This paper confronts established integration scholarship with evidence from CFSP, the EU’sattempt to work together in foreign and security policy. Why does integration theory refrainfrom analyzing the evolution in this sector? While CFSP experiences a growing popularityamongst researchers from IR and security studies, it seems to be neglected from classicalintegration theory. Two reasons for this are more closely scrutinized: Either these theoreticalattempts are unable or unwilling to cope with CFSP, or CFSP is not integration and thus doesnot fall into their realm. Whereas I find evidence for ‘intergovernmental integration’ in CFSP,the problem seems to lie within integration theories. The classical dichotomies betweensupranational/intergovernmental approaches and between ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics can beadvanced for this lacunae, as well as the overall diminishing interest of current theoreticalapproaches to deal with the EU integration process (instead of dealing with policy outcomes).Yet a closer empirical investigation of recent practices in the integration process substantiatesthe importance of the second pillar for the overall course of integration. CFSP comes close toan affirmation of a ‘second model’ of European integration, next to the Community Model ofthe economic sector. The establishment of a ‘second executive’ (next to the EuropeanCommission) in the Council Secretariat should be reason enough to reopen the discussion onthe ‘nature of the beast’. Finally, some propositions for avenues of further research in thisdirection are advanced.
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