Research On EU's Foreign Economic Sanctions Policy: Characteristics And Effects

According to its general conception,Economic sanction is a set of coercive measures in the field of trade or finance which taken by a sender state to a targeted state for certain political goals.Thanks to its low cost and flexibility,economic sanction has been widely used by the sovereign states as well as international organizations as a foreign policy tool.Since the foundation of the EU,accompanied by the process of foreign policy integration,economic sanction has been gradually incorporated into the framework of CFSP with a higher frequency.Compared with other sovereign states,the EU presents itself two main characteristis during the using of economic sanction.The first one is supranationality.As a supranational organization,the integration in the field of foreign policy consists one of the most important goals of the EU,thus,being a part of such framework brings naturally certain supranational elements to EU economic sanction.In addition,the legal basis of EU economic sanction come from the authorization of the fundamental treaties which is totally different from the sovereign states.Meanwhile,in the purpose of manifesting the overall interests and willing of the EU,the deeply participation of those supranational institutions in the process of decision making,implementation as well as supervision is quite indispensable.The second characteristic is “the European idea and method”.“The European idea” emphasize the respect of international norms and values,those elements form a major cause of EU economic sanction.Besides,it also insists the multilataralism when facing the international disputes.Nevertheless,“the European method” underlines more in the practice,including the “smart sanction”(targeted sanction)which improves the accuracy of the sanction measures and “comprehensive strategy” which applies multiform of measures at the same time.However,due to the defects of the economic sanction itself or the misusing during the process,the EU's economic sanction practice can't always achieve the desired results.There are many factors influencing the effect of EU's economic sanction,such as the internal coherence of the EU,the brearing capability of the targeted state,the reaction of international society.In a word,to optimize the using to economic sanction and to improve its effect,the EU has a long way to go.