First Steps Towards A Common Foreign Policy for Europe: 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the European Union

Building a common foreign policy is a leading aspect in European unification. Since the early years of the Cold War, there were several attempts in order to put the process into progress. Following the failed initiatives in 1950's and 1960's, a serious development was achieved with the 1970's. Thanks to the French leadership along with the British membership process to the EU, the success was built on the founding stones of the Detente Era. Here, the Arab-lsraeli War in 1973 marked a threshold, as the incident opened the path for initial steps in the building of a common approach under the EU umbrella. The severity of the crisis from an economic and strategic perspective not only harmonized the foreign policies of the nine members of the organization, but also marked the accelarating elements that constitute the EU's political power via the foreign policies of the British and the French in connection with the historical ties of those two states to the Middle East. Thus, this study aims at both dealing with the historical foundations of building a common approach on foreign affairs within the EU context and handling the subject on a case-specific basis by bringing the 1973 Arab-lsraeli War in its focus.