Too Small to Make an Impact?

The Czech Republic’s Influence on the European Union’s Foreign Policy

Bearbeitet von Marek Neuman

1. Auflage 2014. Buch. XV, 308 S. Hardcover ISBN 978 3 631 65206 0 Format (B x L): 14,8 x 21 cm Gewicht: 530 g

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Introduction “Central Europe longed to be a condensed version of Europe itself in all its cultural variety, a small arch-European Europe, a reduced model of Europe made up of nations conceived according to one rule: the greatest variety within the smallest space. How could Central Europe not be horrified facing a Russia founded on the opposite principle: the smallest variety within the greatest space?”1 Milan Kundera

The Czech Republic’s accession to the European Union on May 1, 2004 symbolized the end of the country’s transition period launched by the Velvet Revolution in 1989. At the beginning of this transition period a newly sovereign country – first Czechoslovakia, later the Czech Republic – found itself in a paradoxical situation. Prague embraced its so-desired independence, focusing on societal, democratic, and economic reforms, while at the same time declaring (re)integration into Western international structures as its primary foreign policy goal, which was to be achieved at the cost of sharing sovereignty with other member states in certain areas. This particular foreign policy goal, which can be summed up under the heading “return to Europe,”2 and which mainly consisted of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), enjoyed unprecedented consensus across most of the domestic political spectrum3 and among the general public. The public in particular supported the idea of Prague’s participation in the European Union’s foreign policy, creating a “European modus operandi,”4 which it 1 Kundera, Milan, “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” New York Review of Books 31, no. 7 (1984): 35. 2 Votápek, Vladimír, “Česká východní politika,” in Zahraniční politika České republiky 1993–2004: Úspěchy, problémy a perspektivy, eds. Otto Pick and Vladimír Handl (Praha: Ústav mezinárodních vztahů, 2004): 100. 3 With the exception of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), which consistently opposed the Czech Republic’s integration into both NATO and the EU. However, it subsequently learned to accept the country’s membership in these organizations as the new political reality and now fully participates in the individual organizations’ institutions. 4 Shaw, Jo, “Postnational Constitutionalism in the European Union,” in The Social Construction of Europe, eds. Thomas Christiansen, Knurt Erik Jørgensen, and Antje Wiener (London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2001): 71.

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regarded as a means to increase the country’s reputation, further legitimizing its role in the international arena. With speedy EU accession as the Czech Republic’s main foreign policy goal, the overall transformation of former communist Czechoslovakia into a democratic country with a market economy was largely successful.5 As a result of the smooth transition process, the Czech Republic became one of the frontrunners among the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) for EU membership and subsequently did not face major difficulties with regard to the completion of accession talks before eventually joining the EU in 2004. Even in the evolving domain of the Union’s foreign policy, Prague effortlessly complied with the conditions imposed by the EU; the Czech Republic closed both Chapter 26 (on external relations) and Chapter 27 (on Common Foreign and Security Policy) of the acquis communautaire in a timely manner, and adopted the entire acquis politique.6 The Czech Republic readily aligned itself with the EU’s foreign policy statements and began to familiarize its representatives with the relevant international institutional bodies by sending observers to the individual working parties of the Council of the European Union. This enabled the Czech Republic to fully participate in EU foreign policy making once it became an official EU member. While at the beginning of its transition period the Czech Republic found itself in an ambivalent situation, torn between guarding its recently gained independence and sharing this sovereignty within a (semi-)supranational organization, at the end of this period, which was marked by joining the EU, it faced another 5 The relative ease with which Prague reformed its institutions and policies even resulted in a belief of Czech uniqueness and exceptionality. Former Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus, who diffused and internalized the norm of exceptionality of the Czech transformation example, even believed that Prague should not apply for EU membership, but rather await an invitation by the European Union to join. Klaus’ government eventually submitted an official application for EU membership in January 1996, making it the second to last Central and Eastern European country to do so (only followed by Slovenia in June of the same year). See Fawn, Rick, “Reconstituting a National Identity: Ideologies in Czech Foreign Policy after the Split,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 19, no. 3 (2003): 221. 6 Whereas the acquis communautaire refers to the complete body of EU law accumulated thus far, the acquis politique is concerned with the “cumulated stock of previous political stances and actions undertaken within political co-operation, as set out primarily in joint declarations and in common positions and common actions.” See Glarbo, Kenneth, “Reconstructing a Common European Foreign Policy,” in The Social Construction of Europe, eds. Thomas Christiansen, Knurt Erik Jørgensen, and Antje Wiener (London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2001): 152.

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challenge. With the country’s main foreign policy priority of EU accession being fulfilled, the Czech Republic now faced the question of what its foreign policy should be moving forward. The intense focus placed on EU accession for fifteen years, while beneficial, came at a high cost. First, the Czech Republic lacked the capacity to formulate foreign policy priorities in other areas, both territorial and thematic. Second, the Czech Republic was in dire need of a conceptual framework and organizing document that would guide its long-term foreign policy efforts. This would have to result from a nation-wide discourse involving the various interested actors, such as political parties, non-governmental organizations, or think tanks, who were active on the domestic scene. Put simply, with EU accession completed and the Czech Republic fully participating in the EU’s foreign policy activities, the country needed to learn to define its foreign policy preferences outside the EU-scope, and how to have these translated into policy at the EU level.7 It is important to remember that while the Czech Republic was working towards joining the European Union, in reality, its target was shifting – the EU itself was in a state of constant flux, developing both institutionally as well as in scope. Particularly in the area of foreign policy cooperation, the EU experienced immense leaps forward from where it started. With the launch of the European Political Cooperation (EPC) in 1970, the member states decided to transform the Union from a strictly economy-based organization into an organization with an external outreach. Further institutional impetus came in the early 1990s, when the second pillar of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) established the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), which was to help the EU in becoming a global actor. From then onwards, as Wong argued, the EU’s foreign policy is understood as the interaction of three strands comprising “(a) the national foreign policies of the member states; (b) EC external trade relations and development policy; and (c) the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.”8 Most recently, the Lisbon Treaty, enforced as of December 1, 2009, further streamlined foreign policy making at the EU level by, among other 7 While foreign policy making through the European Union is a crucial aspect of the Czech Republic’s foreign policy, the EU of course is only one of many fora to realize Prague’s foreign policy. Besides participating in other multilateral groupings and organizations (such as the Visegrad Group or the United Nations), the most common means of conducting foreign policy is the traditional bilateral one. 8 Wong, Reuben, “Foreign Policy,” in Europeanization: New Research Agendas, eds. Paolo Graziano and Maarten P. Vink (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 322.

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things, abandoning the pillar structure introduced by the TEU and by creating the post of High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy. This post would be in charge of the Union’s new diplomatic service, the European External Action Service. The institutional upgrade brought about by the TEU, for which negotiations began in the late 1980s, coincided with the end of the Cold War, the consequent fall of the Berlin Wall, the emergence of newly independent countries at the EU’s Eastern border, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Particularly the latter two events posed a great challenge to the emerging external dimension of the EU. First, the EU needed to design a framework that would allow close cooperation with the newly independent countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), which soon expressed their wish to apply for full EU membership. Second, as the EU realized that enlargement to the East was inevitable, the Union had to devise a strategy towards the new Soviet successor republics (grouped together in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)), which would soon constitute the EU’s immediate neighborhood. As such, the EU faced the challenge of designing a comprehensive strategy towards Russia, which needed to take into account the other post-Soviet republics and Russia’s claims towards them. At the same time, the approach towards CEECs would need to differ significantly from the one applied towards CIS countries. With regard to the first group, the EU introduced mechanisms that were to lead to the countries’ inclusion into the Union, and the latter group of states was to be supported in its stabilization efforts, without, however, the prospect of participating in EU institutions. Dealing with Russia was one of the greatest EU foreign policy challenges of the 1990s. EU-Russian relations were difficult from the very beginning and the openly proclaimed desire of many Central and Eastern European (and some CIS) countries to join both the EU and NATO certainly did not help the situation. Early in the Eastern EU enlargement process scholars realized that EU widening towards the East could bring additional strain to the EU-Russian relationship as the new member states had numerous pending bilateral disputes involving Moscow.9 The amount and the range of issues the EU would face vis-à-vis Russia 9 For a more detailed analysis on what the early expectations with regard to EU-Russian relations after the 2004/2007 EU enlargement were, refer to Whitman, Richard G., “The Common Foreign and Security Policy after Enlargement,” in The Enlargement of the European Union: Issues and Strategies, eds. Victoria Curzon Price, Alice Landau, and Richard G. Whitman (London and New York: Routledge, 1999): 144–45. For a more general analysis of the foreign policy interests that new member states were expected to bring into the EU foreign policy arena, refer to Kaminska, Joanna, “New

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were expected to increase as a result of the new member states’ potential ability to upload their own Russia-specific agenda to the EU level. In line with this, the Czech Republic’s post-2004 foreign policy intersected with the EU foreign policy agenda on the very topic of Russia and the larger post-Soviet space.10 Based on its own specific historical development, coupled with its recent political and economic transition experience, the Czech Republic formulated its foreign policy towards Russia and the larger post-Soviet space and decided to promote this policy on and through the EU level. However, the question of Prague’s successful ability to do so remains yet to be determined. Consequently, this study is interested in establishing the extent to which the Czech Republic has been capable of translating its domestically defined foreign policy preferences vis-à-vis the Russian Federation and the larger post-Soviet space into EU-wide foreign policy. In other words, the present study aims to answer whether the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia and the other post-Soviet countries has changed since 2004 as a result of the Czech Republic promoting its foreign policy preferences vis-à-vis the respective countries at the EU level. This research question merits closer analysis, clarifying the subject and object duality of this study, the processes under scrutiny, and the underlying assumptions. The point of departure for this study is an observed discrepancy between the EU’s and the Czech Republic’s foreign policy approach towards Kiev, Minsk, Moscow, and Tbilisi, among others. Therefore, the first underlying assumption behind the above-presented research question is that the Czech Republic indeed has diverging interests towards these as compared to the European Union as a whole, and that it seeks to adjust the EU’s foreign policy accordingly. The discrepancy stems from a EU Members and the CFSP: Europeanization of the Polish Foreign Policy,” Political Perspectives 2, no. 2 (2007); Missiroli, Antonio, “EU Enlargement and CFSP/ESDP,” Journal of European Integration 25, no. 1 (2003); and Missiroli, Antonio, “The EU and Its Changing Neighbourhood: Stabilization, Integration and Partnership,” in European Union Foreign and Security Policy: Towards a Neighbourhood Strategy, ed. Roland Dannreuther (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). 10 Whereas the larger post-Soviet space consists of all countries previously constituting the Soviet Union, the present study is only concerned with those ex-Soviet republics that form Eastern Europe. More specifically, besides focusing on the largest of the Eastern European countries (Russia), it is interested in the EU’s (and the Czech Republic’s) foreign policy towards Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, leaving aside the other five Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), for these are generally seen as constituting Central Asia. The present study uses the terms larger post-Soviet space and Eastern Europe interchangeably.

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number of factors ranging from a different perception the two entities hold on Eastern Europe, their distinct security sensitivities, and the diverse human rights concepts each promotes. Yet, the mere desire to shift the EU’s policy on Russia and the larger post-Soviet space in a certain direction does not imply that the Czech Republic was capable of having its preference translated into EU-wide policy. Consequently, the second underlying assumption of this study is that the Czech Republic is an equal EU member state to all the others; it can employ all relevant mechanisms at its disposal within EU institutions to have its foreign policy preferences reflected in EU policy making. The purpose of this study is to find out whether the Czech Republic has translated this theoretical ability to influence EU foreign policy making into practice. On a broader level, this research is interested in the process of foreign policy making at the supranational (EU) level, or the structure, while assessing the role of an individual member state, or the agent. Specifically, this study analyzes the interaction between the two subjects of the study, the EU and the Czech Republic, against the background of the object, Russia and the larger post-Soviet space, as the recipient of EU-developed foreign policy. The analytical choice of the EU as the multilateral forum in which the Czech Republic pursues its foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia and Eastern Europe in general is given by the EU’s outreach potential and by the close involvement of its member states, currently also spilling over into the foreign policy domain. Here the EU is treated as a single, yet not necessarily a unisonant, actor with legal personality, which is enabled by a broad understanding of its foreign policy. This is opposed to a narrow understanding, which would only analyze policies brought under the CFSP framework. Therefore, this study adopts a holistic approach to EU foreign policy making in line with Wong’s argument presented above: the foreign policy of the EU is a combination of individual member states’ foreign policies, the external aspects of single EU policies, and actions brought under the CFSP. This study is interested in the impact the Czech Republic has on EU foreign policy making. But why the Czech Republic and not another member state? The Czech Republic has been selected for multiple reasons, which can be categorized into two clusters – material/geographic and cognitive. With regard to the first category (material/geographic), the Czech Republic is a new, medium-sized country, located in Central Europe. The country joined the EU only in 2004 and it is therefore interesting to study whether in this rather short time-span Prague has been able to find its position as an equal partner in the EU, enabling it to leave its mark on the Union’s foreign policy making. Population-wise, and consequently also in terms of the number of votes in the Council of the

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European Union, the Czech Republic can be grouped together with such countries as Austria, Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden.11 As some of these states have proven to play an important role in the EU’s foreign policy over the past decades,12 dismissing the potential impact of the Czech Republic a priori cannot be justified, regardless of it not being one of the big member states. Moreover, the Czech Republic is rhetorically and physically firmly anchored in Central Europe, positioning it at the border of former Western and Eastern Europe, or as some maintain, old and new Europe. The second category for explaining the focus being on the Czech Republic lies in the country’s cognitive features. First, the role of public figures needs to be stressed. Through their activities, particularly in the communist dissent, these figures have become moral authorities, and influence foreign policy making both directly and indirectly. The three most prominent figures are Jiří Dienstbier, the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia after 1989, Šimon Pánek, student protest leader in 1989 and later director of the biggest NGO in Central and Eastern Europe, People in Need, and former Czech President Václav Havel. These public figures frequently comment on the Czech Republic’s foreign policy and their appeal is not restricted to the country’s borders. As their own political conviction was largely formed during times of political and cultural oppression, they advocate a modern foreign policy firmly grounded in ethical values. As Havel put it: [the] sense of responsibility [for the whole world] grows out of the experience of certain moral imperatives that compel one to transcend the horizon of one’s own personal interests and be prepared at any time to defend the common good, and even to suffer for it. Just as our ‘dissidence’ was anchored in this moral ground, so the spirit of our foreign policy should grow and, more important, continue to grow from it.13

Second, Prague continues to find itself cognitively torn between the West and the East. Whereas the country resembles its Western counterparts as it successfully transformed from a communist, centrally planned economy to a 11 While the Czech Republic has 12 votes in the Council of the European Union, i.e. equally to Belgium, Hungary, Greece, and Portugal, this number is higher than, for instance, the number of votes of Austria or Sweden. 12 For the impact for instance Sweden and Finland have had on the European Union’s foreign policy domain, see Björkdahl, Annika, “Norm Advocacy: A Small State Strategy to Influence the EU,” Journal of European Public Policy 15, no. 1 (2008) and Ojanen, Hanna, “Participation and Influence: Finland, Sweden and the Post-Amsterdam Development of the CFSP,” in Occasional Papers (Paris: Institute for Security Studies – Western European Union, 2000). 13 Havel, Václav, Summer Meditations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992): 98–99.

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democratic country with a market economy, it nevertheless has strong links to the East, stemming from decades of mutual cooperation and cultural links. The Czech experience with transition, coupled with the above-described moral duty to support others in their efforts to democratize, has led to the internalization of the belief that the Czech Republic could set an example by actively promoting stabilization, democratization, and market liberalization in the countries it uniquely understands. As political scientist Jiří Pehe argued: just like during the interwar period, when Czechs believed they were the upholders of democracy in Central Europe and the Slavic world in general, and in 1968, when Czechs believed their ‘socialism with a human face’ would salvage the communist ideology, the Klaus government believed the Czechs were destined to play a special role in reviving democracies and market economies in the post-communist world.14

The Czech Republic’s potential in establishing healthy EU relations with Russia and other post-Soviet countries has been highlighted by a study conducted by Mark Leonard and Nicu Popescu. By placing the Czech Republic in its dealings with Russia within the group of “frosty pragmatists,”15 Leonard and Popescu maintain that the country is able to continue its balancing act between economic pragmatism and normativism. The Czech Republic, as an actor, is pragmatic enough to appreciate the strengthening of constructive EU-Russia relations, yet does not shy away from criticizing Russia and other countries for their behavior if their actions are in contradiction with its own modern values. This pragmatic/ rational character of Prague, as opposed to a more emotional/irrational one, coupled with expertise on Eastern Europe, sets the Czech Republic apart from most of the other new EU member states. A closer look on the impact of Czech foreign policy making within EU institutions is thus merited. Besides these two categories that stand as clarification for assessing the very impact of the Czech Republic on the EU’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia and the larger post-Soviet space, one additional element needs to be emphasized – the Czech Republic’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first six months of 2009. Traditionally, the presiding country is expected to refrain from promoting its national interests during its mandate and act rather as an 14 Pehe, Jiří, “The Disappointments of Democracy,” Transitions 5, no. 5 (1998): 39. 15 Other “frosty pragmatists” are Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Loenard and Popescu also identify four more categories, within which they place all twenty-seven EU member states: Trojan Horses, Strategic Partners, Friendly Pragmatists, and New Cold-Warriors. See Leonard, Mark and Nicu Popescu, “A Power Audit of EU-Russia Relations,” (London: European Council on Foreign Relations, 2007).

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honest broker between other member states, observing the norms of impartiality, neutrality, and efficiency.16 However, recent literature on the EU Presidency has begun to assess matters differently, indicating that the presiding country may employ numerous instruments to alter the EU’s political agenda, exercising agenda setting, agenda structuring, and agenda exclusion.17 In this study, in line with Tallberg’s argument, the presiding member state is regarded as a strategic actor, “seeking to satisfy national preferences within the confines of [its] formally delegated role.”18 Prague has duly recognized this potential power exercise, as witnessed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) statement that “the organization of the EU Council Presidency is a very effective tool for the presentation of national interests and for influencing the running of the whole Community, as it – in the given period – enables the presiding country to realize its own priorities.”19 As the Czech Republic was the first new Central European member state to hold the EU Presidency, this study is interested in whether (and how) the country made use of being at the EU’s helm with regard to promoting its national foreign policy towards the larger post-Soviet space. It is the combination of the above-mentioned aspects of the Czech Republic – its material/geographic and cognitive characteristics in addition to the scarce opportunity to stand at the head of the EU in 2009 – that (at least temporarily)

16 The overwhelming majority of EU literature devoted to the study of the EU Presidency concludes that for numerous reasons (short time-span of any Presidency, the predominantly administrative tasks of a Presidency, or the largely inherited Presidency agenda from the previous Presidency), the EU member at the EU helm is no more powerful to influence EU policy making than any other member state. For more detailed analyses of these arguments, refer to Bassompierre, Guy de, Changing the Guard in Brussels. An Insider’s View of the EC Presidency (New York: Praeger, 1988); Hayes-Renshaw, Fiona and Helen Wallace, The Council of Ministers (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997); and Schout, Adriaan, “The Presidency as Juggler: Managing Conflicting Expectations,” Eipascope, no. 2 (1998). 17 Tallberg, Jonas, “The Agenda-Shaping Powers of the EU Council Presidency,” Journal of European Public Policy 10, no. 1 (2003): 6–13. For further evidence as to the powers of the EU Presidency to shape EU policy making, see Princen, Sebastiaan, “AgendaSetting in the European Union: A Theoretical Exploration and Agenda for Research,” Journal of European Public Policy 14, no. 1 (2007); Schalk, Jelmer et al., “The Power of the Presidency in EU Council Decision-Making,” European Union Politics, no. 8 (2007); and Elgström, Ole, “The Presidency: The Role(s) of the Chair in European Union Negotiations,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 1, no. 2 (2006). 18 Tallberg, “The Agenda-Shaping Powers of the EU Council Presidency,”: 5. 19 “Předsednictví ČR v Radě EU,” (Praha: Ministerstvo zahraničních věcí): 1.

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sets the country apart from other new Central and Eastern European member states. Consequently, the Czech foreign policy input at the EU level was chosen over other CEECs for analysis. With this established, the choice of the object of this research – Russia and the larger post-Soviet space – also merits a detailed explanation. What makes the EU’s foreign policy (and within this its Czech aspect) towards Eastern Europe distinct from other EU foreign policy priorities, and subsequently worth analyzing? Why is the quality of the relationship between the EU and the post-Soviet countries significant to the Czech Republic, and ultimately, why should Prague seek to adjust this according to its own preferences? While the European Union’s proclaimed goal of becoming a global actor leads to multifarious foreign policy areas of interest in both geographic and thematic terms, the post-Soviet states are of particular interest to the EU and deserve closer attention. To the European Union and its member states, Russia, but increasingly also the other Eastern European countries, are important economic partners, specifically in the energy sector. At the same time, the region’s developing economy, together with its thirst for foreign direct investment, represent vast investment opportunities for EU companies. Simultaneously, and increasingly so after the 2004/2007 EU enlargement round, the post-Soviet space has arisen as a subject in the context of security. Matters such as energy security and security threats stemming from uncontrolled migration flows or organized crime have come to the forefront. In addition, the EU’s relationships with Eastern Europe are highly complex; for instance, the nature of EU-Russian relations determines to a large extent the EU’s relations with other CIS countries, and other countries in the EU’s direct neighborhood. This results directly from Russia’s close grip on the region at hand, which it regards as a part of its own sphere of influence. Ultimately, Russia collides with the European Union over this zone, since the EU has taken a special interest in the stabilization and democratization of its own direct neighborhood. Finally, that Russia and the other post-Soviet countries occupy a rather significant place in the EU’s foreign policy agenda has been further reinforced by the fact that Russia was the first country the EU signed a comprehensive Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with in 1994. This was soon followed by agreements with other Eastern European states such as Moldova and Ukraine in 1998, and Georgia in 1999. Similarly to Eastern Europe being a prominent object of the EU’s foreign policy, it has also ranked high on the Czech Republic’s foreign policy agenda. With regard to Russia, Prague has been indecisive about the position it should adopt towards Moscow, seeing it as both a potential threat and a natural partner. While many, including former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, warn against

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Russia’s newly discovered neo-imperialist aspirations,20 they simultaneously acknowledge the vast potential for cooperation that exists between the two countries, and the resulting need to establish a functioning relationship. The Czech Republic’s historical experience with Russia and its predecessor might explain the troubled – and at times even highly emotional – past relationship. Prague’s present and future needs call for the establishment of a constructive relationship with the entire region. In conjunction with the argument of Prague’s pragmatism presented above, this materialist view of what the relationship between Prague and the post-Soviet capitals should be prevailed. Having established bilateral relations with the individual Eastern European countries, it was soon clear that Prague would make an effort to have its foreign policy preferences with regard to this region addressed at the supranational level once it became a full EU member. The accession of the Czech Republic to the EU brought new impetus to the Union’s relations with the East. As these preferences to some extent collided with the previously established EU-wide policy towards Russia and the postSoviet space, a closer look at whether and how this EU policy was adjusted to accommodate Prague’s priorities, often pursued in tandem with other European partners, becomes inevitable. The final motive for the present study to focus on the EU’s and Czech Republic’s approach towards Eastern Europe is closely linked to the already-mentioned EU ambition to become a global actor, which enjoys Prague’s full support.21 This research argues that for any such ambitions to materialize, the EU first needs to prove its stabilizing, developing, and democratizing capabilities in its immediate neighborhood. Ultimately, this involves developing a comprehensive foreign policy towards both Russia and the larger post-Soviet space. While it is true that scholarly literature surged with the approaching 2004/2007 EU enlargement round to the East, the current study wants to contribute to the body of literature on the consequences of EU enlargement on foreign policy, paying particular attention to the role of new member states in the facilitation of relations between Brussels and the post-Soviet capitals. In the period preceding the actual widening of the EU, scholars focused on the preparedness of the European Union and the individual candidate countries, assessing institutional, 20 Topolánek, Mirek, “Light or Dark? Freedom or Dependence?” (paper presented at the Bled Strategic Forum: Strategic Challenges of Climate Change and Energy Security conference, Bled, 2008): 4. 21 Beneš, Vít, “Český diskurz o mezinárodní roli Evropské unie,” in Hledání českých zájmů: Mezinárodní bezpečnost, eds. Petr Drulák and Vít Střítecký (Praha: Ústav mezinárodních vztahů, 2010): 50.

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legal, economic, democratic, societal, and identity aspects.22 Studies on the implications that the envisaged ‘big-bang’ enlargement would have on the EU were widespread, highlighting the likely institutional, financial, and operational burden to be imposed upon the EU in general, and upon its foreign policy domain in particular.23 While the academic corpus assessing the relations between the Union and the post-Soviet countries is rather rich, being mostly dedicated to studies of EU-Russian relations, only a handful of scholars factored in the often diverging ideas of the new Central and Eastern European member states.24 As a result, the present literature exhibits a clear bias in favor of studying the ability of the old, and mostly big, EU members to have their foreign policy preferences reflected in 22 For a sample, and by no means exhaustive, summary of arguments made with regard to the 2004/2007 enlargement round, refer to Albi, Anneli, EU Enlargement and the Constitutions of Central and Eastern Europe (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Dimitrova, Antoanela L., “Enlargement, Institution-Building and the EU’s Administrative Capacity Requirement,” West European Politics 25, no. 4 (2002); Senior Nello, Susan and Karen E. Smith, The European Union and Central and Eastern Europe: The Implications of Enlargement in Stages (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998); Schimmelfennig, Frank and Ulrich Sedelmeier, “Theorizing EU Enlargement: Research Focus, Hypotheses, and the State of Research,” Journal of European Public Policy 9, no. 4 (2002); Schimmelfennig, Frank, “The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (2001); and Sjursen, Helene, “Why Expand? The Question of Legitimacy and Justification in the EU’s Enlargement Policy,” Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 3 (2002). 23 Juncos, Ana E. and Karolina Pomorska, “The Deadlock That Never Happened: The Impact of Enlargement on the Common Foreign and Security Policy Council Working Groups,” European Political Economy Review, no. 6 (2007); Juncos, Ana E. and Karolina Pomorska, “Does Size Matter? CFSP Committees after Enlargement,” Journal of European Integration 30, no. 4 (2008); Missiroli, “EU Enlargement and CFSP/ ESDP.”; and Sjursen, Helene, “Enlargement and the Common Foreign and Security Policy: Transforming the EU’s External Identity?” in Back to Europe: Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union, ed. Karen Henderson (London: UCL Press, 1999). 24 A few of the studies that analyze EU-Russian relations from the perspective of a widened European Union are: Gower, Jackie, “EU-Russian Relations and the Eastern Enlargement: Integration or Isolation?” Perspectives on European Politics and Society 1, no. 1 (2000); Light, Margot, “Russian Political Engagement with the European Union,” in Putin’s Russia and the Enlarged Europe, eds. Roy Allison, Margot Light, and Stephen White (London: Chatham House, 2006); and Prozorov, Sergei, Understanding Conflict Between Russia and the EU: The Limits of Integration (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

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EU-wide foreign policy making vis-à-vis Russia and the other Eastern European countries. After the accession of new member states to the EU in 2004/2007, scholarly focus increasingly shifted to empirical studies that assessed whether the theoretically assumed implications of enlargement that were recently made were holding up or whether they needed to be adjusted. In the area of the EU’s foreign policy, these empirical studies were mostly country or issue specific and dealt with the Europeanization of national foreign policies.25 Some scholars deviated from this prevailing academic focus and assessed the potential contribution of new members to the EU’s foreign policy. In the case of the Czech Republic, several studies were published highlighting that within certain foreign policy areas (such as EU-Russian relations or human rights policy) the country should aspire to influence the EU’s foreign policy as it possessed the necessary expertise to develop comprehensive proposals.26 Yet, these contributions fell short of moving beyond the domestic level; while they identified the potential input of the Czech Republic to the EU’s foreign policy, they did not analyze whether Prague was capable of realizing its potential at the EU level. Consequently, the present study aims to rectify this omission by conducting an analysis of Czech foreign policy on both the domestic and the supranational level.

On Theory and Methodology While the main contribution of this research lies in its empirical findings, it also wants to enhance the theoretical understanding of the processes detectable with regard to EU foreign policy making. As Michael E. Smith argued, when observing the European Union’s foreign policy, one can point to the area’s complexity, with multiple concepts, interests (material and geopolitical), and mechanisms at work 25 Gross, Eva, The Europeanization of National Foreign Policy: Continuity and Change in European Crisis Management (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Pomorska, Karolina, “The Impact of Enlargement: Europeanization of Polish Foreign Policy? Tracking Adaptation and Change in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 2, no. 1 (2007). 26 Král, David, “Zahraniční politika rozšiřující se EU: Úloha nových členských států a kandidátských zemí EU,” (Prague: EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, 2005); Král, David et al., “Podíl nových členských zemí na formování a uskutečňování východní politiky EU: Závěrečná studie,” (Praha: Výzkumný projekt MZV, 2009); and Řiháčková, Věra, “Czech Republic: The EU New Member States as Agenda Setters in the Enlarged European Union,” in Not Your Grandfather’s Eastern Bloc: The EU New Member States as Agenda Setters in the Enlarged European Union, ed. Marin Lessenski (Sofia: Open Society Institute, 2009).

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simultaneously.27 If we accept this as true, then this distinct policy area requires a novel theoretical approach, one that transcends ontological and epistemological boundaries of existing paradigms, as long as it serves the purpose of better understanding the issues at stake. Consequently, this study looks at the subject matter through both a rationalist and a constructivist perspective. Whereas, in line with Liberal Intergovernmentalism, it conceptualizes EU foreign policy making as a two-level game, it claims that this rationalist approach is unfit to explain all processes that occur on either the domestic or the supranational level. A rationalist approach also fails to grasp the processes taking place in-between the domestic and supranational levels. To remedy this and to be able to grasp the inter-level processes that take place after a domestically-defined preference has been uploaded to the supranational level, and before a decision on whether this national proposal will be accepted and form the basis of an EU-wide policy, this study further relies on Social Constructivism. With the diverse ontological and epistemological foundations of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Social Constructivism in mind, this study does not aim to develop a new, all-encompassing theoretical paradigm per se, but rather argues in favor of an unobstructed application of theoretical concepts to the examined field. While at first sight these paradigms might seem incompatible, the present study maintains that they can be effectively employed to explain different aspects of the European Union’s foreign policy making, or, different pieces of the same puzzle. From a methodological stance, the study is structured around three individual case studies, each assessing Prague’s role in determining the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia and the larger post-Soviet space in a specific foreign policy area. The first case study assesses the role of the Czech Republic in promoting a new EU approach to the Union’s immediate neighborhood in the East, with any EU activity seen as an attack on Russia’s legitimate interests in an area it considers to be its natural sphere of influence. The second case is concerned with the EU’s energy relations vis-à-vis Russia, looking at whether Prague succeeded in promoting its own energy preferences at the EU level. The third case evaluates the extent to which the Czech Republic has been able to transpose its principled view on human rights promotion and external democratization into the EU’s foreign policy towards Eastern Europe (and others). Naturally, all three case studies overlap to some extent; it is analytically and practically impossible to

27 Smith, Michael E., “Institutionalization, Policy Adaptation and European Foreign Policy Cooperation,” European Journal of International Relations 10, no. 1 (2004): 96–98.

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draw a clear line between them. Yet, they possess distinct features that vindicate three individual cases as opposed to one holistic study. The processes unfolding in each of the three cases to some extent determine the policy outcome in the other cases – the policy outcome in the first may restrict the policy outcome in the latter. These case studies have not been chosen randomly, but have been selected on the basis of several criteria. First, they meet the formal criterion of this study as they all directly or indirectly constitute a part of the EU’s foreign policy towards the discussed region. Second, the issues treated in the first two case studies have over time gained saliency in the European Union. The result has been a rather lively debate at the EU level on how to address these, with numerous conflicting proposals being put forward by the individual member states. Third, and most importantly, all these issues figure high on the Czech Republic’s foreign policy agenda; therefore, we can assume that the Czech administration will take advantage of all available instruments to promote its own national preferences in Brussels. The importance of these foreign policy matters has been further reinforced when the first two, the EU’s Eastern neighborhood and the EU’s external energy policy vis-à-vis Russia, were translated into two of the three main priorities of the Czech Council Presidency.28 The third case on human rights and democratization promotion as part of the EU’s foreign policy approach towards Russia and the other Eastern European states is rather odd as references to human rights often collide with a pragmatic foreign policy approach. Yet, for the Czech Republic this seems to be of utmost importance, partially due to the important role of moral authorities claiming that these values constitute the underlying foundation upon which the country’s modern foreign policy is built. The Czech Republic’s EU accession in May 2004 and its ensuing participation in EU structures outright determine the time frame within which the three case studies are set. For each case, first domestic preference formation (with regard to the individual issues at stake) is assessed, drawing from the accession period, but also pre-EU accession developments. The latter part of each case assesses whether and how the Czech Republic translated its national position into an EU-wide policy and is as such only concerned with the post-accession period. 28 The Czech Republic has defined three “Es” as its Presidency priorities: external relations (corresponding to the first case study), energy (corresponding to the second case study), and economy (as a reaction to the onset of the global economic downturn). For a more detailed analysis of each of the priorities, refer to “Work Programme of the Czech Presidency: Europe without Barriers,” ed. Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU (2009).

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However, with both domestic and EU foreign policy making being in a constant state of flux, the present study draws a line which corresponds to the end of Prague’s Council Presidency at the end of June 2009. At the same time, the study acknowledges the difficulties associated with drawing this line too rigidly, with some of the case studies briefly venturing into the post-Presidency period. This time frame also indicates that the bulk of research has been conducted in a period before the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in December 2009. As such, the study is still concerned with the EU’s three pillar structure and the rotating Council Presidency’s potential impact on EU policy making. This time frame also enables one to hold the variable of domestic politics more or less stable; while Prague saw a political shift from center-left to center-right in 2006, from then onwards – and thus throughout the period directly preceding the Czech Republic’s Council Presidency and the Presidency itself – its domestic political scene remained largely stable.29 This helps to explain the long-term consistency of Czech foreign policy making. In terms of individual research methods, this study relies on a combination of process tracing, textual analysis of primary and secondary sources, and semistructured interviews. While process tracing allows the researcher to reconstruct the events that led to a certain policy outcome chronologically, it can only be successful if having access to relevant sources. This study preferably relies on hard primary sources where possible, consisting of both national governmental reports and EU legal documents. However, as many of these are not public or are classified, secondary sources need to be consulted as well. This research builds upon the rather large corpus of scientific literature that studies the Czech Republic vis-à-vis the European Union, the European Union vis-à-vis the Russian Federation and the many post-Soviet countries, and with the themes of the individual case studies proposed above. The analysis itself cannot get by without taking into account commentaries, or interviews with relevant public officials that have been published in Czech and foreign newspapers and magazines. Still, textual analysis cannot paint the full picture of the events that led from forming a national preference at the domestic level, over its uploading to the supranational level, to finally taking a decision on this very issue. Hence, the analysis presented here is complemented 29 This stability was interrupted only by the fall of the Czech government in March 2009 – during its Presidency – after which, however, a caretaker government was installed that largely continued to implement the previously established political program. After the subsequent parliamentary elections in 2010, it was once again the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) that was asked to form a government, with the center-right thus being at the helm until the day of writing the present study.

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with thirty semi-structured interviews conducted with policy makers at both the national and European level. The choice of the interviewees has resulted from the criterion of relevance; only those public officials directly responsible for forming Czech foreign policy preferences, dispersing these among other EU members, or negotiating the final policy at the EU level, were interviewed. Several interviews with officials from other EU member states have been conducted to confirm or refute the information obtained from the Czechs. Making consistent use of this combination of methods throughout the three case studies allows one to answer the central question informing this study of the extent to which the Czech Republic was able to translate its foreign policy preferences in the studied areas into an EU-wide policy towards Russia and the larger post-Soviet space. Due to the qualitative nature of the research question – indicated by the search for the extent to which the Czech Republic succeeded in transposing its interests at the EU level – the overall conclusion will also be qualitative in nature. Indeed, the Czech Republic, similarly to other EU member states, rarely pursues its foreign policy goals unilaterally, but often in tandem with other European partners. This by no means indicates that the Czech Republic’s role in bringing about policy change at the EU level cannot be pinpointed. Before the extent of preference transposition can be described, however, the question of whether the Czech Republic impacted the EU’s foreign policy towards the researched area needs to be addressed in the first place. For the Czech Republic’s impact on EU foreign policy making to be established, the following conditions, which fit the study’s theoretical underpinning, need to be met: (i) domestically, national preferences in the given issue areas need to be formed, (ii) the saliency of these national preferences needs to be recognized and highlighted, reflected in a prominent position within the Czech Republic’s overall foreign policy agenda, (iii) both (semi-) institutionalized and ad-hoc access points at the EU level need to be utilized to upload these preferences to the EU level, (iv) once uploaded onto the EU level, the Czech Republic employs relevant instruments to diffuse these preferences among other European partners, and (v) these preferences are traceable within EU foreign policy adopted towards Russia and the other Eastern European states. Subsequently, the question of the extent can be answered by comparing the initial Czech preference and the policy outcome on the EU level. If the conditions necessary for tracing the impact on EU foreign policy are met and the national preference is reflected in the EU policy, the extent to which this is the case can be established. Otherwise, it must be presumed that Prague failed in its endeavors.

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Overview of the Book The rest of the book is structured as follows. The first chapter begins by tracing the roots and traditions of modern day Czech Republic’s foreign policy making, by reviewing the main concepts that have shaped Prague’s foreign policy making throughout the twentieth century. It argues that only by understanding the evolution of Prague’s foreign policy, can one understand the complexity of its policy making towards Russia and the larger post-Soviet space in the post-1989 period. Through a parallel discussion of Czech-Russian and EU-Russian relations, the chapter puts both Prague’s and Brussels’ policy towards Moscow, and indirectly the remaining post-Soviet countries, into perspective. It concludes by stressing the discrepancies between the two approaches towards Eastern Europe, which the Czech Republic naturally sought to address after it joined the European Union. The chapter provides the contextual grounds for the three upcoming empirical case studies. The second chapter asks to what extent a parallel application of rationalist and constructivist analytical tools can be fruitful to the analysis of one member state’s influence on the European Union’s foreign policy making. More specifically, the chapter assesses the applicability of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Social Constructivism to the study of foreign policy making. It concludes that none of these fully captures the two-level game that EU foreign policy making represents. It argues for the two theoretical approaches to be applied complementarily as each leads to a better understanding of different aspects of EU foreign policy making. Moreover, this chapter highlights a number of questions arising from these theoretical paradigms that give shape to the three case studies. Chapter two concludes by a thorough review of the methodology and the individual methods applied throughout the empirical case studies. The next three chapters correspond to the three case studies, each of which is structured in a similar way to allow for cross-issue comparisons. Chapter three assesses the extent to which the Czech Republic brought about policy change at the EU level with regard to the EU’s immediate Eastern neighborhood, which is often seen as directly affecting Russia’s interests in this very region. It addresses questions of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the recently launched Eastern Partnership. The fourth chapter looks into the extent to which the Czech Republic translated its rather diverging position on EU energy security (with regard to Russia) into EU policy. It assesses whether Prague has been able to disperse the notion of Russia being an untrustworthy energy supplier among its European partners. It asks whether the Czech Republic has achieved a policy shift in the energy domain on the EU level, which would manifest in, for 18

instance, laying greater emphasis on diverging energy resources, energy transport routes, energy suppliers, and greater utilization of nuclear energy. Finally, the last case study is addressed in the fifth chapter. It establishes the extent to which the Czech Republic has been able to cause a shift in the EU’s human rights and democratization policy agenda, and whether any such change manifested itself in the EU’s dealings with Eastern Europe. Specifically, Prague has developed a rather unique approach, combining human rights and democratization policy under the heading of ‘transition policy,’ which it actively promotes at the EU level. Has it succeeded in getting the EU to adopt this (or a similar) approach in its dealings with Russia and the larger post-Soviet space? Concrete policy initiatives, such as the European Consensus on Democracy, but also the Civil Society Forum launched together with the Eastern Partnership in 2009, form the focus of this chapter. The conclusion, in addition to assessing the applicability of the two distinct theoretical frameworks to the study of the European Union’s foreign policy, draws on the empirical case studies and answers the central research question presented in this introduction. Drawing on these empirical findings, the conclusion puts forward several master variables that have been found to determine the level of the Czech Republic’s success and failure to bring about its desired foreign policy change at the EU level.

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