The EU As Norm Entrepreneur. the Cases of Delegated and Triangular Cooperation

The current article questions and updates the way of looking at the European Union as a normative actor. It does so by analysing how the norm entrepreneur and the norm interpreter interact, highlighting the limitations of previous research in recognising the agency of the norm interpreter and the complex interactions between the two actors. Triangular and delegated cooperation are analysed as normative responses of the European Union to the Latin American leadership in developing and spreading projects in the region using a South – South cooperation approach. Interregionalism and international cooperation used to be analysed by scholars as being the exclusive normative entrepreneurship space of the EU. With the proliferation of the South – South cooperation initiatives and with the consolidation of the Latin American normative position on international cooperation and regional integration, the European Union enters a new phase of its dialogue with the region. That is, a more horizontal dialogue, between peers. Thus, the study opens a space of analysis in which norm entrepreneurship is part of both the EU desire to diffuse its norms and of its need to adapt to a new international context. Norm entrepreneurship becomes also a reaction to norm subsidiarity and makes it imperative for the European Union to use new norms if it is to keep its normative identity. We are witnessing a shift from a world in which the EU diffuses norms to other actors and regions, to a world in which the EU norms are perceived, interpreted and challenged.