Reporting and Representation: Intra-EU Diplomacy and Dutch Bilateral Embassies

Abstract:

Embassies of the Netherlands within the European Union operate in another political and diplomatic environment than Dutch embassies in other parts of the world. There is a lack of comprehensive studies on the change dynamics of bilateral diplomacy within the EU.

This article aims to contribute to the study of intra-EU diplomacy by looking at one of the key tasks of embassies abroad, namely reporting back to the capital. An analysis of the addressees, the type of reporting, and the interlocutors of embassy staff across Europe, reveals characteristics of the work of representations in a ‘post-Westphalian’ order.

The results show that the diplomatic environment of Dutch bilateral embassies within the European Union does in several important ways indeed differ from that of Dutch embassies outside the Union.