Author(s): Ömer UĞUR, Metin AKSOY
The desire to develop a common foreign policy at European level represents the most clouded zone in the European integration process. The member states have had an abstaining approach for so many years toward the institutional construction which recalls a federal structure by having moved beyond the EU’s economic cooperation. Therefore, they have been excluding foreign policy issues out of the European integration process during the time course until the Maastricht Treaty. However, following the Bipolar System coming to an end, it did not appear likely at all that member states -including those which are greater- were going to accomplish their national interests by acting unilaterally. This fact has led the way for the member states which were willing to maximize their national interests in international politics foreign to a policy co-operation at the EU level. Indeed, with the Treaty of Maastricht, the area of foreign policy has turned into one of the common policies that exist within the institutional structure of the EU for the first time. Thus, the national characteristic of foreign policy is observed to have gone through a remarkable change –without a total dissolution though- by the rise in interactions and information sharing amongst the member states at EU level throughout the post-Maastrich Treaty process. In this sense, this paper will examine the effects of the foreign policy generated at the EU level on French foreign policy. Meanwhile, it is going to be examined whether the French foreign policy has come closer to the EU foreign policy; and if the answer is yes, in what ways and under what circumstances it has done so throughout the Ukraine crisis which has recently been constituting one of the greatest threats against the European integration and security.
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