Since 1998, the European Union has been developing an institutional framework and military capabilities to pursue a common European Security and Defence Policy. This effort has been driven by European policy failures in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. The lesson learned was that military interventions may be necessary under some circumstances to prevent large-scale atrocities and killings and to deal with the threats which state failure and civil wars may pose to security and stability in the EU’s neighbourhood. The logic of military preparation and intervention which the ESDP has been pursuing therefore has not been part of a “militarization” of European common foreign and security policies, but a response to a new international environment marked by pervasive state failure and the emergence of new security threats, such as international terrorism.

In this context, the European Union has also been trying to work for a better international order. This is indeed a normative project, but one rooted in universally shared, cosmopolitan values of freedom, democracy, and human rights. The “civilising” of international relations, which has been at the heart of the European Union’s efforts to exert regional and international influence, has been grounded in principled multilateralism and support for international law and institutions, and it has been promoted largely through voluntary association. In fact, the most powerful contribution the European Union has made so far towards a better international order has been its enlargement into Central Eastern Europe. In those policies, there is no “democratic deficit”: ultimately, it is elected member state governments which are in charge of the foreign policy process and therefore have to agree on any common policy.