tailieunhanh - Britain’s policies towards the EU: Integration or foreign policy theories?

This article investigates the effects of both the viewpoints on the practice of certain diplomatic jobs by the UK’s goverments towards the EU from 1972 to 2016 and the research works by scholars in the world on this relationship | BRITAIN’S POLICIES TOWARDS THE EU: INTEGRATION OR FOREIGN POLICY THEORIES? Chu Thanh Van* Faculty of English, VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Pham Van Dong, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 27 July 2018 Revised 26 September 2018; Accepted 28 September 2018 Abstract: Together with Brexit has come not only the official spliting of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) but also the question whether scholars and diplomatic officials should approach the relationship between the two partners of the UK and the EU from Integration Theory or Theory of Foreign Policy? This article investigates the effects of both the viewpoints on the practice of certain diplomatic jobs by the UK’s goverments towards the EU from 1972 to 2016 and the research works by scholars in the world on this relationship. Keywords: the UK, the EU, Integration Theory, Theory of Foreign Policy, Brexit On the 21st, June, 2016, the UK’s people gathered together in one of the most important referendums of the history of international relations to vote for or against the exit from the EU, in which the country has been a member since 1972. The referendum results announced later officially marked the victory of the Brexit movement, taking Britain out of the EU, despite all the efforts of the former Prime Minister David Cameron, creating shocks to all the international circles of scholars and diplomatic officials. 1. The process of the UK’s joining and integrating into the EU 1 up by the six countries of France, Germany, Italia, Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands “to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace”1. In 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC), or “Common Market”, was established. Later, the Maastricht Treaty (1992) combined all the three communities of ECSC, European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and EEC (or EC since 1993) into one institution named European Union (EU) (Tran Thi Vinh, 2011). “The EU did not