Common foreign and security policy of the European Union and the role of the European parliament in CFSP from a supranationalist outlook

Abstract

European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was initiated formally with the Maastricht Treaty which came into force on 1 November 1993. Indeed, Member States’ endeavors to adopt a common foreign policy date back to the establishment years of the European Union. This thesis observes the common foreign and security policy which is an integral part of the European Union’s integration beginning from the establishment years of the Union from a neofunctionalist perspective pertaining to supranational paradigm. In this context, although the Member States desired the CFSP to remain as an intergovernmental policy area, it has acquired supranational elements as a result of changes in international system and spillover of the integration to the political sphere. Gradual increase in the power of the European Parliament in the CFSP over time is evidence to this. Especially, after the Lisbon Treaty was signed, parliamentary activity of the European Parliament increased in this field visibly.