Cardwell for accepting my participation at the conference ‘EU External Relations Law and Policy in the Post-Lisbon Era’ held in the School of Law of the University of Sheffield in January 2011, where an earlier version of this chapter was presented. The views expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent the position of the Spanish Presidency or government. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author.