Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion and the other is labelled as Reason:

Assertion: In many areas, the member states of the European Union have their own foreign relations and defence policies that are often at odds with each other.

Reason: There is also a deep-seated ‘Euroskepticism’ in some part of Europe about the EU’s integrationist agenda.

Both the Assertion and the Reason are correct but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion.

The correct answer is Option 2 - Both the Assertion and the Reason are correct but the Reason is not the correct explanation of the Assertion.

Assertion: In many areas, the member states of the European Union have their own foreign relations and defence policies that are often at odds with each other. (correct)

Reason: There is also a deep-seated ‘Euroskepticism’ in some part of Europe about the EU’s integrationist agenda. (correct)

More about the European Union:

The EU has economic, political and diplomatic, and military influence. The European Union’s GDP is projected to be approximately $19.35 trillion in the year 2024. Its currency, the euro, can pose a threat to the dominance of the US dollar. Its share of world trade is much larger than that of the United States allowing it to be more assertive in trade disputes with the US and China. Its economic power gives it influence over its closest neighbours as well as in Asia and Africa. It also functions as an important bloc in international economic organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The EU also has political and diplomatic influence. One member of the EU, France, holds permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The EU includes several nonpermanent members of the UNSC. This has enabled the EU to influence some US policies such as the current US position on Iran’s nuclear programme. Its use of diplomacy, economic investments, and negotiations rather than coercion and military force has been effective as in the case of its dialogue with China on human rights and environmental degradation.

Militarily, the EU’s combined armed forces are the second largest in the world. Its total spending on defence is second after the US. One EU member state, France, also has nuclear arsenals of approximately 335 nuclear warheads. It is also the world’s second most important source of space and communications technology.

As a supranational organisation, the EU is able to intervene in economic, political and social areas. But in many areas its member states have their own foreign relations and defence policies that are often at odds with each other. Thus, Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair was America’s partner in the Iraq invasion, and many of the EU’s newer members made up the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ whereas Germany and France opposed American policy. There is also a deep-seated ‘Euroskepticism’ in some parts of Europe about the EU’s integrationist agenda. Thus, for example, Britain’s former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, kept the UK out of the European Market. Denmark and Sweden have resisted the Maastricht Treaty and the adoption of the euro, the common European currency. This limits the ability of the EU to act in matters of foreign relations and defence.