Search results
Since the mid-1990s, the European Union has defined the Asia-Pacific as one of its key strategic targets on its ambitious road towards global power. The EU has ever since made consistent efforts to implement strategies, policies and activities in the Asia-Pacific. Over the past decades, big changes have taken place on both sides and the wider world. It is high time to evaluate the EU’s performance in its Asian policy. In fact, the EU is at crossroads with its Asia Pacific policy. On several aspects, the EU is compelled to redefine its interests and roles, and rethink its strategies and policies towards the dynamic and ever-important Asia-Pacific region of the contemporary world. This volume addresses this theme, by elaborating the general context, major issues and countries in the EU’s Asia-Pacific policy. It covers issues and areas of traditional security, economy and trade, public diplomacy, and human security and focuses on the EU’s relations with China, Japan, the ASEAN countries and Australasia.
; circulating intelligence on member states and formal EU documentation to departmental players; maintaining the permanent representation and wider network of overseas embassies; serving as the lead department for institutional matters and European foreign and security policy; and developing public diplomacy at home – articulating and explaining national EU policy to the wider public. The FCO’s role was further enhanced under Blair as it was given responsibility for driving forward the ‘Step Change’ programme. This was enshrined as a five-year public
opposition – SPD and the Greens – supporting the deployment. The deployment was framed by its proponents as intimately tied to ‘broader and higher issues’, namely the creation of a common European foreign and security policy, and the credibility and perception of Germany around the world. The success of the Government’s strategy of gradually but decisively extending the Bundeswehr’s remit appeared to be further consolidated with enhanced parliamentary support for IFOR in November 1995. This time the majority in the Bundestag in support of deploying the Longhurst, Germany
existence of such national interests has often been seen as the most serious obstacle to the emergence of a truly common European foreign and security policy. Before EPC had even been established, Hoffmann (1966) warned that a ‘logic of diversity’ in the sphere of foreign policy would not only prevent the integration process from spilling over into this traditional area of ‘high politics’ but would also, ultimately, put a brake