The Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Abstract

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has been dealing with European integration for over fifty years and has, like the British government in general, demonstrated a mix of enthusiasm and suspicion regarding its evolution. Such a long and close involvement has inevitably had an impact upon the way the FCO operates, the way it sees the world, and how others perceive and work with it. This chapter will concentrate on the impact of European Union (EU) membership on the FCO and on its role in the making and implementation of British foreign policy. Specifically, we assess the extent to which these activities have been Europeanized.