The EU"s foreign policy on its nuclear program - Курсовая работа

Table of contents Introduction 1. The theoretical aspects of the EU foreign policy 1.1 The elaboration of common positions 1.2 The leading group in foreign policy 1.3 The handling of international crises 2. The European Union’s handling of the Iranian nuclear crisis 2.1 The EU position on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons 2.2 The EU-Iran relations 2.3 The EU-led negotiations with Iran 3. The Iranian nuclear problem as an example of European Union’s handling international crises 3.1 “The European approach” 3.2 EU and its partners 3.3 The prospects of EU approach in the final solving of the Iranian case and in future international crises Conclusion Sources and Bibliography Sources Bibliography Introduction The European Union’s common foreign and security policy has often become a subject of research for scholars. The EU is a new formation; many say it is a sui generis formation with no precedents in world history. The EU is no international organization, no state - yet, it tries to act in a way, which has traditionally been reserved to states, namely in the sphere of international relations. The European common foreign and security policy has been studied quite often and mostly the discussion is about whether the EU has a potential to pursue an effective and active common foreign policy. The major objective of this research is to find out, using the case of Iranian nuclear crisis as an example, whether the EU may have potential for successful handling of international crises, and whether it could be spoken of a ‘European approach” to issues of international peace and security. On the one hand, Iranian case demonstrates that the EU may act quite effectively on the international arena, but it remains unclear, whether this success is due to deepened cooperation among EU Member States and enhancement of CFSP’s effectiveness or to some other reasons, and, consequently, whether it could have some lasting implications on European Union’s common foreign policy. Iranian case here is of special interest, since it comprises both regional crisis (and EU relations with one particular country) and the global security issue, namely, the nuclear non-proliferation. The research regards European foreign policy as intergovernmental and realist in its core, and shall be based on the neorealist paradigm of international relations. Thus, it is presumed, that European CFSP is driven by Member States, namely, by the most powerful and influential, and the development of CFSP as well as common actions by the EU are driven by Member States’ necessity to pursue their interests more effectively. In the research it shall be argued, that despite its intergovernmental nature, the EU common foreign policy may, in fact, be efficient and successful under certain circumstances and the EU may be regarded as an actor on the international arena. However, this happens not because of some institutional changes in the EU, but because Member States find this form more convenient for achievement of their goals. Thus, the research question would be: taking Iran as a case, characterize the role of the EU in the crisis management and analyze how this case reflects the main characteristics of the EU common foreign and security policy, its strengths and weaknesses. The research tasks shall be: v To analyze the EU handling of Iranian nuclear crisis v To analyze the EU politics on non-proliferation of WMD v To analyze the process of elaborating common positions in the EU in the sphere of the CFSP v To elaborate the notion “European approach” to handling international crises v To elaborate possible outcomes for such approach in Iranian crisis and further v To present generalized conclusions about the EU actions in crisis management To reach the objectives of the research at first there shall be conducted an analysis of the way the EU common foreign and security policy functions, with the examples of the previous actions. Then, there will be presented an analysis of the case study in question, and finally, generalized conclusions, derived from the case study and suitable for application in other cases. The main resources for the research are the documents, related to the EU common foreign and security policy, and official documents issued on behalf of the EU and other E3 3 negotiators during the Iranian crisis. The Iranian nuclear crisis has lasted more than a decade and only recently it could be spoken of a possibility of having it finally solved. The EU action during Iranian nuclear crisis has often been the object of research and it should be admitted that it had been described thoroughly, in various aspects, yet, the papers were concentrating either on sanctions as an instrument of European coercive diplomacy, or were trying to evaluate the impact of the EU to the Iranian crisis solvation, the effectiveness of the EU foreign policy towards Iran and the chances of parties coming to an agreement. Generally, the Iranian case is agreed to be a good example o