THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: The European Union’s Intergovernmental Conference on the CFSP opened its sessions on the 14th of December 1990 and managed to bring closer the different points of view sustained by the communitary states. It has been established that the CFSP was going to be a gradual process, which allowed the appearance of a fifth Title within the European Union Treaty, signed at Maastricht on the 7th of February 1992 and came into effect on the 1st of January 1993. After the Maastricht Treaty came into effect, the European Union strengthened its position on the international scene; also, its foreign policy functioning manner has been reformed through the Amsterdam Treaty on 16 and 17 July 1997 which came into effect in 1999. Through this Treaty a new foreign policy instrument named “common strategy” has also been instituted. The Treaty also stipulated the integration of the Western Europe Union into the European Union, fact which allowed the use of the armed capacities of the WEU by the European Union. Following the coming into effect of the Treaty, a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) has been set up. The Treaty of Nice (December 2000) strengthens some of the aspects of the foreign policy, such as the role played by the Political and Security Committee within the crisis management field.

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