ABSTRACT
Coherence concerns the accommodation of difference towards a common good, the objectives laid down in Art 21 TEU. In legal terms, the coherence principle provides the constitutional context for the operation of fundamental legal principles governing the relations between Member States and EU institutions, and between institutions themselves, within the unifi ed-but-diverse EU as a legal institution. The coherence notion defi ned in Chapter 2 has thus been imbued with what was termed the ontological reality that there are different spheres of authority which have to fi nd terms of accommodation between one another. This reciprocal process towards the unity of the whole takes place at all three levels of coherence, both in legal and political terms. Chapters 3 and 4 then examined the key legal principles of EU external relations law for their contribution to the fi rst two levels of coherence previously defi ned: legal confl ict resolution and task-allocation. Those two chapters then set out an interpretation and orientation in line with the constitutional pluralist nature of the EU legal order, so that those principles that would in turn positively contribute to coherence as positive synergy.
