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The European Union and the Libyan crisis

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Abstract

This article investigates the European Union (EU)’s answer to the Libya crisis of 2011 to show the unresolved dilemmas of an intergovernmental approach to foreign and defence policies. The Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a dual constitution or decision-making regime: supranational for the policies of the single market, and intergovernmental for the policies traditionally at the core of national sovereignty, such as foreign and defence policies. In the most significant test for the EU foreign and defence policies in the post-Lisbon era, the intergovernmental approach generated unsatisfactory outcomes because it was unable to solve structural and institutional problems of collective action. Without revising the intergovernmental constitution, it will be difficult for the EU as an actor to play a role in international politics in the future.

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Notes

  1. The Lisbon Treaty is constituted of the amendments to the two consolidated treaties, the Treaty on the European Union or TUE of 1992 and the Treaty on the European Community, renamed as Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or TFUE, of 1957, plus the Declaration concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights considered de facto as a third treaty.

  2. The Lisbon Treaty, TEU Art, 17.5, states that each member state has the right to propose a national as commissioner until 1 November 2014, adding that after that date the Commission will be composed of ‘two thirds of the number of the Member States, unless the European Council, acting unanimously, decides to alter this number’. That decision was made in order to appease Irish voters required to vote on the Lisbon Treaty for a second time (on October 2009) after having rejected it in a previous referendum (on June 2008). Predictably, this decision was, however, confirmed by the European Council on 22 May 2013 (EUCO 119/13), which states ‘that the Commission will continue to consist of a number of members equal to the number of Member States … . The decision, which in effect maintains the current practice, will apply from 1 November 2014’.

  3. Ashton, Declaration on Events in Libya; Declaration on Libya.

  4. UNSC, S/RES/1970 (2011).

  5. UNSC, S/RES/1973 (2011).

  6. Interview with a French diplomat, Brussels, 8 June 2011, in Koenig (2012).

  7. Regulation (CE), n. 1257/96.

  8. Council of the European Union, Decision 2011/210/CFSP.

  9. Council of the European Union, Decision 2011/137/CFSP.

  10. On 16 September 2011, the UNSC unanimously adopted resolution 2009 allowing states to unfreeze Libyan assets for certain urgent needs, after notification of the UN and in consultation with the Libyan authorities (UNSC, S/RES/2011).

  11. Council of the European Union, EU lifts asset freeze.

  12. The then US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said on 10 June 2011 at the Security and Defence Agenda Conference held in Brussels, ‘The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress, and in the American body politic writ large, to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defence’.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Mariagiulia Amadio Viceré for her research assistance. A first version of this article was presented at the EUSA Conference, Baltimore, 10 May 2013, where it was fruitfully discussed by Stephanie Anderson.

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  1. School of Government, Political Sciences and International Relations, Luiss Guido Carli, Via di Villa Emiliani, Roma, 1400197, Italy

    Sergio Fabbrini

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Fabbrini, S. The European Union and the Libyan crisis. Int Polit 51, 177–195 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2014.2

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