The EU External Action and the “Global”. Using the “Global” to Strengthen EU Competences in External Action

The EU external or foreign policy has gone through various stages in how it was perceived both by policy makers and EU-scholars: after having been considered as the least internationalized or supranationalized policy domain, EU external action has developed in the 2000s, thus triggering renewed scientific enthusiasm for foreign-related EU competences.  The EU External Action has since then been under the scrutiny of political scientists and sociologists, eager to give endogenous explanations for EU external action’s developments and/or limits. They have underlined the specificity of the EU’s international competences and action compared both to national foreign policies and to international organizations.

This paper explores the paradoxical link between the (constrained) development of EU external action and its framing within “global” co-operative frameworks. Relying on sociological approaches of EU integration and public policy analysis, it analyses the political and managerial uses of “the global” in developing EU competences, based on the comparison of two different policy areas within external action. Cooperation on migration policies and armament cooperation, two very different fields of the EU’s external action, both raise similar questions:  are global actors, international organizations “threats” to the EU affirming its distinctive role in external affairs? Or are they a resource for EU actors? And how do EU actors navigate global constraints and resources? In both instances, we show that, paradoxically, EU actors have used the polysemy of the “global” as a way to legitimize the development of their own competences.