The EU as a ‘Strategic’ International Actor: Substantial and Analytical Ambiguities

The analysis attempts to evaluate the current ‘strategic’ political substance of European Union (EU) global policies and to answer the question of what kind of international actor the EU is. The study is based on the reading of comprehensive analyses of the respective ‘strategies’ embedded in inter-regional relations with Latin America, Africa, the Mediterranean, East Asia, and Central Asia as well as ‘strategic partnerships’ with India, Japan, China, Canada and Brazil – the partners that, according to the European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003, reaffirmed in 2008, are gaining increasing clout in shaping global governance.