At the end of the current millenium the best description of Europe's relations with the developing countries of the South is: all change. Since 1957 the European Community has operated special policies for developing countries, many of which were formerly European colonies. However, neither the policies for Central and South America, the Lome Convention for the African, Caribbean and Pacific States, nor successive policies for the Mediterranean countries reflect a unified Europe. The European Union and the South begins by investigating the prospects for a common European foreign policy. It argues that Europe has developed a complex web of external relations, but no common foreign policy. In so far as the EU seeks a special world role to overcome its image as political dwarf, the role of champion or partner of the developing South has much to recommend it. This book presents an up-to-date, scholarly analysis of the foreign and development policy dilemmas facing Europe today. It will be essential reading for students of European external relations, development policy and international affairs.

This strategy-oriented analysis is based on an interdisciplinary approach, with clear emphasis on economic issues, such as global, EU-related and intra-regional trade, foreign direct investments, labour market, migration, and financial transfers

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of how the EU has performed in facilitating mediation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding across the globe.

This book provides a critical and updated analysis of the nature of the EU’s strategic partnership diplomacy, and of the partnerships themselves, in times of power shift and contestation. It links with key aspects of the EU’s Global Strategy; it brings together a strong list of experts who work within a clear framework for analysis; and it deals not only with the substance of the policy but also with the ways in which the policy as a whole has emerged, is conducted and might develop in the future. In offering an inclusive set of case studies and diverse perspectives, this book aims to advance both conceptualization and analysis of the implementation of the established EU partnerships. The book highlights the notion of strategic partnership as a foreign policy instrument to support EU external action in a context of multilevel change and crisis; its policy dimension as a gradually separated, but not separable policy within the Union’s external action; the institutional component given the emergence of SPs as a sort of self-preserving institutional platform allowing for denser and deeper cooperation in various policy areas; and the implications for the EU’s self-conception as an international actor with a global identity and role.

This comprehensive, up to date and theoretically informed text examines the full range of the European Union's external relations including the Common Foreign and Security Policy. It look at the increasingly important part the EU plays in global politics. The authors argue that the EU's significance cannot be grasped by making comparisons with traditional states. Issues covered include: · the status, coherence, consistency and roles of the EU as an actor, and what being an actor means in practice. · how the field of trade relations forms the basis of the EUs activities · the EU in global environmental diplomacy, North-South relations and in relation to the Mediterranean and East/Central Europe · the EUs controversial relationship to the Common Foreign and Security Policy and defence.

Up until now, mainstream studies have interpreted the EU's role in Africa as that of either a self-interested hegemonic actor, or a value-oriented normative power. Using fresh empirical evidence, including interviews with both European and African officials, Daniela Sicurelli challenges these views by analyzing European policies towards Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly focussing on peacekeeping, trade and development, and environmental protection.

Should the European Neighbourhood Policy stop at the borders of the European Union’s immediate neighbouring countries? This book is the first full length study of the ’neighbours of the EU’s neighbours’, a concept originally introduced by the European Commission with reference to Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. These regions in the EU’s broader neighbourhood are often perceived as an ’arc of crisis’ from which manifold challenges emanate for Europe. This timely book takes stock of the state of the EU’s cooperation with the neighbours of its neighbours and explores how the concept might help promote security, stability and prosperity beyond the countries which are formally part of the European Neighbourhood Policy. How can the EU create bridges between these regions? What instruments does the EU have at its disposal and how can it link them in order to respond to the challenges and overcome the current fragmentation? One of the conclusions is the suggestion to consider a pragmatic ’EU Strategy for the Neighbours of its Neighbours’ which addresses the needs of the broader EU neighbourhood in a more systematic and consistent manner and helps transform in the long run the ’arc of crisis’ into another ’ring of friends’.

Should Turkey become a part of the European Union? This heated debate has been going on for many years now, always under the assumption that it is the membership candidate alone who needs to adjust to the EU’s influence. The book’s main argument is precisely that the Turkish accession needs to be analyzed not only by looking at the EU’s impact on Turkish transformation but also from an angle that captures the Turkish role in recasting Europe.

Lying on the periphery of Europe, Russia, Turkey and Iran, the South Caucasus is receiving growing attention among decision-makers and scholars of international relations. It acts as a corridor for oil and gas imports whose stability has become part of European security itself. This volume reassesses security in the South Caucasus.

The European Union in the Twenty-First Century: Major Political, Economic and Security Policy Trends unpacks some of the most prominent issues faced by the EU over the last two decades and considers how they may shape its future, as well as the future of international politics.