The institutional challenges and paradoxes of EU governance in external trade: coping with the posthegemonic trading system and the global economy in The Union and the World: the political economy of a Common European Foreign Policy, p211-32

The Union and the World: The political economy of a common European foreign policy:
The EU has a world role, both in a political and an economic sense. In the areas of trade and commerce the Union speaks increasingly with one voice. The embryonic mechanisms of a common foreign policy, first outlined as European Political Co-operation (EPC) are now evolving in a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Nevertheless, the EU's stature in international affairs is clearly handicapped by the inability or unwillingness of the Member States to establish a common foreign policy.

The contributors to this book describe and evaluate the nature and extent to which the European Union plays an independent role in international affairs, looking at the EU's foreign economic policies and actions, foreign security policy and the supranational nature of much Union decision-making.

The book is divided into five parts. Part I describes the evolution and contemporary functions of the key foreign policy actors - the Commission, the Court and the WEU - and considers the role of EU foreign policy within Europe's changing constitutional order. Part II discusses the Union's policy with respect to the most important issues of contemporary European international affairs: enlargement to the East, the war in former Yugoslavia, refugees and citizenship, and the Maghreb. Part III shifts the focus to economic and monetary issues and Part IV discusses the impact of the communitarian foreign policy with reference to several key industries and sectors such as the car industry, energy, agriculture and telecommunications. Part V comprises a conclusion.

Cafruny, Alan/Peters, Patrick (eds)
The Union and the World: The political economy of a common European foreign policy
Kluwer Law International, 1998
ISBN: 90-411-0500-X
Price: £71.50