The Global Strategy of the European Union provided a better position for the union to transpose itself so as to continue being a global superpower. Being a universal leader, it had to set up all the possible approaches to enhance unity and cooperation in the outside environment. Despite being financially stable, the union has failed to make great impact in some of the critical factors including security, foreign affairs and the defence (Bousquet et al., 2016). Previously, success has been realized through the formation of bodies like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, ideas seem to be running out of the figures directly involved in the proper operation of the union. The figures here constitute the leaders and the specific nations forming the nation. The implementation of the policies on foreign affairs, security and defence should be speeded up to avoid the dismantlement of the union (Biscop, 2016). Therefore, this paper will focus on assessing the EU’s vision of foreign, security and defence policies as set out in its 2016 global strategy.
Analysis
The European Union identified the problem causing its operations to lag behind before setting out policies to counter the same. A quicker reaction was necessary when it came into realization that the union members had become vulnerable to insecurity issues like those of terrorism. However, what had to be realized was that politics acted as a barrier for the developments that were being planned for. The political challenges constituted those from individuals and neighbouring nations and the ones from other nations in the universe. The political pressure calls for proper balancing on the focus put between the security threats caused by neighbours and other states and the global challenges towards development (Tocci, 2016). The European nations need more development encompassed by peace. Therefore, factors like poverty, oppression, and inequality should not be given short-term focus but instead long term solutions provided.
However, the challenges originating from the political field should not be looked in terms of being either internal or external. The main reason for this is the current inability of the independent policies to counter the global challenges including the problem of terrorism and changes experienced in climate. Due to that, there was need for joint responsibility of merging the internal and external policies, allowing them to work from one point of view. Barriers from institutions and formation of policies that only solved short-term problems were also discovered to be other factors that hindered this development (Maes et al., 2016). Consequently, assessments should be made on the internal departments and the governments in general so as they become equipped with the policies of the union.
The world has moved forward, and more importantly, made a greater step in terms of globalization. The Global Strategy of 2016 focused on the connectivity that had developed among nations in the universe. Although it has come with many benefits and encouraged the growth of economies, several challenges were underlying globalization (Wagner and Anholt, 2016). The matter has raised some of the most critical security concerns including terrorism, intercontinental crime and even trafficking. The connectivity and complexity of the global states raised an issue of concern for the European Nation. More importantly, Europe’s neighbours are growing more unstable each and every day hence setting an alarm. The shifts in power experienced in the world currently provide a clear evidence of the need for new policies to be put in place.
Therefore, due to continued developments by individual states, the European nations can no longer boast of controlling the world. Also, the outdated security measures have allowed the penetration of other problematic issues like communism (Reichard, 2016). While the European nations are thinking of making developments in improving the security measures, other states have a totally different state of mind. Their main aim is to ensure that Europe finds it hard to improve its security, especially within the borders. Also, the weakening of its Foreign Ministry made it significant for immediate action to be taken. Due to the problems encountered in solving issues from far countries, stronger foreign connections were necessary (Rossi et al., 2016). A foreign policy means that the union forms stronger relationships with nations from overseas, and not focus on the neighbouring countries alone.
Besides, the European Union realized that it had to deal with more than one country because of the difference in the problems that they possessed. This was in an attempt to counter the challenge that has risen over time from it depending much on Brussels (Cohn, 2016). Creativity had to be displayed by the individuals involved by coming up with better ways in creating international relations. The union should also consider appointing ambassadors with the right qualities to represent it in the various states. For that reason, proper, correct and accurate information will be able to be relayed in case of anything from the nations. Also, a policy to control the behaviour of the personnel from the 28 EU states had to be developed because of the different background environments (Legrand, 2016). As a result, a multinational community that performs properly would overcome the challenges raised by any individual nation.
Following the understanding of the problems behind the lagging of the European Union, the member states agreed on various policies to counter them. Major improvements had been done from the previous ones with greater changes experienced, especially on the main focus and theme. There was a massive change in the culture of the union, where creative individuals have been let in to give their ideas (Lehne, 2016). The policies, especially on the foreign matters, was set to work in a local context instead of focusing on the outer part only. Different approaches were set in place so as to be applied in the various countries due to the diversity that is being experienced in the globe. The policies that have been put in place provide a more open way to increase the development prospect of the union, especially its members (Burrel, 2016). However, the policies should be maintained and followed to the last step for any success to be realized in the future.
Therefore, the unveiling of the Global Strategy was done on the 28th of June, the year 2016. The strategy would basically help to provide a framework for the Common Foreign and Security Policy that would be brought into place in the future. This time round, resilience was the concept in which the whole strategy was built upon. The main reason for doing this was to increase the ability of the European Union in withstanding the threats emanating both from the internal and external (Peng, 2016). Hence the strategies that were put in place were democracy, security, peace, prosperity and finally the general order of the world.
The strategy diverged from the former because of the security environment that was undergoing rapid change. The outdated strategy had also turned its attention more on the defence and security features of the external acts of the European Union. Due to the security impact caused by the instabilities both in the African continent and nations from the Middle East, more measures were enforced (Holden, 2016). The policies have been put in place to stop the flow of the high number on migrants coming in through the illegal routes.
To begin with, the Common Foreign and Security Policy addresses the security of the union. The main aim of the policy is to eliminate the security threats that can alter the performance of the union before moving to other states (Adams, 2016). The measures that have been put in place have covered various security threats, which are; changes in climate, hybrid threats, energy security and finally the issue of terrorism. First, climate changes remains to be one of the major problems affecting the union. The union tends to always find the nations unaware, leaving them with no immediate action to take. The issue has caused several damages before, making individuals to incur losses of both property and lives. However, with the current policy in place, citizens of the union states will be able to receive information in advance (Grant, 2016). This will give room for earlier preparations to be made, both physically and psychologically.
Also, hybrid threats that could be used by other states to cause instability in the European Union have been covered. The threats consist of the mixture of issues both subverted and coerced. Actors that are state and even non-state are coming up with methods to inflict wars between states without physically crossing the borders or uniformly declaring an open war. However, this has left the European states wondering whether they should apply a political counter measure against it (Orbie, 2016). Hence, the policy focuses more on the state of Russia, which is growing more aggressive and others like Poland who are fearing for the potential instability of the European societies.
Another issue within the union’s security addressed by the policy is the energy security. The EU consumes a lot of energy due to the high number of industries it possess (Bitzenis, 2016). The consumption forces it to import most of the energy, the importation of crude oil being as high as 90% and that of natural gas being around 69%. For the supply of natural gas, many countries within the community rely on the Russian state. However, the policy has highlighted several places of focus to counter the challenge. Measures like constructing missing infrastructure links for redirection of energy across the EU completion of the interior energy market have been looked into (Shah et al., 2016).
The final issue that the union planned to deal with is the threat from terrorism. The policy has strengthened on this place due to the rise of international terrorist groups like Jihadist, Al-Qaida and ISIS. Terrorism is not a threat to the EU only but to the world as a whole (Mudambi and Santangelo, 2016). Other types of terrorism that union prepared to counter are the left-wing and the right-wing terrorism. However, measures like passenger name record directive and preventing radicalization have been considered in the policy to help combat the issue.
Other than that, the policy has focused on a strategy of increasing the work done in the sector of cyber-security and strategized communication systems (Verbeke and Asmussen, 2016). The efforts will help to improve the defence of the nation states within the bigger community. Enforcing measures in this field will grant the nations control of the cyber-security threats that are becoming rampant in the globe. Finally, establishing proper communication strategies will give room for both internal and external security institutions to communicate more easily. Also, it will help to uncover any plans by criminals to perform attacks (Delreux, 2016).
Secondly, the Common Foreign and Security Policy focuses on strengthening the flexibility of the societies and states in the neighbourhood. Stabilization of states whose structures have become fragile is also a must. By taking this creative action, the EU will be getting itself out of the potential threats of instability caused by the states. The states will be able to solve their internal issues and focus on the matters of development, instead of the cold and open wars destabilizing them (Pucciarelli, 2016). Therefore, taking this major step would mean improvement of security within the member states and the world as a whole.
Thirdly, the policy majored on the development of a comprehensively unique approach to countering crises and conflicts. The reason for doing this is because of the upcoming partnerships between the European Union and other states from overseas. The relationships are growing deeper and broader and the durability is also increasing all over the region (Oberthür, 2016). Coming up with the unique measures would ensure that conflicts are solved without interfering with the operations of others.
Also, the policy directed the EU to back up local orders across the world. The above should be done using previous experience of the effects of promoting peace on the process of integration. Supporting the orders will enable other nations to realize where they fell and begin the process of recovery (Skjærseth and Wettestad, 2016). As a result of this, the nations will be able to stabilize helping the EU to maintain better foreign relationships.
Finally, the policy required the EU to make proper reforms on global governance by applying the international law. The law will ensure that there is promotion and protection of human rights, which would later lead to greater steps made in the development sector (Eckhardt and Poletti, 2016). For that reason, all things that the world states share in common would have a positive and lasting impact in societies. Finally, foreign relations will be boosted to a higher degree.
Besides, there is enough room to make the EU a strong global actor. The policies should just be followed to the latter and everything will be fine. The union has previously established itself and already made progress in some fields. Therefore, what need to be done is just a continuation from wherever everything was left. Also, a boost has been provided through its mergence with NATO (Goldthau, 2016). This has deepened the relationships, which comes with other benefits like increased stability in fighting with threats like terrorism and cybercrime attacks.
Conclusion
The European Union have all the financial aides needed to fund its operations but ideas seem to become insufficient. Security threats like that of energy, climate changes and terrorism appear to be so near. However, through embracement of the new policies, the threats will be overpowered more easily than before. Finally, the European Union still holds a chance to lead the world due to the progress it is making.
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