ABSTRACT
I have argued elsewhere that the very notion of an EU foreign policy is problematic (H.Smith 1995:17). In other words even thinking about the EU as possessing a foreign policy has proved difficult. That the EU’s foreign policy and its status as an international actor has provided a conceptual puzzle has been acknowledged by a number of scholars who have attempted to clarify what theory might have to offer in the elucidation of this phenomenon (Hill 1987; Hill 1988; Weiler and Wessels 1988; Ginsberg 1989; Allen and Smith 1990; Edwards 1990; Petersen 1993; Holland 1993; Soetendorp 1994). We can see this in references to EC/EU foreign policy as something that is not ‘fully-fledged’ (Rummel 1988:125; Allen and Smith 1990:20) or something that can best be understood as a sui generis policy (Holland 1993:131).
