The European Union and International Order: European and Global Dimensions

This article explores the ambiguous nature of the EU’s relationship to international order and places it within the framework of recent scholarship on the EU’s international relations and international roles. These ideas are explored and illustrated by reference to three levels of the EU’s engagement with international order: the ‘EU order’, the EU in the European order and the EU in the global order. The article argues that in respect of the first of these (the EU order), the stalling of EU reform symbolized by the rejection of the Constitutional treaty has raised major questions about the EU’s capacity to export its values and institutions and to mobilize resources for collective action. In respect of the second (the EU in the European order), the EU has internalized major parts of the broader European order, and this raises questions about its exercise of structural power within the European arena and the neighbourhood. In respect of the third (the EU in the global order), the EU is increasingly encountering the costs and risks associated with the conduct of a ‘real’ foreign policy, and this will constitute a key constraining element in its approach to problems of global order for the foreseeable future.

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