Abstract
Over the past decade, the representation and performance of the European Union in international institutions in particular have been on the agenda of academics and practitioners alike.The widespread ‘representation battle’ about the issuing of statements in 2011 at the United Nations is emblematic. Several dozen EU statements in the UN were blocked for a couple of months over deep disagreement, not on content but on the mere symbolic issue of who ‘delivers’ the statement: ‘the EU’ or ‘the EU and its Member States’ in the United Nations. Internally, this issue was (only partly) solved by agreeing on a guideline for ‘general arrangements for EU statements’. The UN-representation saga is symptomatic of the difficulties that both EU and Member States actors experience more generally in international organizations and at international conferences.
Highlights
Over the past decade, the representation and performance of the European Union in international institutions in particular have been on the agenda of academics and practitioners alike.[1]
In the case of the EU–Singapore Agreement, on 21 December 2016 Advocate General (AG) Sharpston argued that the Agreement can only be concluded by the European Union and the Member States acting jointly.[4]
The political situation in the Council is clear, and we understand the need for proposing it as a “mixed” agreement, in order to allow for a speedy signature.’[5]
Summary
The representation and performance of the European Union in international institutions in particular have been on the agenda of academics and practitioners alike.[1]. Most EU external relations are not characterized by ‘exclusivity’ and the number of areas in which the EU can act without the Member States are limited.[9] A quick look at the international agreements concluded by the EU since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty reveals that the large majority of them are constructed as mixed agreements.[10] This implies that in most of its external relations, the EU and its Member States will have to find a way to work together, but they will have to explain to the rest of the world that in most cases the political hassle originates from legal complexities that are part and parcel of the EU’s set-up This multifaceted problem of political hassle around legal competences is still largely studied from single academic perspectives, leaving both academic disciplines with a number of unanswered questions. 12 Knud Erik Jørgensen and Ramses A Wessel, ‘The Position of the European Union in (Other) International Organizations: Confronting Legal and Political Approaches’ in Panos Koutrakos (ed), European Foreign Policy: Legal and Political Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2011), 261; Lisanne Groen and Arne Niemann, ‘The European Union at the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations: a Case of Contested EU Actorness and Effectiveness’ (2013) 27(3) IR 308, 320 and Sebastian Oberthür and Lisanne Groen, ‘The Effectiveness Dimension of the EU’s Performance in International Institutions: Towards a More Comprehensive Assessment Framework’ (2015) 53(6) JCMS 1319. 13 We use ‘international institutions’ rather than ‘international organizations’ so as to be able to include formal international organizations (such as the UN) and related processes such as the UNFCCC (the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a Treaty-based process with the Conference of the Parties as a formal Treaty-based body)
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