EU Integration: Whose Integration?

It is interesting to see how on its more than one decade year old, the European Union still finds it hard, or I might say ‘struggling’, with the concept of “widening vs. deepening”. This is the real dilemma that the EU still has to face.

Meanwhile it wants to be somewhat “United States of Europe” by expanding its membership from 6 to 10 to 15 and now 25, the harder to create one common position, especially on the highly political issues. Iraqi’s war, referendum of Constitution, and the latest Iranian Nuclear issues prove it all.

The theory said that we cannot separate Foreign Policy from Security Policy. Basically foreign policy is created to secure national interests, and the security policy is created to defend national interests from “foreign attack”. That’s the main idea behind the creation of CFSP. The appointment of Dr. Solana as the EU’s ‘Foreign Minister’ showed us how the EU wants to play its role in the global fora as the counter-balance to US hegemony by creating the foreign and security policy decision-making institution. But EU forgot that, behind its vast structure, lies 25 member countries, 25 different national interests, 400 millions different people with their own comfort zones. For example, France is best known as the loyal supporter of the European integration, but not the Frenchmen. The referendum proved it.