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AbstractWe examine how the EU can act as a great power in its own right even in the absence of military capability and how its institutional structure conditions this ability. We first theorize EU great power politics. Based on theories of corporate action, the EU constitutes a strong market power in its own right and a weak security power. While it is institutionally ill‐equipped to purposefully mobilize its market power to pursue high‐politics goals, its communitarized external relations may inadvertently challenge important security interests of other great powers. Second, we show that the EU acted as an inadvertent great power vis‐à‐vis Russia in its Ukraine policy which was primarily driven by the supranational decision‐making apparatus and low‐politics considerations, but engendered a bipolar power struggle with Russia over Ukraine. The risks inherent in EU inadvertent great power politics are deeply engrained in the EU's institutional structure and therefore difficult to mitigate.

The Azores archipelago is considered to be an ultraperipheral region of European Union, because some of the characteristics of their development, and some specific politics were applied in these regions. A specific European development program, Azores Rural Development Plan – PRORURAL – for 2007 to 2013, is supported by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and is ongoing at this moment in Azores Archipelago. The objective of this paper is to characterize the type of agriculture curried out in the Azores Region. It starts by a small introduction of the Azores according to the Statistical National Institute (INE) and its brunch SREA – Statistics of Azorean Region - and finally by the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) Then it characterizes the agricultural farms and finally, it shows some relevant researches about Azorean farms, namely; (1) a classification of the Azorean farms and the type of objectives that can influence the decisionmaking of the Azoreans' farmers (2) the efficiency of dairy farms and (3) the analysis of the impact in the incomes' farmers. In the Azores, agriculture is based on dairy cattle productions and the remainder agricultural productions are residual. The Azores' islands produce mainly cow's milk (in 2010 it represented 30% of Portuguese milk production), but also beef. And there products comes from quite different production systems ranging from extensive to intensive grazing systems. The average agricultural area per farm is small (8.5 hectares) and the efficiency of the dairy farms is relatively low due in part to equipment amortization and is highly dependent of subsidies and - farms will not be economically sustainable if the subsidies were eliminated.

This article considers some salient theoretical contributions which bear upon our understanding of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) of the European Union (EU). It outlines the fundamental dilemma highlighted in game theory known as 'the tragedy of the commons' and goes on to examine whether the CFP can be construed as a 'policy fiasco'. The article considers how the fisheries of the EU could be more effectively managed and underlines the urgent need for international collective action. With the mismatch between the CFP and the scale of the problem it is intended to address firmly in sight, the article concludes with an evaluation and some policy suggestions.

In the European Green Deal, the European Commission expressed its will to build alliances with European Union's (EU) partners who have a similar approach to environmental protection. The first green alliance was concluded by the EU with Japan on 27 May 2021. The aim of the paper is to analyse the content and nature of this alliance and to assess its potential effectiveness as an instrument for the implementation of the European Green Deal and its possible impact on international relations and respectively EU, national, and international legal norms in the field of the environment. As shown in this study, the first green alliance is not a model solution. On the one hand, this instrument requires a formal correction (involving Member States and relevant EU institutions in adopting any amendments in line with the principles of division of competences between the EU and its Member States and institutional balance, clarification of the nature of obligations), on the other hand, it is deeply embedded in the unique international legal framework of EU-Japanese relations. However, the first green alliance has great potential to influence the EU's relations with other third countries and the content of the resulting legal norms at various levels.

What role do firms play in the making of EU trade policy? This article surveys the policy domain and lays out the instruments firms can employ to influence decisions on trade. It underlines that European trade policy is characterized by a high degree of institutional complexity, which firms have to manage in order to be successful. In particular, the European Commission works intensively to solicit business input in order to gain bargaining leverage vis-à-vis third countries and the EU member states. This reverse lobbying creates a two-channel logic of trade policy lobbying in the EU. Corporate actors have a very good chance of working closely with the European Commission if they can propose pan-European trade policy solutions. This can be either trade liberalization or EU-wide regulatory restrictions on trade. Demands for traditional protectionist measures, especially those that reveal national interest divergences, are difficult to defend at the supranational level. Protectionist lobbying therefore goes through the national route, with corporate actors working to block liberalization by affecting the consensus in the Council of Ministers. The chapter illustrates this two-channel logic by studying business-government interactions in agricultural trade, textiles and clothing, financial services, and telecommunication services.

What role do firms play in the making of EU trade policy? This article surveys the policy domain and lays out the instruments firms can employ to influence decisions on trade. It underlines that European trade policy is characterized by a high degree of institutional complexity, which firms have to manage in order to be successful. In particular, the European Commission works intensively to solicit business input in order to gain bargaining leverage vis-à-vis third countries and the EU member states. This reverse lobbying creates a two-channel logic of trade policy lobbying in the EU. Corporate actors have a very good chance of working closely with the European Commission if they can propose pan-European trade policy solutions. This can be either trade liberalization or EU-wide regulatory restrictions on trade. Demands for traditional protectionist measures, especially those that reveal national interest divergences, are difficult to defend at the supranational level. Protectionist lobbying therefore goes through the national route, with corporate actors working to block liberalization by affecting the consensus in the Council of Ministers. The chapter illustrates this two-channel logic by studying business-government interactions in agricultural trade, textiles and clothing, financial services, and telecommunication services.

As an emerging federal system, the European Union (EU) divides decision-making powers between multiple levels of government. Yet little is known about how EU citizens attribute responsibility to the EU. In particular, do people hold the EU, rather than national governments, responsible for different policy outcomes, some of which are primarily decided at the EU level? This article investigates the extent to which institutional differences and individual biases influence citizens' attribution of responsibility in the EU. We rely on unique survey data collected in all 27 EU member states to explore how citizens attribute responsibility across five different policy areas. Using a multilevel model of responsibility judgments, our findings show that while citizens' evaluations correspond to the institutional context, group-serving biases, related to support for the EU, have a more important role in shaping attributions of responsibility in the EU.