Understanding the European Union’s external relations

Abstract:

The EU represents one of the world's largest economies and in trade terms is increasingly speaking with one voice in the international negotiations at WTO. Yet it remains a 'co-operative of member states' and lacks the kind of centralised authority that traditional nation-states usually possess. This is less so in policies that are covered directly by the EC Treaty - Pillar I - where the EU institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament play an important role. However policies under Pillars II and III - foreign and security policies, and justice and home affairs - have remained firmly intergovernmental. The three major parts of this work address co-operation and fragmentation within the EU, the challenges of multiple-levels and areas, and the relevance of EU policies for the rest of the world.

The first part comprises three contributions mainly addressed to theoretical issues - defence co-operation, understanding common defence and security institutions and formal foreign economic policy institutions in Europe. Part two looks at the consequences of fragmented policy making processes and features discussion of the technology gap between the EU and the US, the tough political declarations of the European governments contrasted with the empty shell of the EU economic sanctions, and the various obstacles in the early association negotiations between the EU and Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. EU opportunities to promote European ideas are the substance of the third part and range over the ideas such as the EU economic co-operation is an attempt to export European values through 'soft diplomacy', the influence of EU policies on the US and Canadian regulatory standards, the export of EU policy models that target transnational crime and influence national police and law-enforcement systems outside the EU, and the EU influence in world fishery controversies. The final chapter draws on the earlier contributions to concentrate on the central issue - understanding the EU's external relations.

The work will interest scholars, students, policy makers and practitioners in the fields of European studies, comparative politics and international relations.

Michèle Knodt is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim.

Sebastiaan Princen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Utrecht School of Governance, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.