Between Méthode and Realpolitik: the EU and the ‘Big Three’

Despite periodical, yet relatively short fluctuations, support for the European Union (EU) has been a virtually constant guideline in Italian foreign policy for a number of reasons, notably EU’s perceived role as a vehicle of pan-European geopolitical stability, economic re-distribution and socio-cultural modernisation.

When it comes to relations with the so-called ‘big three’, i.e. France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Italian foreign policy has traditionally oscillated between a genuine vocation towards supranationalism, especially by seeking cooperation with the European Commission against the risks of centrifugal drifts in the EU, and a recurrent temptation to take part in intergovernmental ‘directoires’ with at least one of those countries as a way to avoid diplomatic marginalisation in Europe, inject new dynamism in the European integration process and/or strengthen political consensus at home. The history of Italy’s European conduct since the very Treaty on the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 to the Constitutional Treaty in 2004 provides much-telling examples of such disposition.

• Primary Source

ISPI: Commentary: China: Between Méthode and Realpolitik: the EU and the ‘Big Three’ [PDF] http://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/commentary_frontini_21.02.2013.pdf

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