Speaking with One Voice: Statements and Declarations as an Instrument of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy

Speaking with one voice can be considered the centre of the European Union's (EU's) aspirations for a more visible role as a global actor, including the development of numerous ways for expressing this voice within the realm of the international community. To the wider public, the most visible and accessible instruments are the declarations and presidency statements, which are somehow not sufficiently dealt with in contemporary scientific work. This article deals with the various types of declarations in use before the Lisbon Treaty and analyses the declarations published between January 2005 and the end of June 2009. The findings point to the possible use of such tools from two points of view: from the EU perspective and from academics' attempts to explain the role of the EU in the international community.