Does Tension Make Greater Integration Possible in the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union? An Analysis through the Kosovo Conflict

摘要

The debate regarding the achievement of the CFSP continues among scholars as well as policy makers mainly due to the lack of coherence within the EU in response to the various crises in the world. As an intergovernmental policy area, CFSP's achievement mainly depends on the coherence among its creators, namely the Council representing national interests, and the EU institutions. As a result, tension inevitably appears in the European Foreign Policy (EFP) behavior. While most observers call this tension an obstacle to the functioning of the CFSP, the existing literature mainly focuses on the effectiveness of the CFSP rather than its functioning. In fact, tension in the CFSP appears as a force that leads to greater integration, which can be traced down through various cases since the adaption of the CFSP. In this respect, the Kosovo war is selected as a case study, which is full of tension as well as opportunities for greater integration. Although the EU is not uniform on the status of Kosovo until recently, it achieved to implement certain policies, which confirms the main argument of this thesis that tension in the CFSP results in debate, an eventual EU reform and, finally, a new level of integration that is inherent in the EFP behavior.