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The European Union (EU) is facing one of the sternest challenges in its 50-year history. After the successful introduction of the euro, it is now preparing for its largest-ever enlargement, with ten more countries set to join the EU in 2004. A constitutional convention has been established which will prepare recommendations for the future institutional structure of Europe. These proposals will then be discussed at the next inter-governmental conference in 2004. One of the major sections of the convention’s report will cover the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) that has been in operation for almost a decade. The convention will make recommendations for strengthening the CFSP and the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). This article examines the record of the CFSP in its first decade, considers proposals for
change, and assesses its prospects for the next decade against a rapidly changing international security environment.
The Record
The CFSP could hardly have been launched at a less auspicious moment. As Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war, there were some who forecast that “the hour of Europe” had arrived. But far from the EU being regarded as the strong actor that could bang heads together and bring peace to the warring factions in Yugoslavia, it was regarded as weak and divided, both in the Balkans and in Washington.
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