The Emerging EU Diplomatic System: Opportunities and Challenges after ‘Lisbon’

Abstract:

Diplomacy is under constant pressure to adjust to the changing context in which foreign policy is made.

Although many scholars still associate diplomatic action with principles and rules that regulate relations among sovereign states operating in the area of high politics, current practice no longer fully corresponds with this
image.

The academic literature points to a variety of transformations that have taken place in recent decades. These include the widening scope of diplomacy to new policy issues; the erosion of the distinction between foreign and domestic policy areas; and the increasing diversity in diplomatic players, with a growing role for non-state actors such as transnational corporations, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and multilateral and regional organizations.

Within this last group, the European Union is undoubtedly the player that has gone the furthest in developing a new layer of ‘supranational’ diplomacy alongside national
foreign policies.