Abstract:

This study aims to investigate the effects of foreign policy cooperation processes laid down at European Union (EU) level on national foreign policies. Vast majority of the current literature on European integration focus on the impacts of developments at EU level, supra-national institutionalization and policy-making processes on member states. However, as the domain of foreign policy, which has been included within the institutional framework of the EU with the Maastricht Treaty, is under the control of member states, it has been excluded from these investigations for a long time. Even though the foreign policy of EU has an intergovernmental character, the expansion of the foreign policy domain and the development of institutional structures after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty have introduced considerable changes in the national foreign policies of member states. In this context, the main problematic of this study is to examine how and in what ways EU foreign policy, which was designed to be under the control of member states as a result of concerns related with sovereignty, unveil the changes in member states’ foreign policies. In this context, the work will be drawn primarily theoretical framework of the concept of Europeanization and it will be explained in the light of the literature how and what the Europeanization has caused and transformed on the nation states. It will be discussed how Europeanization has influenced EU member countries in their foreign policy making processes, institutions and preferences, what mechanisms are used in the formation of European foreign policy, and to what extent it contribute to these processes. Thus it will be shown whether Europeanisation is a convergence in national foreign policy or a differentiation.

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