A Study Of Common Foreign Policy Adaptation Of Major Member States To EU

This paper is based on the contradictions existing in the current EU common foreign policy and the doubts arising therefrom.When the EU adopted collective diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia for the Ukrainian issue,Hungary,Cyprus and Greece adopted policies that were not completely consistent.They participated in the EU`s joint sanctions against Russia on the one hand,but with Russia on the other.Extensive cooperation is carried out in both the political and economic and military fields.These three countries were once called as the "Trojan horses" of the European Union.Although the EU intervened in the actions of these countries,it did not change the existing Russia policy of Hungary,Greece and Cyprus.As the EU’s external actions become more operational and stronger under the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty,why do its member states also adopt actions contrary to the EU? Is it the problem of the EU’s common foreign policy,or is it the result of the interests of member states? When and under what conditions will Member States take actions consistent with the EU or vice versa? For these questions,the mainstream theories either with system-centred or country-centred cannot be convincingly explained.On the basis of summarizing the existing studies,this paper proposes new explanatory variables and attempts to conduct theoretical analysis.This paper proposes the assumption of the relationship between EU and its member states on foreign policy,that is,the foreign policy of member states is not completely consistent with EU foreign policy,and there is mutual adaptation and readjustment demands.Secondly,this article takes EU foreign policy type and member states interest as explanatory variables to construct an analytical framework to analyze the diplomatic relations between the EU and member states.Third,the paper takes behaviors of France,Germany and Britain in the EU’s eastern partnership policy and Iranian nuclear policy as case study.This paper is of practical significance and value for understanding the interaction between the EU and member states in the field of foreign policy.The first explanatory variable proposed in this paper,the type of EU foreign policy,including structural foreign policy and relational foreign policy,can open the "box" of EU diplomacy andconduct more targeted or concrete analysis.The second explanatory variable proposed in this paper,interest,provides an important consideration for explaining the country’s external behavior from the member level.Due to the different characteristics and interests of EU common diplomacy and member states’ diplomacy,interest is clearly persuasive in explaining the adjustment of relations between member states and the EU and third countries.As the EU is still in the process of integration,its diplomatic relations with member states are also constantly changing.In the course of the research,the research conditions and time are strictly set to ensure the objectivity of the analysis.The study in this paper concludes that structural foreign policy and high interrelated interests will promote member states to adopt foreign policies or actions that are consistent with the EU,while relational foreign policy and low-interest relation will lead to negative or even deviations from member states.