Luxembourg - Foreign policy

The Juncker government has strongly endorsed the Maastricht Treaty's call for an EU common foreign and security policy. Luxembourg's armed forces are minimal. Nonetheless, it has endorsed the French-German effort to build a "Eurocorps," or nascent European army for the EU. Its support for the Eurocorps will be primarily through funding, rather than through supplying combat personnel. At the same time, Luxembourg remains a member of NATO, and allows other allies to maintain on its soil supply depots that would be of critical importance in time of conflict. Despite its small size, Luxembourg was among the few nations to send troops to the former Yugoslavia in the United Nations (UN) Protection Force. Although the EU remains at the core of Luxembourg's foreign policy, challenges to Luxembourg's influence in the EU are on the horizon. Ten new countries have been invited to join the EU in 2004, and voting procedures within the EU's governing institutions will likely change in order to prevent the organization from becoming unwieldy. Power may shift to the larger, more powerful, EU states. This could mean, for example, that the current practice of giving each country a veto over key decisions will be altered, a change that could adversely affect small states such as Luxembourg. As of 2003, maintaining Luxembourg's economic vitality and its political influence in EU councils was a primary task for the Juncker government.