Explanation of national European parties positions on common foreign and security policy of the European Unionin the beginning of the 21 century

Thispaper researches positions that leading national political parties in three European countries (Germany, France and United Kingdom)have towards the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. The basis for research is the parties manifestos for thelast two electoral periods. Comparison of these documents made it possible to reveal similarities and differences in partisan stances towardsthe Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. The article presents three main findings of the analysis. First ofall, there exists a national consensus between the major political parties in all three countries on the issue of necessity of integration ofcooperation in the field of foreign policy and security. Second, there is visible convergence of partisan stances within France and Germanywith infinitesimal differences; and there are differences between parties when compared between states. At the same time there isa very big gap between the position of the Conservatives and the Labourists in Great Britain. Third, there is an all-European consensusbetween all the major parties about the character of threats that present danger to their national countries and sort of instruments thatshould be used to tackle them. The attempt is made to measure the difference between parties positions. The main aim of this paper isto find out why these convergences or divergences occur. Two hypotheses are made to explain partisan positions: ideological and historical-cultural. The ideological hypothesis postulates that the position of the party towards the Common Foreign and Security Policy ofthe European Union will be defined by the political family it belongs to (e.g. socialists, conservatives etc.). The historical-cultural hypothesisis based on an assumption that political culture that was formed in the country throughout its historical development will have agreat impact on the party positioning, especially on the realm of foreign and security policy. Both of the hypotheses partly provide explanationfor the stance of parties. However, none of these hypotheses is able to produce complete explanation, leaving significant loopholes.Therefore, an attempt is made to combine them and present a joint approach that is able to explain why differences and similaritiesin parties positions towards the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union occur. Finally, it is possible to arguethat particular historical experience (and its interpretation) can be strong enough to drive positions of the major parties closer to eachother and even forge consensus on particular issues of foreign policy.

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