Small States Inside and Outside the European Union: Interests and Policies

Small States in and outside the European Union offers a broad overview of the small states problematic in Europe. It touches upon definition issues, history, security policy, neutrality, EU institutional aspects and also includes contributors from Central and Eastern European countries. It presents a thorough analysis of different scenarios for EU institutional reform and their repercussions on the influence of small member states. The comparative results are visualized in tables. The work contains several contributions from practitioners who give insight into policy games and issues of national sensitivity not usually covered by purely scholarly publications. The European environment has changed dramatically through the processes of regional integration and rising interdependence. Relations between European states both inside and outside the EU are governed as never before by rules, norms, and fixed procedures. The book investigates the consequences of these developments on the foreign and security policy of small states. Academics and professionals from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, elaborate on these issues. Institutional regulations and traditional power politics as well as the foreign and security policy traditions of the states concerned, including the question of neutrality, are investigated. In addition, the book identifies the main interests of small states in today's Europe and offers an overview of different strategies these states apply in the realm of foreign and security policy. The book is interesting for the case studies it offers as well as for the reflections it contains regarding fundamental questions of the essence of statehood in today's Europe.

Table of Contents:
The Foreign and Security Policy Interests of Small States in Today’s Europe.- The Perception of Small States: Myth and Reality.- Is the Notion of Small State Still Relevant?.- The European Commission: A Natural Ally of Small States in the EU Institutional Framework?.- Decision-Making in the Council of the European Union.- Small State as a Third State: Switzerland and Asia-Europe Interregionalism.- Switzerland’s Integration Policy.- The Danish Case: International Involvement as the Small State’s Remedy for Great Power Dominance.- Security Policy of a Small Central-European Candidate for the Enlarged EU: Slovenia.- Regional Cooperation and Security in the Baltic Sea Rim.- Neutrality and the EU: An Austrian View.- The Finnish Neutrality — Its New Forms and Future.- Swedish Neutrality: Stumbling into the Unknown Past.- The Position of Small States in the EU.- Implications of the Intergovernmental Conference and the Treaty of Amsterdam for Small EU Member States.- Implications of Enlargement.- Conclusions: Future Relevance and Priorities of Small States.- Authors.- Abbreviations.

Review :
'Laurent Goetschel succeeded in editing an extremely valuable book. That makes Small States Inside and Outside the European Union: Interests and Policies to be recommended to both policy makers and researchers who are interested in the theories of international relations in general and in the role of small states in European integration in particular.' De Economist 149:2 (2001)