When: Friday, January 14, 2022 - Thursday, January 13, 2022, 9:00 AM - 11:00 PMWhere: 2022 NEXTEUK Conference, Hopin
Dr Sarah Wolff, Dr Agathe Piquet and Dr Helena Farrand Carrapico (Northumbria University) presented a paper called "EU-UK Diplomatic and Security Coordination beyond Brexit through Informal Venues" to the EUSA Conference (panel Selective Reconstruction: Conceptualising Re-Engagement in post-Brexit EU-UK Security Relationship).
Abstract:
Following Brexit, the politicization of the EU-UK relationship has led to unprecedented tensions in their foreign policy. The UK vision of ‘Global Britain’ and the EU’s ‘Strategic Compass’ have quite visibly ignored each other as key partners in foreign policy. The proclaimed alliance of the UK with Australia and the US was of shock for its European allies, creating strong bitterness from France in particular. Yet with the war in Ukraine it seems that some sense of collective responsibility and unity has pushed the two partners, in spite of the absence of common EU governance structures to coordinate their response in terms of sanctions and sending arms to Ukraine.
Puzzled by the ability of the two partners to coordinate in spite of Brexit, we analyse the impact of Brexit on foreign policy coordination in alternative diplomatic venues such as the E3, the Normandy Format and the G7. Strongly preferred by the UK but equally of some EU member states that have in the past found a new venue to legitimise their role in EU foreign policy such as Germany, we question the extent to which socialization continues to occur in these alternative diplomatic venues, in spite of a strong politicization of EU-UK relations. Through the case study of the E3, an innovative diplomatic cooperation between France, Germany and the UK that emerged in 2003 to deal with the Iran nuclear issue amongst other things, and based on interviews in London, Paris and Berlin, this paper supports the idea that prior socialisation in EU structures have survived and are continuing in other forums.