Structural Principles and their Role in EU External Relations Law

This book delves into the integration of sustainability within the European Union’s external activities, emphasizing the necessity to weave 'sustainability' throughout its relations with third states and international organizations. Unique in its approach, this collective work brings together a diverse range of experts, each contributing a chapter that explores different facets of sustainability in the context of the EU’s increasing external actions. The pressing demands for sustainable development, as outlined in the EU Treaties—specifically Articles 3(5) and 21 of the TEU and Articles 11 and 191 of the TFEU—are examined through a compilation of theoretical analyses, legal dogmatic approaches, and detailed case studies. These contributions aim to offer a cohesive understanding of the legal implications and strategies for embedding sustainability into the EU’s external engagements, providing a multidisciplinary perspective on a critical global issue.Furthermore, the book critically examines how sustainability is operationalized within various EU external policies, providing readers with a deep dive into the mechanisms and outcomes of such integration. It addresses the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the EU in maintaining its commitment to sustainability, making it a timely contribution to the discourse on global environmental policy and governance. Designed for scholars, legal practitioners, policymakers, and students interested in European Union law, sustainability, and external relations, this collective work serves as an essential resource. It offers a nuanced perspective on the complexities of legal frameworks that govern the EU’s sustainable external actions and their significant impact on global environmental governance.

This Chapter examines the relationship between European Union (EU) external relations law, sustainability, and the role of China in advancing global sustainable development goals. The Chapter analyzes the EU’s approach to engaging China in its external relations and explores the potential for collaboration on sustainability issues. Additionally, it identifies key challenges and opportunities in the EU-China relationship concerning sustainability, offering insights into the legal and policy dimensions. By focusing on the specific dynamics between the EU and China, this chapter contributes to the academic discourse on EU external relations law. The main findings highlight the potential of EU-China collaboration on sustainability while emphasizing the need to strengthen the legal framework, address geopolitical tensions, enhance climate change cooperation, promote regulatory convergence, and balance economic and environmental interests for a more sustainable relationship.

This volume investigates the recent institutional and substantive developments in EU external relations law and practice in this context of multiple crises for the EU. The economic and financial crisis has a major impact on EU external ...

The joint participation of the EU and its Member States in an international agreement blurs the extent of the rights and obligations governed by the agreement. The use of this mixed formula can create situations of uncertainty for third parties since it avoids the question of the division of competence between the EU and its Member States in matters governed by the mixed agreement. The desire of third parties to a mixed agreement to know the scope of the competence and the responsibility of the EU and its Member States has been the driving force behind a specific treaty-making practice developed by the EU in the framework of multilateral agreements. Within these multilateral conventions, third parties want to know beforehand who is voting (to avoid a double exercise of voting rights); who is implementing (to ensure compliance); and, more importantly; who is responsible for a breach of the agreement (even before an internationally wrongful act has been committed): the EU and/or its Member States? In response to these concerns, the EU makes a declaration when concluding the mixed agreement delimiting the extent to which the international agreement falls within EU competence. In other words, declarations of competence are an attempt to apportion responsibilities within a multilateral agreement based on who has competence (the EU and/or its Member States) over issues covered by specific provisions of the multilateral agreement.

Book Review: <i>EU External Relations Law and Policy in the Post-Lisbon Era</i>, edited by Paul James Cardwell. (The Hague: TMC Asser Press, 2012)

EU External Relations Law and Navigating the Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

This chapter explores the nature of EU foreign policy and external relations. Like much of EU foreign policy literature, the analysis springs from the premise that there is something fairly distinctive about the way the EU conducts its external relations. But it departs from much of that literature in eschewing any claim that the EU is in some way more virtuous than other international actors, or that it is motivated mainly by values, principles, or norms, rather than by its own interests. The analysis focuses on the EU's governance mode of foreign policy, namely its tendency to act collectively rather than unilaterally, and to establish and institutionalize stable external governance systems on a wide range of issue areas. The first part of the chapter explains the meaning of governance mode of foreign policy. The second part outlines the evolution of the EU's external role. The third part sets out a number of examples of the EU's governance mode of external relations. The final part raises a number of questions about the impact of the governance mode in international relations.

The article reviews the legal significance of the European Union’s quest for “strategic autonomy” in its external relations. First the political origin of the term is recapped and a legal definition proposed: “Striving for multilateral solutions, while being able to take lawful action alone to safeguard the Union’s values, fundamental interests, security, independence and integrity!” Second, the application thereof in the EU’s common commercial policy is reviewed. In particular, the recent EU legislative initiatives that combat economic distortions on the one hand are distinguished from the pieces of EU legislation that foster EU values worldwide on the other hand. Third, the Common Foreign and Security Policy is considered. It is shown how the EU’s reaction in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to an unprecedented array of use of available instruments (European Peace Facility, ten sanctions packages, support for Ukraine for its legal cases against Russia). The conclusion identifies a new defining moment for the European project through a remarkable legal push from intergovernmental to integrationist conduct in its external relations in the 2020s. strategic autonomy, external relations law, common commercial policy, CFSP, European Peace Facility

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay the foundation for the integrated governance of sustainable development, envisaging the optimal balance between the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability. However, a vital condition for improving the overall governance of sustainable development, is that these aspects are mainstreamed uniformly into all international agreements related to sustainable development. This article seeks to shed light on the following research question: how core principles and priorities of a universally endorsed act of an international organization with considerable environmental implications – the UN Resolution adopting the SDGs – interact with and influence the scope of a primary implementing means of EU external relations law with strong environmental footprint, the EU bilateral trade agreements with third countries. Drawing methodologically on the examination of a specific EU trade regime that of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EUJEPA), it explores the inextricable interlinkages and coherence between environmental SDGs and core provisions enshrined in EUJEPA. More specifically, it investigates the way in which key environmental SDGs, legally founded on international environmental agreements, are integrated in the regulatory framework of EUJEPA governing the relationship between trade and sustainable development. The article concludes that the trade relations between the EU and Japan, as reflected in legal terms in EUJEPA, contribute to achieving crucial environmental SDGs and fundamental objectives of international environmental agreements. Thus, it highlights the instrumental role of modern EU bilateral trade agreements in promoting, in consistency with the SDGs, environmental protection and sustainable management of biodiversity, forestry and fishery resources.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsAnne WetzelFabienne Bossuyt is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University in Belgium. Her research focuses on the EU's external relations and policies, with a particular focus on the soft dimension of the EU's external action, including trade policy and democracy promotion. Email: Fabienne.Bossuyt@UGent.beJan OrbieJan Orbie is a professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Centre for EU Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. He researches the EU's external relations, in particular trade and development policies. Email: Jan.Orbie@UGent.beFabienne BossuytAnne Wetzel is a post-doctoral fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Germany. Her research interests include international relations and democracy promotion, the EU's relationship with Eastern neighbours and the EU in international organizations. Email: Anne.Wetzel@mzes.uni-mannheim.de

ABSTRACTThis paper demonstrates the merits of governmentality as a tool for studying EU external relations. Existing research tends to fall into the trap of reifying the dichotomy between realist and ideational conceptions of EU external action. Governmentality can serve as a hybrid between these two strands of research, incorporating the preoccupancy with power of the former with the ethical considerations of the latter. It can open up our understanding of power operating in and through the EU’s external relations, by looking at the discursive constructions rendering issues governable and the micro-political practices that follow from it. We provide an overview of existing applications of governmentality in EU external relations and construct a framework allowing researchers to use governmentality to its full analytical potential.

The European Union is facing the worst existential crisis in its history. At the same time, it is confronted with old and new challenges in its environment that call for joint action. But how do matters stand with the EU's capacity to act? Does the EU manage to effectively combine the different components of its external relations - such as trade, development aid, and security policy - better than it did in the past? How is the EU's external action determined by the internal socio-economic and political crises in its member states? These questions and more are answered in Global Europe in the context of the current impasse in the integration process. A clear analysis of the history of the EU's external relations up to now provides us with a better insight into the feasibility of EU strategies directed at the outside world.

The process of European integration has led to the creation of numerous external actions at the Union level, and these should now be brought together to reinforce the coherence of EU foreign affairs. The attainment of coherence finds an apparently insurmountable obstacle in the delimitation of the powers conferred on EU institutions, since a rigid separation of the powers of Union bodies hinders the generation of positive connections among EU policies. The Lisbon Treaty sought to increase coherence in foreign affairs in part by creating the European External Action Service. This chapter examines the EEAS’s mandate and responsibilities in order to elucidate the interplay of coherence and conferred powers in external relations law. The first part of the analysis investigates the EEAS mandate, showing that the Treaties require the Service to coordinate external relations in order to ensure coherence. The second part examines the nature of this coordination, focusing on the technique legislators used to enable the EEAS to have a role in the implementation of development aid. Legislators identified the EEAS’s responsibilities by balancing the principle of the coherence of external action against the delimitation of conferred powers, with a view to fostering synergy in foreign affairs. It is argued that a similar approach can also be adopted in other areas where the EEAS brings added value as a coordinator, and in particular in the area of crisis response. An enlargement of the EEAS’s responsibilities is politically difficult, but it may be simplified by an amendment of the Treaties (where the mandate of the Service is spelled out), in such a way as to reinforce the Service’s legitimacy and effectiveness as a foreign-policy coordinator.

Dendritic arbors of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) collect information over a certain area of the visual scene. The coverage territory and the arbor density of dendrites determine what fraction of the visual field is sampled by a single cell and at what resolution. However, it is not clear whether visual stimulation is required for the establishment of branching patterns of RGCs, and whether a general principle directs the dendritic patterning of diverse RGCs. By analyzing the geometric structures of RGC dendrites, we found that dendritic arbors of RGCs underwent a substantial spatial rearrangement after eye-opening. Light deprivation blocked both the dendritic growth and the branch patterning, suggesting that visual stimulation is required for the acquisition of specific branching patterns of RGCs. We further showed that vision-dependent dendritic growth and arbor refinement occurred mainly in the middle portion of the dendritic tree. This nonproportional growth and selective refinement suggest that the late-stage dendritic development of RGCs is not a passive stretching with the growth of eyes, but rather an active process of selective growth/elimination of dendritic arbors of RGCs driven by visual activity. Finally, our data showed that there was a power law relationship between the coverage territory and dendritic arbor density of RGCs on a cell-by-cell basis. RGCs were systematically less dense when they cover larger territories regardless of their cell type, retinal location, or developmental stage. These results suggest that a general structural design principle directs the vision-dependent patterning of RGC dendrites.

The Lisbon Treaty has fundamentally revised the external relations of the EU in pursuit of more visibility, coherence and consistency. The EU is, for instance, given a single legal personality, the pillar structure is (formally) abolished, new functions are created to reinforce its external representation and external policies appear to be streamlined. But is there more to it than meets the eye? A critical legal assessment is given of the major Treaty modifications relating to the EU external relations whilst addressing two underlying issues. First it is questioned whether the Member States have really given up their traditional reluctance to share fully the international scene with the EU. It is argued that the Lisbon Treaty in fact means to redress the balance in favour of intergovernmentalism under CFSP. A second crucial and related issue links to the silent dialogue with the CJEU to be discerned in the Lisbon Treaty. It wavers between the codification of important case law, such as Kadi, and attempts at containing or even reversing case law which was more prejudicial to the Member States’ interests, such as the Ecowas judgment. In so doing the Lisbon Treaty again raises interesting yet complex legal questions which will most likely necessitate further clarification through case law.