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"This major new textbook for students in European law uses a text, cases and materials approach to explore the law, politics, policy and practice of EU external relations, and navigates the complex questions at the interface of these areas. The subject is explored by explaining major constitutional principles, and elaborating upon them in policy-specific chapters ranging from common commercial policy and development policy over CFSP/CSDP and AFSJ to energy and enlargement policy. Specific attention is given to the relationship between European integration, the role of law, and the EU as an effective international actor. Designed for easy navigation, chapters include key objectives, summaries and textboxes, which frame key issues and guide the reader through the functioning of legal principles. Students gain a detailed understanding of the historical development, context and present functioning of EU external relations law in a highly politicised European and international environment"--

"During the 1970s, the EU member states made fledgling attempts to coordinate their foreign policies in the form of intergovernmental structures called European Political Cooperation. These initial efforts towards integrating national foreign policies were of limited success, as was evident from the failure to respond effectively to the infamous hostage situation in Tehran, or the lacklustre European response to the USSR invasion of Afghanistan over Christmas 1979. This dynamic has continued in the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The first ever European Security Strategy of 2003 was drawn up after deep European disagreement over the Iraq war. The big bang-enlargement of May 2004 prompted the need for a novel policy that draws together EU and member state action to effectively deal with the EUs new neighbours: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).This book offers a thorough legal and policy examination of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as latest grand experiment in achieving coherent external relations for the Union. The book draws on legal and political scholarship to attain a definition of coherence in EU external relations. It argues that traditional definitions such as vertical or horizontal coherence are insufficient and sets out a new definition in order to more accurately capture the reality of EU external relations. The book goes on to look in depth at the ENP, arguing that the innovative nature of the ENP in regard to coherence lies beyond the narrowly defined legal sphere, but stems mostly from its hybrid composition of hard legal, soft legal and non-legal policy instruments"--

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a recent example of an external EU policy drawn up explicitly with the objective of achieving coherence in the external policies of the EU and its Member States. Positioning the ENP in the legal-historical context of political union, this book explains why coherence has become a substantive issue in EU external relations, and why law is integral to attaining the ever-enigmatic single voice of the European Union. The text examines the role of EU external relations law in attaining a coherent neighbourhood policy and goes on to undertake an in depth ana.

"The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a recent example of an external EU policy drawn up explicitly with the objective of achieving coherence in the external policies of the EU and its Member States. Positioning the ENP in the legal-historical context of political union, this book explains why coherence has become a substantive issue in EU external relations, and why law is integral to attaining the ever-enigmatic single voice of the European Union. The text examines the role of EU external relations law in attaining a coherent neighbourhood policy and goes on to undertake an in depth analysis of the ENP, arguing that the innovative nature of the ENP in regard to coherence lies beyond the narrowly defined legal sphere, and stems primarily from its hybrid composition of hard legal, soft legal and non-legal policy instruments. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach by integrating elements of law, history and political science, EU External Relations Law and the European Neighbourhood Policy is unique in its approach to the subject. This book will be of particular interest to academics and students of EU Law, Political Science, History and International Relations as well as to practitioners engaged in the process of drafting coherent external policy"--Provided by publisher

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, taxation of the financial sector has forcefully re-emerged on the European Union political agenda. One proposal – rightly or wrongly – received much political attention: a broad-based tax on financial transactions. What had for years existed as a utopia in the minds of grass roots movements, reached a legal and political milestone during Commission President Barosso's State of the Union speech on 28 September 2011. There he presented a proposal for an EU Directive on a financial transaction tax installed across the 27 EU Member States. It was then an explicit objective of the Union that it would lead by example, and that its pan-European implementation would prove the global feasibility of a financial transaction tax (FTT). The Cannes G-20 Meeting early November 2011 under French chairmanship was expected to launch the global dimension of the FTT, using the momentum created by the proposed EU FTT Directive two months earlier. However, the European sovereign debt crisis caused the EU to teeter on the brink of political, financial and economic collapse, and momentum for a global FTT seemed utterly lost. Nonetheless, political discussions within the Union continued, and at the time of writing – Spring 2012 – discussions in the Council were on-going for some form of pan-EU. The global implementation of the EU FTT Directive is a tale of divided political views between Member States of the Union, the pursuit of an elusive single voice in the G-20, and the use of legal instruments for political reasons. In this paper, it will serve as a case-study for the EU seeking to shape global financial governance in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, in line with its binding, law-oriented mission statement of Article 21 TEU. In light of this, this contribution investigates EU (im)potence to affect legal and institutional processes in global (financial) governance.

This article provides a legal perspective on the new European External Action Service (EEAS), and positions this new body in the reshuffled institutional balance of EU external relations. To that end, the paper examines the EEAS's legal nature as compared to that of Council, Commission, their support services and EU agencies, and seeks to define the EEAS's sui generis status in the EU institutional set-up. Some relevant questions are: What are the implications of its absence of legal personality, what does its "functional autonomy" from the Council and Commission imply, what are its formal powers - if any, and could the EEAS be drawn into proceedings before the Court of Justice? In answering those questions, this article then examines to what extent the legal-institutional choices on the structure of the EU External Action Service reflects the age-old tension entrenched in EU external relations law: the EU's nature as an internally diverse entity, which seeks to present a coherent Union voice to the world.

Abstract. On 20 May 2008, the Court of Justice handed down its long-awaited judgment in the Small Arms case (C-91/05). In a previous contribution in this review I have argued that from the perspective of the current post-Nice Treaty framework, the ECJ has rendered a judgment that is neither legally coherent nor conducive to dynamism in foreign policy conduct. It was concluded that the ECJ's bifurcated treatment of the two CFSP instruments at issue has failed to settle the dust that had been stirred up by this cross-pillar conflict. In this article it is argued that the Lisbon Treaty would rectify this situation by obsoleting the Court's interpretation of Article 47 TEU, and putting in place the legal equality of the Union's CFSP and its other external policies. This would erase the Court's hierarchical approach to the 'non-affectation clause', but maintain the Grand Chamber's construction that was arguably more conducive to finding the legal equilibrium between the CFSP and other EU external action such as development, while maintaining sufficient flexibility in formulating external policy.

Abstract. On 20 May 2008, the Court of Justice handed down its long–awaited judgment in the Small Arms case (C–91/05). Two issues are addressed in this initial essay. First, three different approaches to the relationship between the Community and the Union as captured in Article 47 TEU are proposed, and it is argued that an overly strict interpretation of the 'non–affectation clause' could render the CFSP nugatory, whereas an exceedingly unrestricted interpretation could open up an escape route from the legal principles applicable to the Member States in their relationship with the Community. Second, the court's judgment is assessed in the light of the various options and their underlying rationales. In the final paragraphs, the article concludes that the ECJ's approach to the two CFSP instruments before it is incongruent, and therefore does not settle the dust that had been stirred up by this cross–pillar conflict. Noting the importance of this case, this contribution is the opening part of a diptych. Whereas this article discusses the case in the context of the post–Nice Treaty framework, a follow–up contribution will assess the case's importance should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified.

On 20 May 2008, the Court of Justice handed down its long-awaited judgment in the Small Arms case (C-91/05). Two issues are addressed in this initial essay. First, three different approaches to the relationship between the Community and the Union as captured in Article 47 TEU are proposed, and it is argued that an overly strict interpretation of the 'non-affectation clause' could render the CFSP nugatory, whereas an exceedingly unrestricted interpretation could open up an escape route from the legal principles applicable to the Member States in their relationship with the Community. Second, the court's judgment is assessed in the light of the various options and their underlying rationales. In the final paragraphs, the article concludes that the ECJ's approach to the two CFSP instruments before it is incongruent, and therefore does not settle the dust that had been stirred up by this cross-pillar conflict. Noting the importance of this case, this contribution is the opening part of a diptych. Whereas this article discusses the case in the context of the post-Nice Treaty framework, a follow-up contribution will assess the case's importance should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified. Adapted from the source document.