ABSTRACT
Securing Implementation The adoption of the Strategy by the December 2003 European Council was a major step for EU external action, a step which before the Iraq crisis seemed unimaginable. The challenge now is to put this breakthrough to value and to effectively implement the Strategy’s comprehensive approach, or as the European Council worded it, ‘to draw all the consequences of those strategic orientations and to mainstream them into all relevant European policies’. The Strategy has clearly been based on trends in existing EU policies and practices – now it has to be translated back into practice again.
