| Abstract [eng] |
Summary The recent development of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has recently become the most debating issue in the EU integration process. Discussion on this topic has significantly increased as a result of changes in the security concept, geopolitical issues, terrorism, transatlantic unity challenges, Brexit, EU Institutions' positions and the Permanent Structured Cooperation initiative (PESCO) which was agreed by 25 EU countries to join. The purpose of this work is to examine the role of supranational institutions of the European Union in the CFSP policy-making process by conducting the PESCO case study analysis. In order to achieve the goal of this research work, the dominant European Integration theories - neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism were used. The paper presents a case study of PESCO – its’ definition, key characteristics, chronology of decision-making and the role of Member States and EU supranational institutions in it. According to the analysis presented, the correspondence between the two analyzed theoretical approaches is compared. By doing that, author is trying to answer which theory better explains the adopted ruling - neofunctionalism or intergovernmentalism. Using Critical Selection Approach, two main theories suggested 3 different variables from each, that were used to review the role of Member states and EU institutions in the PESCO acceptance process, were elaborated. The main questions that were asked in this work were these: what role does the EU supranational institutions play in the development of the EU CFSP? What were the main driving forces of PESCO - the national interests of the Member States or the interest of supranational institutions and which of two used EI theories could better explain the adoption of the PESCO? The results of this work show that in the most of the scientific analysis PESCO is considered to be a states‘ agreement, which was mainly influenced by the state-level interests and pressure from the countries with the highest negotiating power, such as Germany and France. However, EU supranational institutions and other supranational actors have had a huge influence not only on initiating discussions on PESCO, but have also retained this power when PESCO started its action. For this reason, in response to the main question and purpose of this study, the carried out analysis implies that supranational institutions are a powerful actor even in a socially sensitive area of the CFSP, and the PESCO ruling can be better justified on the basis of neofunctionalist theory rather than intergovernmental theory. |
