Keep on Talking! The Resilience of Multilateral Communications in EU Foreign Policy

As argued in the introduction to this symposium, the current context of increased political uncertainty has triggered renewed interest in the importance of norms in international relations (Costa et. al. 2024). Most particularly, research has debated to what extent norms are resilient when faced with increasing contestation (Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, 2020; Wiener, 2014; Zimmermann, 2017). We contribute to this debate through an analysis of EU foreign policy. Weakly institutionalised and not legally enforceable, it is primarily held together through voluntary compliance with common norms. Scholars have argued that the rising contestation of foreign policy, particularly from populist right-wing governments, would likely threaten the EU's ability to negotiate – and enforce – decisions in the area of foreign policy (Balfour and Lehne, 2024, p. 6). One of the first symptoms of such a development would be the fragmentation of multilateral communications between member states and the break-up of the ‘community of information’ that exists amongst the EU-27 (de Schoutheete, 1980). And yet, European diplomats have remained remarkably committed to a multilateral process of communication, despite the strong incentives to move to bilateral or ‘minilateral’ (Foster and Mosser, 2024; Jørgensen, 2011) communications, made all the easier by the flexibility and ‘shareability’ of digital communications (Adler-Nissen and Drieschova, 2019). In this article, we ask: how this can be? How can we account for the resilience of multilateral communications between member states? Pointing to the normative quality of procedural norms as the main reason for member states' commitment to multilateralism, we fill a gap in the literature on EU foreign policy as well as in that on the resilience of norms in international relations. The literature on norms in EU foreign policy tends to concentrate on the role of substantive norms, whilst it considers procedural norms only from a functional perspective. We argue instead that procedural norms in the EU have sustained multilateralism during a profound exogenous shock such as the digitalisation of communications. Our findings are based on quantitative data on COREU traffic made available by the General Secretariat of the Council, as well as eight interviews with European correspondents based in member states' Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs). The latter group can speak authoritatively on the multilateral nature of internal EU communications as they are in charge of receiving, sorting and transmitting messages from and to other capitals and EU institutions.1 The article proceeds in two steps. First, we outline our theoretical argument. We start by distinguishing between procedural and substantive norms, highlighting that procedural norms are engrained in the backbone of any international organisation. We further clarify what the procedural norms within EU foreign policy are and what role they play. Suggesting a move away from an understanding of procedural norms as having merely a functional role in EU foreign policy, we analyse their normative qualities and suggest they reflect basic criteria for a ‘due process’. In the second part of the article, we show how the COREU system, which has been carrying multilateral communications amongst EC/EU member states since the 1970s, established a process of communication that followed a ‘due process’. We then show how member states remained committed to this multilateral form of communication, even when the transition to digital means of communication threatened to erode this multilateral communication system. In the concluding part of the article, we return to the question of the resilience of procedural norms in EU foreign policy, questioning whether they can still survive systematic contestation in the long term, and indicating avenues for further research. The EU is an unorthodox actor in international affairs. Whilst it disposes of limited means of coercion, it can sustain a common policy that allows it to impact on world affairs. How is it possible that European states, with their different histories, experiences, traditions and alliances manage to agree on a common foreign policy? Why does this foreign policy hang together in the face of increasing contestation? If EU foreign policy were held together merely through compromises, it would be unstable, as member states would defect when presented with more attractive alternatives. Whilst EU foreign policy remains more fragile than the rest of the EU, as compliance with decisions is voluntary, it has been surprisingly robust (Risse, 2011; Sjursen, 2015). This observation has brought scholars, coming from different theoretical perspectives, to consider that EU foreign policy is held together through something more than a ‘[…] mutual agreement about [its] advantageousness or through the use of coercive power’ (Eriksen and Weigård, 1997, pp. 224–225).2 Starting out in the late 1960s with informal meetings in which the foreign ministers of member states discussed foreign policy matters of common interest, a set of specific ways of making foreign policy together has gradually developed (Gstöhl and Schunz, 2021; Smith, 2004). Sceptics to the notion that the EU would ever develop an actual foreign policy, held that it would never be more than a ‘talking shop’ (Hill, 1993; Hyde-Price, 2006; Menon, 2013). Yet, the EU's response to Russia's war against Ukraine, amongst others through its sustained sanctions regime, testifies to the ability of member states to make collective decisions and act on them (Fiott, 2023).3 We suggest that the ‘mere talk’ between member states is not necessarily ‘cheap talk’ and should be further scrutinised, as it is through talking and practical engagement that member states can arrive at a common understanding of what to do. Building on existing insights into how EU foreign policy hangs together (cf. Brøgger, 2023; Elgström and Smith, 2006; Tonra, 2003; Sjursen, 2015; Risse, 2011), we hold that it can be helpful to analyse how ‘talk’ and communications between states actually work, and to identify what kinds of procedural norms guide this communication. Whilst the literature on EU foreign and security policy has been more concerned with the role of substantive norms (Diez, 2012; Lucarelli and Manners, 2006; Manners, 2002; Sjursen, 2015), we suggest that procedural norms are particularly important in sustaining EU foreign policy. Procedural norms refer to the process through which policies are agreed upon. They are concerned with the question of ‘how’ decisions should be made, that is, what are, or should be, the rules of the game. Procedural norms are engrained in the backbone of any organisation, which cannot function without a clear consensus on its main modus operandi, alongside an understanding of its mission (March and Olsen, 1989). Substantive norms, which refer to particular conceptions of what is good, right or prudent, have received more attention in the literature on EU foreign policy. Substantive norms concern the content of policy, providing answers to the question of ‘what’ to do. The substantive norms of EU foreign policy are usually specified with reference to the constitutional principles of the Treaty of Lisbon: respect for democracy, rule of law and human rights (TEU, Article 2). We might add market economy to the list of substantive norms of EU foreign policy, although this is not a constitutional principle. There is a large, although also contested, body of literature analysing how substantive norms shape EU foreign policy (see, amongst others, Aggestam, 2004; Elgström and Smith, 2006; Lucarelli and Manners, 2006; Manners, 2002; Tonra, 2003; Whitman, 1998). Analyses focusing on the substantive norms of the EU include considerations of how such norms have been important in facilitating agreement amongst member states. These analyses thus also contribute to a theoretical account of the capacity of EU foreign policy to sustain key governing functions (Sjursen, 2015; Sjursen and Rosén, 2017). As for how we might theoretically account for the role of procedural norms in sustaining EU foreign policy, we know much less. In analyses of EU foreign policy, procedural norms have often been understood as having a functional role. As Michael E. Smith writes, ‘The procedural norms [discussed above] were intended to help EU states improve their understanding of each other, forge common foreign policy positions, and if possible, take joint action on important issues in world politics’ (Smith, 2004, p. 134). This suggests that procedural norms are crucial to the sustainability of EU foreign policy. We suggest, however, that their contribution to the sustainability of EU foreign policy cannot be properly grasped unless we move from a purely functional understanding of their status and role to a normative one. Procedural norms do not only facilitate agreement, as the functional understanding suggests. They have a value in and of themselves – a normative quality – that contributes to enhance the legitimacy of EU foreign policy in the eyes of its member states. The procedural norms of EU foreign policy were developed through a process of trial and error (Smith, 2004). They have, for the most part, remained informal and are thus usually merely taken as given by the actors involved. Their informal nature, the fact that they are not codified, makes it more difficult to identify the procedural than the substantive norms. Observing what diplomats and top-level politicians do is rarely possible due to the difficulty of gaining access to key decision-making arenas in foreign policy. One must therefore draw on the actors' own accounts of how they interact with their colleagues – on their understanding of the procedures – including their expectations to the actions of other diplomats and policy-makers. When diplomats from EU member states describe their expectations to the processes of communication within EU foreign policy, they point to certain that are to the basic of ‘due These be as right to speak and right to take part in describe a that does not only facilitate agreement, as the functional understanding would suggest, that rights to member states. 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