One of very contradictory and contentious issues of EU policies has been EU common foreign and defence policy. This can be explained as because by this policy becoming common, the integration has reached unprecedented and in some aspects also a bit frightening depth. By this I mean, that foreign and defence policy is clearly on realism based policy, which marks the level of free action and choice of the state, it denotes the sovereignity, which is most important characterizing feature of independent state. And if some states have to give up their sovereignity even at such levels as foreign policy and defence issues, this can cause big discussions both at the domestic level and at European level. And it did. However the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was developed and is still on the process, which means, that from some perspectives, this policy and kind of sovereignity shift was mutually beneficial both for memberstates and the EU.
The CFSP is in many ways the “hard-case” for those expecting that the EU will move beyond mere problem-solving. The very nature of foreign and security policy is by many considered alien to supranationalism. What is more, cooperation in foreign and security policy within the EU is mainly confined to a separate pillar, where decision-making procedures differ from those in the Community pillar in several and crucial ways.
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