ABSTRACT
For Europeans, the ability to speak with a single voice in international relations has been, since the end of World War II, an ideal to be achieved in order to be able to maintain their relevance in the international system. The end of the European colonial empires and the birth of the Cold War international order, dominated by two non-European great powers, put Western European nations in a rather unfavourable position compared to their previous situation. It is therefore logical that all of them decided to initiate intergovernmental cooperation processes in various policy areas in order to maintain or preserve their lost influence. One such area, which will be explored in this chapter and throughout the book, is the field of nuclear energy and nuclear non-proliferation. The development and implementation of a common nuclear non-proliferation policy by Europe (through the European Union) is relevant not only for the study of international relations as an academic discipline but also from the point of view of international relations as a practical reality of relations between states and international organisations (IOs). Europe, and subsequently in a more institutionalised way, the European Union, in order to preserve and/or be influential in critical areas of international relations (such as security) has developed a unique and novel institutional framework for the implementation of such policy (as we will see throughout the book), and a common vision among EU states on how to approach nuclear non-proliferation that is distant in form and substance from the approach of other major powers, such as the United States, thus creating an alternative Western vision of how to approach nuclear non-proliferation issues and proliferation crises.
