The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

208 THE BROADER DIMENSIONS OF SECURITYIV. Nordic contributions to the EU’s role in peace-buildingThe Nordic countries have not only adapted to the EU’s peace-building role butalso begun to participate actively in the shaping of this process. However,tracing the influence of various actors within the CFSP and the ESDP is not astraightforward task. Formally, most initiatives are presented by the rotating EUPresidency irrespective of their original authors. Often, the early stages in thedrafting process also involve many authors, not the least of whom are variousbodies within the Council Secretariat. Sometimes, the member state thatlaunches an initiative will make this publicly known, but at other times outsideobservers—and sometimes even the participants themselves—cannot tell wherea proposal originated. The conclusions and decisions reached in the end areoften not particularly revealing about who the initiators were or about the variouspositions during the process. During the complex and continuous negotiationsbetween 25 national administrations, others’ active support for, amendmentsto or rejection of an initiative may often be as important for the final outcomeas the original idea. In other words, specific member states’ substantialcontributions to the EU’s peace-building role are difficult to evaluate. Theyshould be judged not only in terms of the injection of original ‘national’ initiativesinto the process, but also in terms of active support (or lack of support) forvarious other initiatives in the policy-making process.Furthermore, contributions should be understood in relation to the individualmember states’ capacity to influence the process. This capacity is dependent ona number of different assets, both tangible and intangible, such as economicpower of various sorts, military power, prestige, reputation, will power anddiplomatic skills. 29 For small member states, the will power—or the capacity toformulate new initiatives—will also be affected by the limited resources of theirministries. The CFSP/ESDP policy-making process is a time-consuming andintense area for small national ministries, and a lot of resources are spent on justkeeping up with the process and responding to the EU agenda. As a Danishdiplomat has put it, the EU’s foreign policy cooperation ‘is in fact determiningthe agenda’ of the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 30 A Swedish diplomatsimilarly argues that quick reaction must, by necessity, often be prioritized overa country’s own initiatives because the CFSP decision-making procedures are‘characterised by positioning with “lightning rapidity” so that you, for example,end up with the group of countries you want to belong to in the following process.. . . It is more important in the CFSP to have the others’ views and toformulate a position of your own, than to make more in-depth analysis of theproblem of your own. It is another way of working than before’. 3129 Petersen, N., ‘National strategies in the integration dilemma: an adaptation approach’, Journal ofCommon Market Studies, vol. 36, no. 1 (Mar. 1998), pp. 38–39.30 Quoted in Tonra, B., ‘The impact of political cooperation’, ed. K. E. Jørgensen, ReflectiveApproaches to European Governance (Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1997), p. 184.31 Quoted in Ekengren, M., Statsförvaltningens europeisering i tid och rum: en studie av den politiskatidens förändring till följd av EU-samarbetet [The administration’s Europeanization in time and space: a