ABSTRACT
The EU has long been described as an actor with substantial economic but limited political power (Twitchett 1976, 34). EU policy makers have also long attempted to increase the Union’s political influence on a global stage. When the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect in 2009, it marked a key step in this process of the EU’s political growth – both internally and externally. Part of a wider package of institutional reforms was the European External Action Service (EEAS), intended as a means for the EU to speak with one voice on a global stage (EEAS 2014a). With its external economic policy already deeply integrated, the EEAS focused on the political dimension of external relations, i.e. the integration of foreign policy. It sought to lay the foundation for developing a collective political role more attuned to the Union’s economic strength. Reviewing her performance after four years of building the EEAS, the EU’s foreign policy boss, Catherine Ashton, explained to the European Parliament in April 2014 that
In the speech, Ashton points to the evolution in building the EU’s ‘assets’, as she terms it, in multiple policy fields towards a ‘comprehensive approach’. Ashton is convinced that this approach also makes the EU the ‘partner of choice’ based on what is being ‘said across the world’. That Ashton’s opinion about the ‘new’ international role for the EU, through the EEAS, might be more on the optimistic side of the spectrum of opinions on the EEAS is reflected in the nature of her position as the one charged with establishing the service. Outsiders are often more sceptical. In contrast to Ashton’s assessment, key Kenyan cooperation partners of the EU described the EEAS as ‘an internal EU thing [that] we don’t even notice. It just does not matter’ (Author interview, July 2012). In particular as regards the Union’s aspiring political role, Ashton’s assessment of the EU as the ‘partner of choice’ has not necessarily permeated the thought of those the EU is to partner with. For instance, a senior official in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that ‘getting involved in political issues is out of tune’ for the EU. It ‘is not their business [ … ] political aspects should be left to the ambassadors of US, UK, Germany and so on’ (Author interview, March 2012). Clearly, differences between internal and external perceptions of an institution and its wider impact
appear frequently. Yet for the EU as a polity that has been struggling for decades to increase its political influence on a global stage, the way it is seen by ‘others’, what is ‘said about it’ and if it can be the ‘partner of choice’ is of especial importance.
