Scholarship on Portuguese foreign policy since 1974 reflects the centrality of the EU to Portugal’s foreign policy presence in Europe, as well as its broader global standing. Within this discipline, many studies have used Europeanisation to ground their research in the prevailing discourse of Portugal’s exploration of the ‘European option’ post- 1974. However, while some scholars have identified this as the Portuguese State’s recent Europeanisation, they qualify this with references to the Atlantic, Africa and the Lusophone world as other strategic priorities for Portugal, which seem to undermine, contradict, or confuse the Europeanisation narrative. This paradox in the literature is telling because it reflects the current practice in Portuguese foreign policy-making circles to emphasise complementarity in global affairs, and to view European integration as something which enhances Portugal’s position in the Lusophone world, and its place in the international community more generally.
Exploring the ‘European option’ was undoubtedly the principal priority of Portuguese external policy under the democratic regime, but contemporary Portuguese foreign policy is also concerned with matters beyond Europe. Studies have shown that Portugal is attempting to re-engage with its former colonies and has used the EU foreign policy apparatus to pursue this, most notably by drawing attention to the crisis in East Timor during the 1990s (Magone, 2004: 241–260; de Vasconcelos, 1996: 276–278; de Vasconcelos, 2000: 29–32).
Prior to 1974, choosing Europe meant a rejection of the African colonies. In the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution, decolonisation and European integration were the immediate foci. However, since then, Portuguese foreign policy has sought to balance its strategic interests in a more inclusive foreign policy, which simultaneously prioritises the Atlantic Alliance, seeks to enhance Portugal’s unique ties to its former colonies, especially those in Africa, and aims to preserve Portugal’s status as a well- integrated EU Member State. Contemporary Portuguese foreign policy has overcome this “false dichotomy” of choosing between the Atlantic (NATO, and the colonies – the prime focus of Salazar’s foreign policy) and Europe (de Vasconcelos, 2000: 30).
Leaving Portugal’s persistent Luso-Atlantic tendencies aside, exploring the ‘European option’ has had an impact on Portuguese foreign policy, but this does not equate to a case of foreign policy ‘Europeanisation’. This is due, in part, to the varied definitions of Europeanisation in the literature; Europeanisation encompasses the ideas of national adaptation, national projection, modernisation, policy learning, identity reconstruction and elite socialisation (Wong, 2011: 154).
The literature on Portugal predominantly uses Europeanisation, whether explicitly or implicitly, to denote top-down transformations of the Portuguese State as a consequence of pursuing European integration. Corkhill (1999) uses Europeanisation to account for the modernisation and restructuring of the Portuguese economy since joining the EEC in 1986. The economic institutions in place in Portugal during the dictatorship were not suited for the new era of the European Single Market, and broader globalisation, so needed to be reformed in order for Portugal to achieve greater economic development (Corkhill, 1999: 50). Inextricably linked to this quest for development, Europeanisation was marked by Portugal’s enthusiasm for Economic and Monetary Union, as to be excluded from the process would have kept Portugal on the periphery of Europe (Corkhill, 1999: 227).
A more explicit treatment of the Europeanisation of the Portuguese State is provided by Magone (2004). This work addresses some major gaps in the study of Portugal’s European integration process, but predominantly focuses on top-down processes of national adaptation to Europe, because Portugal’s smallness and peripheral nature have meant that opportunities to project onto Europe (bottom-up Europeanisation) are limited (Magone, 2004: 20). Like economic institutions, political institutions have undergone considerable restructuring as a result of Portugal’s European integration, with the MNE becoming Europeanised because of the requirement to implement effective national co- ordination strategies with the EU (Magone, 2000a: 169–170).2
The exploration of the ‘European option’ meant that Portugal was forced to abandon its outward-facing Atlantic foreign policy orientation in favour of a broader focus, prioritising NATO and the Lusophone world with the pursuit of relations closer to home in Europe and the Mediterranean. The aspect of Europeanisation which represents the
2 For more information on the specific reforms undertaken to improve how Portugal handles EU policy
starkest contrast to the foreign policy of the Estado Novo is the Mediterraneanisation and Iberianisation of Portuguese foreign policy. Improved relations with Spain, especially in terms of trade and enhanced economic co-operation, have been in no small part due to the fact that both Iberian countries have undergone considerable Europeanisation since their respective democratisations in the 1970s (Hibou, 2005: 236–237). Partly as a concomitant of Portugal’s new-found friendship with Spain, Mediterranean issues, especially co-operation with the countries of the Maghreb, have been high on the agenda, especially during the early years of Portugal’s European integration project (de Vasconcelos, 1996: 274–275). Thus, the Mediterraneanisation of Portuguese foreign policy reflects its broader Europeanisation (Magone, 2004: 250).
However, Europeanisation in this sense is more specific to the Portuguese experience of prioritising the Atlantic over Europe for many centuries. Mediterraneanisation, as a form of Europeanisation, is more about the recognition that European issues are relevant to Portugal. Despite not having a Mediterranean coastline, Portuguese policy-makers are now aware that issues in the Mediterranean basin affect Portugal, both directly and indirectly. If Portuguese policy-makers adopt the wrong strategy towards the Mediterranean, Portugal would not only have to deal with the direct consequences of that, but it could risk becoming isolated in the European context, the latter being potentially catastrophic for Portuguese diplomacy. Therefore, Europeanisation as Mediterraneanisation encompasses the general notion of Portugal’s increasing awareness of Europe as a way of maintaining the country’s influence in European and international decision-making processes on key issues of strategic importance.
As Magone rightly observed, there is a paucity of studies on Portugal. Many of the existing studies do not provide a thorough and effective treatment of Europeanisation as a concept and do not examine its (un)suitability to explaining dynamics of change in the Portuguese case (Magone, 2004: 16). The concept has potential but is weakened by the fact that it has been used as a synonym for European integration. The Europeanisation of institutions in the Portuguese State, the political exploration of the ‘European option’, economic development, democratisation, and modernisation are all intertwined in the Portuguese case. Europe has been a focus for Portugal since 1974, but that does not mean that Europeanisation pressures are solely responsible for changes which have occurred.
The adaptation of national institutions, in the face of EEC accession in 1986, means that the Europeanisation of the Portuguese State is more obviously evident in the economic sphere. The regulatory powers of the EU, rather than legislation from the European- level, are the most relevant dynamics in the Portuguese case (Jalali, 2007: 190). This reveals the weakness of Europeanisation as a concept when examining foreign policy, as Europeanisation is much more likely to be visible in the economic realm than in foreign policy. This is because the EU’s regulatory power is limited to Single Market issues and is weak on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This was shown when de Vasconcelos (1999) attempted to apply the Europeanisation narrative to Portuguese defence policy. He argued that Portugal’s response to the crisis in Bosnia in the 1990s gave a new European dimension to its previously staunchly Atlanticist defence policy, which it did. But the ‘European’ response was led by NATO, which was itself searching for a new post-Cold War role. Consequently, to assert that Portugal’s participation in the NATO intervention in Bosnia was a case of Europeanisation is problematic, not least because, at that time, the EU’s lack of security credentials were being exposed and European states relied heavily on US military support in the Balkans. In foreign and security affairs, less so than in the economic domain, the external pressures for change are intertwined with other factors, and international organisations other than the EU can play an important role in shaping norms at the national-level.
In integrating with the EU, Portugal has succumbed to Europeanisation pressures and undertaken wide-ranging reforms to its economy and bureaucracy. However, this does not, necessarily, translate into policy outputs reflecting a more Europeanised national interest. Adding a European dimension to a traditionally Atlanticist foreign and security policy, and using Portugal’s EU membership to promote its interests in the Lusophone world, could well be labelled the ‘Europeanisation of Portuguese foreign policy’, but other concepts such as internationalisation and multilateralisation could also encapsulate these processes. The challenge of this thesis is to address these conceptual issues. What is required is to develop a theoretical framework that can evaluate the concept of Europeanisation against potential alternatives. This will allow research on Portugal, and other national case studies, to move away from using Europeanisation in imprecise ways, as a catch-all term for various complex processes, and as a synonym for European integration. While the exploration of the ‘European option’ has been critical for Portuguese foreign policy since 1974, the tendency to overstate the role of the EU in
prescribing change at the national level needs to be addressed, and this thesis aims to do that with regard to Portugal.