The EU: A Civilian Power’s Diplomatic Action after the Lisbon Treaty. Bridging Internal Complexity and International Convergence

Abstract

Is the post-Lisbon Treaty EU's foreign policy system fit to cope with the emergent multipolar world? This chapter will critically analyse the legal/institutional achievements (throughout the long revision process until the Lisbon Reform Treaty), arguing that each progress towards enhanced coherence was paradoxically increasing internal complexity, to some extent explaining the serious shortcomings of the EU's international performance of 2011 and 2012. However, quantitative/ qualitative indicators illustrate the EU's actual international influence, multiple contributions to regional and global governance and unprecedented civilian power. By the same token the hypothesis of an emerging more 'German EU' is thought of as a confirmation of previous trends rather than an inflexion. The second part of the chapter provides an analysis of the concrete ways ahead, as well as some implications for the EU's structural foreign policy and diplomatic action within a changing, heterogeneous and porous multipolar context.