ABSTRACT
For over 15 years, the European Union Special Representatives (EUSRs) have been part of the European Union's (EU) arsenal of foreign policy instruments. They are a very visible expression of the EU's capability to act and to coordinate - the Union's ‘face and voice’ (EU Council Secretariat 2005: 1) in crisis regions from the African Great Lakes to the Middle East and from the Balkans to Central Asia. Today, the EU has deployed 10 EUSRs to nearly two dozen countries that are of great concern to its broader security interests. In them, the EU has availed itself of a well-established diplomatic instrument that could be seen as a quasi-precondition for international actorness. This makes them a central part of the Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
