European Union diplomacy in the light of the Union's leading aspirations in international relations

Abstract

This paper will examine European Union diplomacy in international affairs. A detailed analysis will be given to how the EU diplomatic role emerged. Several initiatives were taken in the early years of the establishment of the Community and relentless efforts were exerted among Member State to cooperate politically. However, failures did not stop the emergence of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy, which considered being the most concrete and significant achievement in the direction of institutionalizing EU diplomatic ambitions. Thus, the legal and political framework of the CFSP will be looked al in detail. Moreover, for a better understanding of EU diplomacy, one should examine the structures and mechanisms through which the EU exerts its diplomatic influence in international mutters. This paper will try to examine to what extent the EU succeeded in building such structures and mechanisms. Hence, Commission delegations will be looked at as well as the interaction between these delegations and other EU institutions and national embassies of Member States, and what reform is needed to these structures and mechanisms. The paper will analyse also the impact of Iraqi crisis on EU diplomacy. One can claim that the recent crisis affected to a great extent the transatlantic relations, and for some they even started to question the need for EU diplomacy at all. On the other hand, several voices were raised claiming that this is the right time for establishing EU diplomatic system. The draft Constitution of the RU proposed significant reforms in this direction, and if approved in the coming IGC in October 2003, the EU will be moving in the right direction of achieving such goal. The work will argue that such a move should not be viewed as confrontational to the US global, but rather a step in the direction of given the EU a more effective role in international relations.