Cox-Kwasniewski Mission As a Manifestation of Parliamentary Mediation: Wind of Change in the EP Role in the Foreign Policy?

The article examines the institutional and political interdependences between the European Parliament, the European External Action Service and the European Commission as well as between the Member States, which constitute the background of the launching of the Cox-Kwasniewski mission in Ukraine initiated in 2011 by the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. By analyzing the origins, course and results of the mission, the analysis aims at shedding some light on divergent interests towards Ukraine resulting from respective European institutions and by the Member States before the Vilnius summit. The article claims that Cox-Kwasniewski monitoring mission, as a formalized ‘second-track’ diplomacy, could constitute a new tool of transnational diplomacy that might complement the European Foreign Policy at the intergovernmental and supranational level. Moreover, the analysis deals with the question of legitimization of such missions and with their place within already very complex EU foreign policy apparatus.