The military non-allied states in the CFSP of the 1990s

Abstract:

This article aims to feature the adaptation of the European Union's three military non-allied states - Austria, Finland and Sweden - to the Common Foreign and Security Policy. This is done against the background of official positions adopted during the IGC 1996/97 leading up to the signing of the Amsterdam Treaty, and also within the context of the Cologne Summit of June 1999. This article argues that throughout the 1990s the Austrian, Finnish and Swedish endeavours towards endowing the EU with a security and military capability run in parallel with legally imposed as well as domestically motivated limitations. Chief among these were limitations as to the building up of a defence pillar within the EU and to an unconditional sending of national troops abroad on peace enforcement missions. Springing from the concerned states' continued adherence to the non-participation in military alliances and non-participation in wars, those restraints have precluded Austria, Finland and Sweden from adopting an all-inclusive approach towards the foreign and security policy of the EU. In the specific realm of the CFSP, this could be seen in the espousal of a 'limited solidarity'.