Uploaded April 2017 | Updated September 2026, 55 minutes ago
Dr Wendelin Ettmayer, veteran Austrian diplomat and politician, former Ambassador to Finland, Estonia, Canada, and the Council of Europe, talks to DOC TV about the EU as a European diplomatic revolution.
Dr Ettmayer argues that, for 1,000 years the foreign policy goal of each European country was to increase the power of the state and monarch through Realpolitik, raison d’etat, and war – built around the principles of absolute state sovereignty and non-interference.
However, he notes, the founding of the Council of Europe in 1949 fundamentally changed the goals and means and legitimacy of foreign policy. Since then it has been focused not on state interests but people’s welfare and common values: human rights, rule of law.
He contrasts this with the fact that US foreign policy in this period has not undergone any similar transformation – it remains focused on increasing the power of the state through Realpolitik and the use of military force.
Since the end of the Cold War, Dr Ettmayer argues, NATO become an instrument of power politics.
Dr Wendelin Ettmayer, veteran Austrian diplomat and politician, former Ambassador to Finland, Estonia, Canada, and the Council of Europe, talks to DOC TV about the EU as a European diplomatic revolution.
Dr Ettmayer argues that, for 1,000 years the foreign policy goal of each European country was to increase the power of the state and monarch through Realpolitik, raison d’etat, and war – built around the principles of absolute state sovereignty and non-interference.
However, he notes, the founding of the Council of Europe in 1949 fundamentally changed the goals and means and legitimacy of foreign policy. Since then it has been focused not on state interests but people’s welfare and common values: human rights, rule of law.
He contrasts this with the fact that US foreign policy in this period has not undergone any similar transformation – it remains focused on increasing the power of the state through Realpolitik and the use of military force.
Since the end of the Cold War, Dr Ettmayer argues, NATO become an instrument of power politics.
