Campaign briefing: Democracy and the European constitution

Foreign and defence policy

It is often observed that the European Union's foreign policy is one of the most important areas where change is needed, but it is an area in which the draft constitution actually proposes relatively little change. As with JHA, the Maastricht treaty created a separate intergovernmental pillar for foreign policy, although the Commission had some degree of involvement because many of its responsibilities, such as trade or development policy, were essentially a form of foreign policy.

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The draft constitution will integrate these different policy areas. It proposes that the two key foreign affairs posts, the high representative representing the Council, and the Commissioner for foreign relations, should be merged, so that a single individual will carry out both functions as Minister for Foreign Affairs (I-27). This should strengthen the ability of both the Council and the Commission to have their foreign policy decisions implemented. The member states have the major diplomatic resources and all the military resources in the EU; the Commission can integrate foreign policy decisions with the other external policies of the Union, such as trade and development policy. Both the Commission and the member state governments need each other.

Other than this, the decision-making of the EU on foreign policy will not change. The voting method in the Council will remain, as it was at Maastricht, unanimity on deciding policies with QMV for their implementation. The Council will continue to meet behind closed doors because the openness provisions apply only to legislative sessions.

There are new provisions to establish defence cooperation, including "the progressive framing of a common defence policy" (I-11(4)). Decisions in this area will be taken by unanimity: any member state can block it (I-40(4)).

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