11 - The EU, human rights and relations with third countries: ‘foreign policy’ with an ethical dimension?

Summary

This chapter will consider to what extent the European Union (EU) conducts foreign policy ‘with an ethical dimension’. Several of the EU's member states have declared that ethical considerations will influence their foreign and development policies; if there is no attempt to introduce ethical considerations into collective policy-making at the EU level, then the commitment to foreign policy with an ethical dimension must be doubted. But the EU may also ‘add value’: member states can push for EU action on ethical issues, thus augmenting their own policies, and reluctant member states could come under pressure to take ethical considerations into account. That an EU position represents the positions of fifteen member states and the institutions of the world's largest trading bloc also adds value: the ‘politics of scale’ increases the international impact of an ethical dimension.

Of course, the first question to ask is whether the EU conducts ‘foreign policy’ at all, with or without an ethical dimension. The answer is a qualified yes. The EU does not have a foreign policy. Its foreign policy competences are divided or shared with the member states. And the member states must generally agree unanimously to act collectively in international affairs – which does not happen all the time. An effective common foreign policy also requires consistency between the different decision-making frameworks or ‘pillars’ (for trade and development policy, and foreign policy).