The end of the Second World War and after that the Cold War, represented the end of the end of the “classical” conflicts and the opposition between East and West: with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the bipolar structure of the international system disappeared and the States had to face with new kind of threats. The traditional concept of territorial defense evolved in a new range of threats, which imply new priorities, such as collective security and external intervention.
Javier Solana, the former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in the European Security Strategy, stated that in a world characterized by globalization, there is no more a difference between threats coming from neighbor countries or from the other parts of the world. The traditional concept of auto defense, based on the threat of invasion, is no more considered and that in the coming years the mayor threats will come from outside and will be completely different from what we have seen for centuries.
The European Union during the years became one of the most important actors in the international system. Especially with the development of its own foreign policy and after the tragedy lived during the clashes in the Balkans, the European Union became relevant in the conflict management realm as well.
In about twenty years, the European Union launched more than twenty missions in third countries and can be classified in military, civilian and hybrid (mix of military and civilian) and it is possible to make another distinction, between peace keeping, peace-making and peace-enforcement intervention. All the missions, independently from its classification, have always the same goal: the objective is not only to assure security and peace, but also to re-build institutional structures, humanitarian assistance and police training.
But despite the development of its foreign policy and the defense one, the most important instruments of the European Union in terms of external intervention are still economic tools. Its economic role in the international system allows the European Union to increase its attraction in terms of global trade and harmonization of the legislation of third countries to the acquis communautaire together with other programs of regional cooperation.
Even more important is the attraction implies the possibility to become a member of the European Union: a country, especially if with the status of “candidate” for a new European enlargement, is more prone to undertake a process of democratic reforms.
Introducing the specific topic of the European Union in Georgia, it is possible to say that due to the late development of its foreign policy and the focus on the following big enlargement in 2004, implied that the European Union was almost absent in the Caucasus during the 1990s, while during the 2000s its presence became stronger.
The importance of the Southern Gas Corridor, with the possibility to bring gas from Caspian and Middle East countries to European ones and the access negotiation of Turkey allowed the European Union to get closer to the region and begin its process of intervention and influence for a new democratization process in these countries.
In the following chapters, I will try to answer to the problem formulation I proposed for this topic, “How did the European Union approach the conflicts in Georgia?”, through the use of theories of international relations and their implementation in an empirical part.