Committees in Common: Comitology and the Common Foreign and Security Policy

Abstract

The issues surrounding the committee structure of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) often appear to be the mirror image of those traditionally associated with Comitology. In the first instance, the development of committees within CFSP should not be confused with the "re-nationalisation" occasioned by the development of committee structures in other policy sectors. The decision making dynamics between the first and second "pillars" of the Union (The European Community pillar and the CFSP pillar) are strikingly different. Policy control within the second, CFSP pillar of the Union, is predicated upon national control and this has traditionally been the sine qua non of foreign and security policy co-operation within the Union. As a result, the committee structures established within CFSP have been devised as a means of ameliorating the perceived defects of strictly intergovernmental decision making rather than seeking any "return" to national control or an augmentation of national inputs to collective policy making.