La politica estera europea compresa tra telos, identità e globalizzazione

Quo vadis Europa? The question seems to be an ever-green one, as the nature of this political system is deeply interlinked with its direction, its telos. The initial telos of the Union was constructed around a set of common values: democracy, solidarity, economic growth were tools to construct a more secure environment in post World War II Europe. An institution that has developed around this founding ideas could not but produce a conception of policy, even included foreign policy, that contains this aspiration. It is most of all for this reason that the Union had developed a mainly ÇstructuralÈ foreign policy, aimed to tackle the deep causes of conflict more than its manifestations. It is equally for this reason that we frequently assist to a call for Europe which has a stabilising effect in contemporary world politics, and which adopts an ethics of responsibility in its external relations. However, the credibility of a structural power depends also on its ability to defend its values with other means when structural foreign policy fails. Therefore, the realization of an international actor that balances between structural and traditional foreign policy is functional to the full realization of the Union as a full-fledged political system.

Sonia Lucarelli, La politica estera europea compresa tra telos, identità e globalizzazione in "TEORIA POLITICA" 2-3/2003, pp , DOI: