NORTIA at #EUIA18: Protect and Project Europe
Submitted by Maastricht University on Mon, 05/28/2018 - 12:51
by Elitsa Garnizova, LSE
After San Francisco, NORTIA brought the network’s expertise and ideas closer to its home at the EUIA 2018 in Brussels. This was not only my first EUIA but also the first time the conference hosted the first Journal of European integration (JEI) Annual Lecture and a best paper award. Over three days, researchers from across the EU and beyond contributed to tackling three questions, excellently summarized by Nathalie Tocci in the inaugural JEI lecture: is there EU Foreign Policy? What kind of actor is the EU in foreign policy? Is the EU’s role driven by the logic of action versus the logic of appropriateness?
In addition to these three questions, the multiple panels prompted a reflection on the processes through which actions lead to different types of unintended consequences, on how contestation impacts policy-making, and how legitimacy concerns have infiltrated all aspects of decision-making. The conclusions were simple – there is still a lot of work to be done for the EU to be taken as a serious foreign policy actor and partner. Despite being involved in many of the current crises and disputes globally, the EU still lacks the power and influence of the US and China. With the US being an unreliable partner, the EU has not been able to reinstate itself as the champion of the “rules-based order” (The Economist, 8 May 2018).
The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, often the EU is perceived as spending too much time to resolve its issues internally thus being more inward than outward looking; secondly, the credibility of the EU as a liberal norm-promoting actor is compromised by backsliding internally. As Tocci pointed out, the role of the EU Global Strategy was of a liberal identity-building device in a EU, which is backsliding, thus the EUGS serves as “a liberal resistance act”. The perception of an inward-looking and backsliding actor was also reflected in the comments during the high-level panel led by Former Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, Dr David M. Malone, Rector of UNU and Under-Secretary-General of the UN, particularly pointed out to the perplexity Brexit causes in Asia due to the fact that governments there recognize the value of the EU as a Common Market. Brexit remains highly puzzling also to academics.
Some of the papers at the conference tried to make sense of the impact of Britain exiting the EU both for the UK and the remaining 27 MS. Whilst focusing on specific aspects of the future relationship, such as treatment of financial services, regulatory cooperation etc, what still remains particularly puzzling are the implications of Brexit for theoretical perspectives in IR and IPE. The literature often points out to the expectation that once high levels of interdependence are reached, it is harder to turn back both in terms of the cost-benefit calculations and the logic of appropriateness. This is also one of the assumptions underpinning the ideas of the processes of Europeanisation. Then how is it possible for this to happen in a first place? Even though it seems very inward-looking to continue discussing Brexit, when so much else is happening around the globe, one justification to continue this research is that it has wider implications for theorizing in IR and European Studies more widely. While Michel Barnier was speaking on the first day of the conference, I was hoping to hear more about the implications of Brexit for the future of EU’s FP.
Finally, Natalie Tocci’s inaugural lecture also brought about another process of reflection – on the essence of the link between academia and practice. While she described the two as different worlds with its different logics – one which aims to understand and one to resolve issues – she also offered a number of paths, through which academia can build on policy-making practice and observation of everyday processes. What gave me some optimism from her speech is that the interaction with policy-makers has shown her that norms and values do matter and that constructivist ontology can definitely help reflect on some of the existing dynamics. Furthermore, she found a lot of promise in looking into the internal and external contestation of norms and values and that is exactly what NORTIA is shedding light on.
OUR NORTIA contributions at EUIA
PANEL 1: Contesting European foreign policy: rules, norms and practices challenged from outside (NORTIA I)
Chair: Federica Bicchi, London School of Economics and Political Science
Discussant: Robert Kissack (IBEI Barcelona)
Legitimacy and Contestation in EU-US Relations: The Trump Challenge in Perspective; Michael Smith, Warwick
Contestations of European Normative Power: Discursive challenges from Turkey and Russia; Senem Aydın-Düzgit, Sabanci and Gergana Noutcheva, Maastricht
Contestation through diplomatic practice: how third countries relate to the European Union; Heidi Maurer, London School of Economics
Normative decentring: A framework to analyse the external contestation of EU norms promotion; Stephan Keukeleire, KULeuven and Sharon Lecocq, KULeuven
PANEL 2: Contesting European foreign policy: rules, norms and practices challenged from within. A Re-nationalisation and De-Europeanisation of EU foreign policy? (NORTIA II)
Chair: Ben Tonra, UCD
Discussant: Patrick Müller (University of the Basque Country)
UK-EU foreign policy relations: Transiting from internal player to external contestation?; Richard G. Whitman, Kent
Contesting the ‘golden rules’ of CFSP: the dynamics of Council negotiations in foreign and security policy; PomorskaKarolina, Leiden
Cross-loading and Leadership in the EU Foreign Policy System post-Lisbon: The case of Sweden's recognition of Palestine; Federica Bicchi, EUI/LSE and Lisbeth Aggestam, Gothenburg
Contesting European Foreign Policy: Does minilateralism strengthen or undermine EU Foreign Policy? The cases of Iran and the Ukraine; Nick Wright, UCL
Contesting the EU’s Global Strategy; Niels van Willigen, Leiden
PANEL 3: Contesting European foreign policy: rules, norms and practices challenged from within (NORTIA III)
Chair: Arne Niemann, University of Mainz
Discussant: Ana Juncos, Bristol University
European Union foreign policy for whom? Transnationalism, urbanism, and identifying new cleavages in the European demos; Robert Kissack, IBEI
Justificatory processes and contestation in the European Union: more contested legitimacy of EU Trade Policy?; Elitsa Garnizova, LSE
Lost and found, and transformed? The role of the European Parliament in EU external relations; Kolja Raube, KULeuven
Contesting the European Defence Community; Trineke Palm, Utrecht
Contestation Matters: EU Membership Norms and Decision-making on Membership Eligibility; Daniel C. Thomas, Leiden and Patrick D. Statsch, Amsterdam
In addition, NORTIA members contributed to a Panel on innovative Teaching on EU Foreign Affairs
Organisers and Chairs: Arne Niemann and Friedrich Plank, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
Letting students learn by researching: a critical reflection on how to teach EU foreign affairs in an active manner; Heidi Maurer, London School of Economics and Political Science and Karolina Pomorska, Leiden University
Reflections on the pedagogy of the EU in Brexit Britain: responsive teaching at a time of radical change; Jane O' Mahony, University of Kent
Teaching EU Foreign Policy via Problem-Based Learning; Ben Tonra, University College Dublin
Simulating European External Policy – Innovative Teaching Approaches from Political Science and Higher Education Development; Aline Bartenstein and Ursula Gießmann, University of Cologne