ABSTRACT
With the division of the Continent into two camps, following World War II, Western Europe formed a distinct regional system in world politics. Over time, the EC became the focus of collective diplomacy by the member states and other actors in the international system. One hundred and forty countries have diplomatic missions in Brussels and are accredited to the Community. The EC’s diplomatic identity is moulded by the external competences of the Rome Treaty, on the one hand, and the system of foreign policy cooperation (EPC), on the other. These form the twin pillars of the EC’s role in the world. At the outset, the member states were loath to give the EC a competence with regard to traditional foreign policy, an area of ‘high politics’, but granted the EC powers in relation to ‘low policy’ issues in the economic sphere. Even then, the member states transferred competence in an niggardly manner by establishing numerous committees to oversee the Commission in its conduct of the EC’s external relations.
