ABSTRACT
From the beginning, the European Communities and now the EU have had to exist in a changing international context; indeed, many treatments of the history of European integration place great weight on the international dimension of both the foundation and the development of the phenomenon (Story 1993; Wallace 1990; Pinder 1991a; Dinan 2004). The EU, as will be shown in more detail later in this chapter, is also a major presence in the contemporary global arena. It is thus not surprising that there should have been consistent and growing attention to the international ‘credentials’ of the EC and then the EU.
