The European Union and Its Performance in the NPT Negotiations: Consistency, Change and Challenges

EU Orchestration in the Nuclear Weapons Regime Complex

“…Cyprus and Sweden also voted in favour of the TPNW but did not then sign the treaty. While all EU member states are party to the NPT and negotiate EU Council Conclusions going into review negotiations, many also individually align with more active political groups during negotiations, particularly where these groups take a stronger stance on the divisive issues of nuclear deterrence and disarmament (Dee, 2015). The EU is also divided over the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes.…”

“…Most scholars would agree that the EU is a "difficult actor" (Kienzle & Vestergaard, 2012) that often struggles to find its voice (Erästö et al, 2021, p. 3) in global nuclear politics. Much of the existing scholarship focuses on EU performance in multilateral nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament forums, particularly the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) review cycle, with the EU's performance then broadly lamented for its lowest common denominator positioning, lack of cohesion, and limited impact (Dee, 2015;Potter, 2005;Smetana, 2016;Soltanieh, 2020;Tertrais, 2005). While the EU receives some recognition of its external support for international organisations (IO) such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO; Kienzle, 2013;Portela, 2021), the scholarship tends not to advance much beyond this point.…”

Contestation to the European Union on nuclear non-proliferation

“…The ambiguous position of the EU risks being submerged by other more prominent and ambitious objectives pursued more aggressively by groups that are dedicated to achieve specific outcomes and have very fixed views on what a successful outcome should look like. As a result, the outcome of the EU in approaching the RevCon has been systematically contested by other states (Dee, 2015;Müller, 2010).…”

“…Another reason why the EU's activity at the RevCon is being contested is the fact that EU Member States supplement EU declarations and working papers with their own submissions, either together with other negotiating groupings or as individual states parties, showing the lack of full external competence of the EU in this forum as well as the heterogeneity of preferences of its Member States. While EU Member States consider this just to be complementary to the EU's common position (Dee, 2015), it nevertheless provides a complex dimension to the EU as a negotiator that often distracts attention from it and thus reduces its visibility in the negotiations. For the EU, its lack of external competence raises even more questions as to whether the EU is a negotiating bloc within the RevCon or not.…”

“…For example, the developing world continues to resist multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle, as well as export controls on sensitive materials. On the other hand, others have gone so far as to suggest that the EU's presence in the negotiations has sometimes had a negative effect, blunting the more ambitious and vocal positions of its members through their attempts to maintain their single voice and subsequently hampering the wider debate on the NPT (Dee, 2015;Müller, 2010). This is an exemplification of the EU's own negotiating position, which is characterized by limited ambitions, always supporting the preservation of the nuclear non-proliferation regime rather than guiding, transforming and updating it, presenting itself in front of potential norm challengers as an status quo power.…”