Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels

August 3, 2012 8:48 AM

The Big Three of EU Foreign Policy: Stefan Lehne on the contrasting roles of Germany, France and the UK.
posted by rollick (4 comments total)

Literally the first line: "To an outside observer, Europe acts as a bloc with all 27 member states discussing issues and unanimously making decisions on foreign policy." Who is this outside observer, John Birch?
posted by psoas at 10:22 AM on August 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

psoas, Europeans, I suspect
posted by quarsan at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2012

That was well worth the slog (a whole lot of words there), as it proved very incisive and illuminating.

It's also refreshing as hell to get a view of the EU and the European powers without making consistent reference to the US (the US is in there, as appropriate, but this is definitely a Euro-centric analysis).

All in all, very interesting. Thanks for posting!
posted by librarylis at 11:46 AM on August 3, 2012

After going back and reading: indeed, nice overview. I'm curious about the statement France understands itself to be “European by choice” and different from Germany, Italy, or Spain, which it sees as “European by destiny.” Not that I doubt its veracity in relation to its early unification, but I'd be interested to see where else this is discussed.
posted by psoas at 8:43 AM on August 7, 2012