During the first three sessions, Professor René Leray will focus on the particular nature of the EU and will analyse how this nature may influence its role, its position and effectiveness in the main areas of its external action and international relations (trade, currency and finance, development aid; culture education and research; diplomacy, crisis management and military aspects).
Dirk Wouters will then address the following topics: the European Council (origin and role of the institution, procedure and functioning, assessment); EU external relations from the viewpoint of a practitioner; and, finally, the economic and financial crisis and the European Union's response to that crisis.
Raoul Delcorde's lectures will examine the various CFSP and CSDP arrangements, analysing specific cases: an example of successful diplomatic mediation (EU3+1 in negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme); the EU and multilateralism, taking into account the support given by the EU to the multilateral institutions. M. Delcorde will deal with the issue of the CETA crisis and its effects on the EU-Canada relationship; at the juncture of the EU trade policy and the transatlantic relation.
Finally, Ambassador Marc Otte will, in his classes, concentrate on the systemic crisis affecting not only the EU's neighbouring countries, but also the global context as a whole, and which might lead us to question the relevance of European internal and external policies (crisis of the economic model, climate, energy, refugees, natural resources), compared to the alternative models developed by the emerging powers, in a context, moreover, of increasing euroscepticism and populism. In such a context, how best to redefine the EU's security strategy, the External Action Service, the Neighbourhood Policy and development policy?
The aim of this course is to identify the characteristics, specificity, effectiveness and any weaknesses of the European Union as a new, unique player in international relations, both in general terms and with regard to the various specific aspects of its external action.
The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
Writen or oral examination.
Recommended reading:
« La norme sans la force » de Zaki Laïdi ; « Un monde d'ingérences » de Philippe Moreau-Defarges ; « The Future of Power » by Joseph Nye ; « Obstinate or Obsolete ? « The Fate of the Nation-State and the Case of Western Europe' by Stanley Hoffmann.
« The Foreign Policy of the European Union » by Stephan Keukeleire et Tom Delreux ; « The Lost Continent » by Gavin Hewitt ; « Policy-Making in the European Union » by Helen Wallace, Mark A. Pollack and Alasdair R.Young ; « Constitutional Principles of EU External Relations » by Geert De Baere ; and « The EU's Foreign Policy, what kind of power and diplomatic action? », by Mario Telo and Frederik Ponjaert.
« The European Union as a Diplomatic Actor », by Joachim Koops.
« World Order » by Henry Kissinger ; « The Revenge of Geography » by Robert Kaplan ; « Postwar : A History of Europe since 1945 » by Tony Judt ; and « Facts are subversive » by Thimoty Garton Ash.
