The European Union in Multilateral Diplomacy

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/187119109X440906

Th e Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (2009) 189-209 brill.nl/hjd

Th e European Union in Multilateral Diplomacy*

Knud Erik JørgensenDepartment for Political Science, Aarhus University, Building 1331, Bartholins Allé 7,

8000 Århus C, Denmark

[email protected]

Received: 22 November 2008

Revised: 21 March 2009

Accepted: 23 March 2009

SummaryTh is article examines the role of the European Union in multilateral diplomacy. By means of synthesizing and summarizing research on seven selected policy fi elds, the article aims to make more general claims than single policy or single case studies allow. Th e analysis focuses on fi ve analytical dimensions: gover-nance (that is, how the EU handles multilateral diplomacy in diff erent international institutions); the role of EU domestic politics; negotiation style(s); outreach; and impact. As the seven policy fi elds comprise some very diverse issue-areas, it would not be wise to expect any uniform approach or general fi ndings. However, the analysis does show that the EU is increasingly engaged in multilateral diplomacy, actually playing a leadership role in some policy fi elds. Findings do not correspond to traditional expectations concerning the EU’s engagement in politico-economic and security issues, as the EU plays a limited role in fi nancial and macro-economic diplomacy and a fairly signifi cant role in non-proliferation and crisis management. Th e article suggests that an extension to more policy fi elds and more analytical dimensions would provide the comprehensive understanding of the European Union’s role in multilateral diplomacy that the engagement deserves.

Keywordsmultilateral diplomacy; European Union; governance; EU domestic politics; negotiations and negotia-tion styles; outreach; impact of diplomacy.

Introduction

In the conduct of its foreign policy, the European Union (EU) makes use of sev-eral types of foreign policy strategy: unilateral; bilateral; and multilateral. Th e unilateral and bilateral strategies are perhaps not as offi cially recognized and polit-ically marketed as the multilateral, yet they are de facto so widespread that the argument — that the EU has multilateral genes and aims at projecting its own multilateral foundation — should be seen more as part of political reasoning than causal analysis. In other words, the EU might have multilateral genes, but it has

*) I would like to thank the two anonymous referees, plus Brian Hocking, David Spence, Jan Melissen, Tamar Gutner and Sebastian Oberthür, for their very helpful suggestions in improving this article.

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other genes as well, as it is determined by factors other than its own multilateral genesis and edifi ce. Th is analysis is agnostic about the question of the three for-eign policy strategies, as they all have their deeds and vices. Each of the three types of strategy merits thorough analyses, but this article deliberately focuses on the EU’s engagement in multilateral diplomacy.1

Given that a major part of multilateral diplomacy takes place in Europe, it is an area in which European diplomats tend to be at home abroad. Furthermore, it is often claimed that the EU is best at grey committee work behind closed doors and thus outside the spotlight of international media, which focuses on spectacu-lar breaking news. However, the world of multilateral institutions is generally — perhaps contrary to expectations — far from an ideal environment for the EU, the prime reason being that multilateral diplomacy is strongly state-centric, prone to frequent tactical manoeuvring and requires profound coordination among EU member states. After all, international governmental organizations have been cre-ated by states and have states as members, whereas international regimes have states as contracting parties, therefore also being key interpreters of agreements and contracts. Having these characteristics in mind, the article aims to analyse a key domain of the EU’s international engagement, a domain that is unfortunately characterized by being signifi cantly under-researched.

Th e article focuses on three features. First, it provides a general overview of a broad, diverse and important fi eld of diplomatic practice: it is simply diffi cult to underestimate the importance of global governance and the EU’s role within it. Second, by transcending single policy and single case studies, the article aims to identify general patterns and trends across diff erent policy fi elds. Th e method or procedure — synthesizing or summarizing existing studies — enables more gen-eral arguments that are nonetheless underpinned by empirical studies. A bridge connecting fi ndings and theoretical refl ection could thereby be made, but in the present context that would be a bridge too far. Th ird, the article focuses on the following key dimensions: governance (that is, who in the EU does what vis-à-vis multilateral institutions?); the role of EU domestic politics; negotiation style(s); outreach; and promotion of institutional reform. Th e fi rst section sets the scene, explicating the key term ‘multilateral’, outlining seven selected policy fi elds and specifying fi ve analytical queries.2 Th e subsequent sections analyse each of the fi ve analytical queries in turn. Finally, there is a conclusion and perspectives are outlined.

1) See Knud Erik Jørgensen (ed.), Th e European Union and International Organizations (London: Routledge, 2009). See also Ole Elgström, ‘Th e European Union as a Leader in International Multilateral Negotiations: A Problematic Aspiration?’ International Relations, vol. 21, no 4, 2007, pp. 445-458.2) Concerning multilateral diplomacy, see Marcel A. Boisard, Evgeny Chossudovsy and Jacques Lemoine (eds), Multilateral Diplomacy: Th e United Nations System at Geneva (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff , 1998). See also Volker Rittberger, ‘Global Conference Diplomacy and International Policy-Making: Th e Case of UN-Sponsored World Conferences’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 11, no. 2, 1983, pp. 167-182.

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K.E. Jørgensen / Th e Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (2009) 189-209 191

A Framework for Analysis

Th is section begins by explicating the key term multilateralism. Th e seven selected policy fi elds are subsequently specifi ed, and fi nally the fi ve chosen analytical que-ries are outlined.

Th ere are several contending understandings of the term ‘multilateral’. For instance, the European Commission tends to use it exclusively for UN-related activities and engagements; others give it a normative twist by claiming that mul-tilateralism should be considered a precious goal in itself; still others conceive of multilateralism — characterized by some inclusion, participation and a dash of legitimacy — as a kind of supranational democracy.3 Rather than adopting this discourse of administrative or political reasoning, this article takes its point of departure in the discourse of theory — that is, understandings of multilateralism that have analytical rather than political-ideological qualities and aims. Accord-ing to Robert Keohane, ‘Multilateralism can be defi ned as the practice of coor-dinating national policies in groups of three or more states, through ad hoc arrangements or by means of institutions’.4 Key terms clearly include states and coordination, thus emphasizing the state-centric nature of multilateral diplomacy. EU member states’ coordination prior to or during meetings in multilateral insti-tutions would qualify as multilateralism. Th ey even make use of both ad hoc arrangements and institutions.

Second, John G. Ruggie defi nes multilateralism in a somewhat similar fashion, yet is signifi cantly more demanding:

[. . .] multilateralism is an institutional form that coordinates relations among three or more states on the basis of generalized principles of conduct: that is, principles which specify appropriate con-duct for a class of actions, without regard to the particularistic interests of the parties or the strategic exigencies that may exist in any specifi c occurrence.5

Th e diff erence between the two defi nitions might appear limited, yet has far-reaching consequences for our analysis of multilateral diplomacy. Whereas the fi rst defi nition focuses purely on numbers and institutional arrangements (for-mal/informal), the latter includes the all-important principles that guide multi-lateral diplomacy and emphasizes the distinction between short-/long-term and narrow/broad interests.

Finally, concerning the nature of multilateral diplomacy, Ernest Haas once emphasized that multilateral institutions are created in order to solve problems

3) See the General Report on the Activities of the European Union, prepared annually by the European Com-mission. See also Robert W. Cox, ‘Multilateralism and World Order’, Review of International Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 1992, pp. 161-180.4) Robert O. Keohane, ‘Multilateralism: An Agenda for Research’, International Journal, vol. XLV, 1990, pp. 731-764.5) John G. Ruggie (ed.), Multilateralism Matters: Th e Th eory and Praxis of an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 11.

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that require collaborative action for a solution.6 Th e essence of such collaborative action is multilateral diplomacy thus being a subcategory of diplomacy as such. In this context, it should be remembered that collaborative action is not necessar-ily a synonym for friendly deliberation that is based on a harmony of interests.

Th e following analysis comprises seven policy fi elds, which are characterized by a considerable variety of features. Th e environment policy fi eld includes issue-areas such as climate, biodiversity and ozone layer politics. During recent decades, the EU has managed to elevate itself from being a hardly recognized player at the UN Rio Conference in 1992 to global leadership in several environmental issue-areas (such as the Kyoto and Cartagena agreements).7 Concerning trade policy, European integration has been about trade ever since the Treaty of Rome was signed. Th e EU was among the founders of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Union’s multilateral trade diplomacy has been thoroughly anal-ysed in numerous studies. However, the present context only allows for a brief summary of fi ndings in the specialist literature.8 UN politics has also become a priority fi eld, and even if the status of the EU — strictly speaking the European Community — is that of modest ‘permanent observer’, the EU has become what some call the UN’s best friend in the West. Th e EU has stepped up engagements in UN politics, playing a varying role in the diff erent UN General Assembly committees.9

Security politics has been on the EU’s agenda since the early 1970s, beginning with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) process and subsequently characterized by an ever-wider portfolio of positions and poli-cies. Th ere are limits, however, and issues concerning nuclear strategy and hard-core defence policy, for instance, remain outside the scope of EU policy-making.10

6) Ernst B. Haas, When Knowledge is Power: Th ree Models of Change in International Organizations (Ber-keley CA: University of California Press, 1990); and Keohane, ‘Multilateralism’, p. 759. 7) See Joseph Jupille and James A. Caporaso, ‘States, Agency and Rules: Th e European Union in Global Environmental Politics’, in Carolyn Rhodes (ed.), Th e European Union in the World Community (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), pp. 213-229; Robert Falkner, ‘Th e Political Economy of “Normative Power” Europe: EU Environmental Leadership in International Biotechnology Regulation’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 14, no. 4, 2007, pp. 507-523; and Sebastian Oberthür and Claire Roche Kelly, ‘EU Leadership in International Climate Policy: Achievements and Challenges’, Th e International Spectator, vol. 43, no. 3, 2008, pp. 35-50. 8) Andreas Dür and Hubert Zimmermann, ‘Introduction: Th e EU in International Trade Negotiations’, Journal of Common Market Studies, special issue, 2007; Alasdair R. Young, ‘Trade Politics Ain’t What It Used to Be: Th e European Union in the Doha Round’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 45, no. 4, 2007, pp. 789-811; and Jens Ladefoged Mortensen, ‘Th e World Trade Organization and the European Union’, in Jørgensen (ed.), Th e European Union and International Organizations. 9) Katie Verlin Laatikainen and Karen Smith (eds), Th e European Union at the United Nations: Intersect-ing Multilateralisms (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2006); and Richard Gowan and Franziska Brantner, A Global Force for Human Rights? An Audit of European Power at the UN (London: European Council on Foreign Relations 2008).10) Keith Krause, ‘Multilateral Diplomacy, Norm-Building and UN Conferences: Th e Case of Small Arms and Light Weapons’, Global Governance, vol. 8, 2002, pp. 247-263; David Long, ‘Ottawa Ban on Mines’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 9, no. 3, 2002, pp. 429-446; Caroline Fehl, ‘Living with a

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Taking into consideration that more than 50 per cent of global Overseas Devel-opment Assistance (ODA) originates in Europe, one would expect development policy to be one of the Union’s prime policy fi elds. Somewhat paradoxically, how-ever, the development policy fi eld has on the one hand been part of European integration right from the start (consider the Treaty of Rome’s provisions and the European Commission’s own conduct of its development policy); on the other hand, and in stark contrast, coordination of member states’ development policies and positions in international forums have been introduced relatively late in the process. Furthermore, the development fi eld has always been torn between com-mitments to global trade institutions and commitments to favourable preferential trade agreements with former European colonies in the grouping of African, Caribbean and Pacifi c (ACP) countries. Th e ongoing negotiations of European Partnership Agreements (EPAs) represent the latest phase of this intricate balanc-ing act between development and trade concerns.11

According to the EU’s self-image, the Union is keen to project European values worldwide. In line with this aspiration, it is quite natural to promote human rights and to engage in creating new multilateral institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court.12 Health and food safety policies constitute an increasingly important aspect of the EU’s engage-ment in multilateral diplomacy. While the World Health Organization (WHO) functions as the centre court of global health policy, and the UN agencies in Rome (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)) play a similar role concerning food safety and agriculture, the EU has created its own signifi cant administrative structures to handle health and safety-related issues.13 Ranging

Reluctant Hegemon: Th e Transatlantic Confl ict Over Multilateral Arms Control’, European Journal of International Relations, vol. 14, no. 2, 2008, pp. 259-287; Peter van Ham, ‘EU-OSCE Relations: Partners or Rivals in Security?’, in Jørgensen (ed.), Th e European Union and International Organizations; Benjamin Kienzle, ‘Eff ective Multilateralism? Th e EU and International Regimes in the Field of Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’, paper presented at the Garnet Conference, Brussels, April 2008; and Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham, Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism: Th e Impact of UNSCR 1540 (Th e Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, 2007).11) Jess Pilegaard, ‘. . . And Never Shall the Twain Meet? An Institutionalist Perspective on EU Trade and Development Policies in the Context of the EPA Negotiations’, paper presented at DSE annual confer-ence, October 2008; and Ole Elgstrøm, ‘Images of the EU in EPA Negotiations: Angel, Demon — Or Just Human?’, European Integration online Papers (EIoP), vol. 12, no. 5, 2008, available online at http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2008-005a.htm.12) Karen E. Smith, ‘Speaking with One Voice? European Union Coordination on Human Rights Issues at the United Nations’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 44, no. 1, 2006, pp. 113-137; and Mar-tijn L.P. Groenleer and L.G. van Schaik, ‘United We Stand? Th e European Union’s Actorness in the Cases of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 45, no. 5, 2007, pp. 969-998.13) Sebastien Guigner, ‘Th e EU’s Roles in Public Health within a Saturated Space of International Organ-izations: Th e Interdependence of Roles’, in Ole Elgstrøm and Smith (eds), Th e European Union’s Roles in International Politics (London: Routledge, 2006). See also Sebastien Guigner, ‘Th e EU and the Health Dimension of Globalization: Playing the World Health Organization Card’, in Jan Orbie and Lisa Tortell

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from Mad Cow Disease to Bird ’Flu and regulation of tobacco consumption, the EU has become an increasingly important player.

Admittedly, the selection of policy fi elds is only a selection, implying that fi nd-ings should not be generalized without caution. On the other hand, the selection does arguably include most of the heavy policy portfolios. Each of the seven policy fi elds are characterized by diff erent confi gurations of key players and sev-eral of the fi elds by change and new emerging players. For instance, the Quad within the context of the WTO seems largely defunct these days as new group-ings pop up. Within the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the EU encoun-ters the increasing role of the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) and the decline of the United States (because of its own exit strategy). In terms of mem-bership, strength and scope, variation among institutional arrangements is so profound that it would be downright nonsense to expect a uniform EU diplo-matic approach to all of these highly diverse policy fi elds.

In order to avoid a list of brief summaries of seven policy case studies, the fol-lowing sections are structured by fi ve analytical dimensions. For a many-headed creature such as the EU, it is always important to ask ‘who’ the EU is — that is, who is in charge on behalf of the EU in multilateral institutions? Put diff erently, the fi rst analytical dimension concerns the form of governance, whether formal or informal. Th e point of departure here is that EU member states, broadly speak-ing, have three formal representation options at their disposal. Th ey can choose between exclusive competence (to the European Community), shared compe-tence (that is, member states and EC shared competence), or no competence (to the European Community — that is, member states keep competence in their own hands). At this point, it would be easy to slide into very detailed accounts of treaty provisions, European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings, variations of compe-tence, member states contending European Commission interpretations of com-petence, compromise understandings and pragmatic bending of rules — plus possible change of all this over time — as well as scholarly contending perspec-tives and understandings. Given that excellent studies of legal competence and external relations do exist, there is no reason in the present context to reproduce these legal technicalities and detailed understandings. After all, the prime aim of this article is to provide a general understanding of the EU in multilateral diplo-macy. In addition, we should be aware of the frequent examples of EU politics masquerading as legal provisions, determinants or constraints.

If we change from a legal to a governance perspective, we can speak of three governance models instead of competence, specifi cally:

(eds), Th e EU’s Role in the World and the Social Dimension of Globalization (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 131-145.

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i) an unconditional delegation model; ii) a supervised delegation model;iii) a coordination model.

As pointed out by Jean Pisani-Ferry, none of these models can be said a priori to be superior.14 Th e second dimension concerns what could be called the domestic dimension of international diplomatic engagements — that is, the degree to which multilateral diplomacy is embedded in or encounters signifi cant domestic issues, whether identity, interests or policies. Th e third dimension concerns nego-tiation style, thus focusing on issues such as reactive or proactive, general perfor-mance, communicative action or hard-nosed approaches. Th e fourth dimension concerns outreach, focusing partly on diplomacy vis-à-vis third parties during negotiation processes. Th e prime reason for including this dimension is that sev-eral case studies have documented that EU diplomats often spend more time on EU internal coordination than on outreach to third parties in terms of persua-sion, coercion or communicative action. Th e fi fth dimension addresses the issue of impact on negotiation processes, third parties or conclusions. It also addresses the issue of institutional reform, which is one of the key challenges of contempo-rary multilateral institutions. In order to provide an overview of the following sections, Table 1 combines the seven policy fi elds and fi ve analytical dimensions.

EU Governance Models in Multilateral Diplomacy

Formal EU representation in multilateral diplomacy varies a great deal, in par-ticular because the Union applies no less than three diff erent kinds of legal com-petence: exclusive; shared; and no competence.15 However, when we specifi cally ask who engages on behalf of the European Union in multilateral diplomacy, a reference to legal competence is insuffi cient because even a lack of legal compe-tence does not exclude European Commission offi cials from being accepted as part of the Presidency delegation at a given international conference. In order to approximate the EU’s presence at negotiation tables to real-life situations, the account will be structured by the three governance models introduced above.

14) Jean Pisani-Ferry, ‘Th e Accidental Player: Th e EU and the Global Economy’, in Jørgensen (ed.), Th e European Union and International Organizations. See also Benoît Coeuré and Jean Pisani-Ferry, ‘Th e Governance of the European Union’s International Economic Relations: How Many Voices?’, in André Sapir (ed.), Fragmented Power: Europe and the Global Economy (Brussels: Bruegel, 2007). 15) P. Eeckhout, External Relations of the European Union: Legal and Constitutional Foundations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Inge Govaere, J. Capiau and A.Vermeersch, ‘In-Between Seats: Th e Participation of the European Union in International Organizations’, European Foreign Aff airs Review, vol. 9, 2001, pp. 155-187. See also Mark Rhinard and Michael Kaeding, ‘Th e International Bargaining Power of the European Union in “Mixed” Competence Negotiations: Th e Case of the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 44, no. 5, 2007, pp. 1023-1050.

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Th ey are not perfect either — supervised delegation can be granted to the Coun-cil Presidency, the European Commission or the High Representative — but are clearly better in terms of achieving this article’s objectives than the alternative.

Th e Unconditional Delegation Model

Th is model is rarely applied in the EU’s engagement in multilateral diplomacy. However, domestic monetary policy in the euro area has been unconditionally delegated to the European Central Bank (ECB). If we look at political practice, something similar can be said concerning exchange-rate policy in the euro zone. In addition, competition policy has been delegated unconditionally to the Euro-pean Commission. All three policy fi elds have an international dimension, which is partly a multilateral international dimension. However, the ECB and European Commission do not enjoy unconditional delegation at international forums. Rather, the governance of the policies is special, in the sense that we can talk about unconditional delegation at home and coordination abroad. Finally, EU competition policy frequently has externalities, as for instance demonstrated by the European Commission’s interventions in company mergers — consider the well-known cases of the European Commission intervening in the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger, and the Microsoft and GE-Honeywell cases. Such interventions do not necessarily have multilateral characteristics but sometimes they do, such as when a specifi c case plays a role in the context of a trade dispute and is therefore handled within the context of the WTO.

Th e Supervised Delegation Model

When this model is used, EU member states delegate authority to negotiate with third parties, yet maintain formal representation, provide guidelines and man-dates to their negotiator, closely supervise their negotiator’s behaviour, and pre-serve the right to call back the delegation. Th ere are three prime examples of this model being used. First, multilateral trade diplomacy within the WTO is for-mally an issue-area that is characterized by both exclusive competence (goods) and shared competence (services and investment), yet the applied governance model is supervised delegation, implying that member states during negotiations are essentially mute and instead carefully supervise how their agent — the Euro-pean Commission — negotiates on their behalf.

Second, development policy agreements, which are currently the negotiation of the EPAs, are also negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of the European Union. Relations with ACP countries have traditionally been culti-vated by DG Development, yet the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have been negotiated by DG Trade. Th ird, the EU team negotiating international climate policy has a very diverse background. Th e rotating Council Presidency is

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essentially orchestrating a team consisting of issue-specifi c lead nations, plus European Commission representatives and national experts.16

Th e Coordination Model

Th is is the most widely used model — consider, for instance, the EU’s presence in international fi nancial institutions. EU member states have clearly stated their commitment to a strengthened role within the two major international fi nancial institutions (the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank).17 However, in contrast to trade policy, we witness an example of each member state for itself, not an example of the European Union in multilateral diplomacy. De facto, the four European members of the G7/G8 enjoy so much their (limited) privileges, prestige and powers within the two international fi nancial institutions that they fi ercely resist any change to supervised delegation. In this respect, it is telling that the managing director of the IMF is always a national of one of these four countries. Th e position of the Netherlands and Belgium, which also occupy a permanent seat on the governing bodies, is similarly at odds with their contem-porary global economic status. On the downside of this odd state of aff airs is the fact that the EU as such enjoys far less infl uence than if the supervised delegation model was used. More or less loose coordination of member states’ positions also characterizes UN General Assembly committee politics, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Nuclear-Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Human Rights Council (HRC) and WHO.18 Th e interests of the EU are usually in the hands of the (rotating) Presidency and consensus positions have frequently been hammered out prior to meetings in the multilateral forums. Th e case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is in various ways special: in part because the United States still enjoys a kind of primus inter pares status; in part because more than a handful of EU member states are not mem-bers of NATO, making common EU positions somewhat awkward. Th e issue is not so much various technical or legal arrangements for borrowing NATO capa-bilities for European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military operations, it concerns more the strategic issue of what EU member states want NATO to be and to do — an issue that is closely connected to ideas concerning the role of the

16) Oberthür and Kelly, ‘EU Leadership’.17) Pisani-Ferry, ‘Th e Accidental Player’; and Eugenia Baroncelli, ‘On the EU Foreign Economic Policy in Multilateral Contexts: Perceptual Dynamics and Policy Response in the World Bank’, paper presented at the Garnet Conference, Brussels, April 2008.18) Burkard Schmitt (ed.), ‘Eff ective Non-Proliferation: Th e European Union and the 2005 NPT Review Conference’, Chaillot Paper, no. 77, 2005; Jean Pascal Zanders, ‘Th e European Union and the 6th Review Conference’, in G. Lindstrom (ed.), Enforcing Non-Proliferation: Th e European Union and the 2006 BTWC Conference (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2006); and Jayantha Dhanapala and Randy Rydell, Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT: An Insider’s Account (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research / Stockholm: International Institute for Peace and Confl ict Research, 2005).

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United States in and beyond Europe and the military identity of the EU and its member states.

In summary, the EU is formally represented by member states in most policy fi elds, implying that there is an EU position when member states agree on a posi-tion but that there is not when they do not. Member states do not have to do the actual policy-making themselves. Frequently, the European Commission is the powerhouse of policy-making even if representation and decision-making remain a member state’s prerogative. Th e collective representation is sometimes delegated to the Council Presidency, whereas EU member states have delegated representa-tion to the European Commission in trade and concerning the European Com-munity’s own engagement in development policy. Such delegation can be more or less formally codifi ed — in trade, for instance, it is treaty-based and confi rmed by the ECJ, whereas in other cases it is based on ad hoc and informal agreements. Furthermore, in some cases the European Commission represents the European Community (for example, the FAO and WTO), whereas in other cases (such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)) it represents the European Atomic Energy Community (sometimes referred to as EURATOM). Th e bottom line is that the European Commission is — if not de jure then de facto — represented in most EU delegations at international conferences and institutions.

Domestic Dimensions of Multilateral Diplomacy

Th is analytical dimension focuses on the domestic dimension of multilateral diplomacy. In some cases there is no such domestic dimension, however, and the diplomats’ room for manoeuvre becomes considerable. Yet in many cases, domes-tic actors have strong and direct vested interests in the outcome of multilateral diplomacy, either pleading in favour of a certain solution or perhaps fearing the worst. One of the most important distinctions concerning the EU’s engagement in multilateral diplomacy is touched upon here: do European diplomats try to protect European constituencies from the eff ects of international agreements, or is their aim to project European solutions on global problems? Concerning envi-ronmental standards, European values, human rights and governance models, projection seems to be the predominant answer. Most of these areas are character-ized by vocal and/or infl uential special interest groups that have played a more or less signifi cant role in prompting the EU to take policy-making international.

Concerning the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and world trade in agri-cultural goods, protection from international obligations or agreements was for a long time the name of the game. Agriculture ministers — who all knew very well their respective domestic constituencies and strong lobby organizations — were assigned to international negotiations. Th e creation of the WTO caused this con-fi guration of forces to change: in the fi eld of agriculture, ramifi cations comprised

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a sequence of CAP reforms; and the development fi eld saw a historical change from Lomé to Cotonou-type arrangements with ACP countries. Put diff erently, the EU felt certain, yet to some degree infl icted upon itself, pressures to change from the Lomé to Cotonou formats, which were fl eshed out in the process of negotiation EPAs.

In general, when there is a domestic dimension to multilateral diplomacy, the nature of the diplomatic game changes. It becomes a two- or three-level game, each characterized by specifi c constraints and opportunities.19 In trade politics, the EU’s preferential agreements with ACP countries have for decades been dam-aging the international credibility of the European Community, in particular because the agreements were technically incompatible with the rules and princi-ples of the General Agreement on Tariff s and Trade (GATT).20 Similarly, former European Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson was on a diffi cult mission when multilateralism was declared the fi rst priority one day, while bilateral approaches were introduced the next day, or when general WTO rules were cel-ebrated while special tariff s on lingerie and shoes, produced in China by Euro-pean companies gone global, were introduced to protect non-globalized European companies producing shoes in, say, Palermo.

Th is leads us to a second major aspect of the domestic dimension to multilat-eral diplomacy, namely that the domestic dimension provides the opportunity for structural leadership in multilateral diplomacy. A few examples suffi ce to illus-trate the argument. First, once the EU changed from rhetorical pseudo-politics to real politics, the credibility of its initiatives was strengthened. Th e presence of relatively strong environmental policies and high environmental standards at home simply empowers the EU when negotiating abroad. Second, the eff ec-tiveness of the NPT and associated export control regimes clearly hinges on com-pliance. It hence makes a diff erence for the EU that the implementation of commitments and obligations is handled swiftly throughout the EU by means of directives. Th ird, CAP reforms since the early 1990s are frequently explained by the fact that each domestic reform strengthened the EU’s negotiation position in the context of fi rst GATT and subsequently WTO negotiations.21 Th e same can be said about the unilateral ‘Everything but Arms’ initiative in 2002. Fourth, within the security fi eld, the EU can also refer to domestic settings that enhance

19) Robert D. Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: Th e Logic of Two-Level Games’, International Organization, vol. 42, no. 3, 1988, pp. 427-460; and Lee Ann Patterson, ‘Agricultural Policy Reform in the European Community: A Th ree-Level Game Analysis’, International Organization, vol. 51, no 1, 1997, pp. 135-165.20) Judith Goldstein, ‘Creating the GATT Rules: Politics, Institutions and American Policy’, in Ruggie (ed.), Multilateralism Matters, pp. 201-232.21) Izabelle Garzon, Reforming the Common Agricultural Policy: History of a Paradigm Change (Basing-stoke: Palgrave, 2006); and Alan Swinbank and Carsten Daugbjerg, ‘Th e 2003 CAP Reform: Accom-modating WTO Pressures’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, no. 1, 2006, pp. 47-64.

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the EU’s negotiation position. Th us, the confi guration of Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and non-NWS in the EU can be seen as a microcosm of the wider world — if a common position can be hammered out in the Union, it might also work well globally. In the fi eld of human rights politics, the tradition of the Euro-pean human rights convention and, more recently, the Charter on Fundamental Rights clearly empower the EU in the process of projecting European values glob-ally. It is a diff erent matter if it empowers the EU suffi ciently to match interna-tional encounters. Finally, comprehensive legislation on health-related issues and an increasingly signifi cant administrative capability strengthen the EU’s negotia-tion positions in global forums.

Negotiation Style

In order to diff erentiate among diff erent kinds of negotiation style, it is again helpful to use the distinction between supervised delegation and coordination, this time paired with a distinction between reactive and proactive diplomacy.

EU environmental diplomacy was long characterized by reactive, coordinated policy-making. Th e European Commission was preoccupied with gaining both internal and external recognition, and the European Community foremost responded to environmental challenges. Gradually, the EU upgraded its domestic environmental legislation, thereby gaining profound political and administrative experience in the fi eld. Subsequently, externalization processes elevated the EU from a reactive to a proactive player that is capable of making international initia-tives and even of turning initiatives into agreements. A similar process from reac-tive to proactive characterizes the trade policy fi eld, in which the EC was a formidable reactive player for years, indeed during most of the GATT’s existence, a period that was characterized by American initiatives and European responses. With the creation of the WTO, this reactive style changed profoundly. Whereas the use of the supervised delegation model has remained a constant, the EU in the fi rst place contributed to the institutional design of the WTO, of which the European Community is a member in its own right, represented by the European Commission. Th e EU became a perfect match for the other trade superpower: the United States. Furthermore, the EU has become proactive in trying to set the agenda, even with some success, as the Doha Round enterprise is largely based on EU policy templates for world trade. Yet the EU has also learned that putting the Singapore issues — concerning the liberalization of trade in services — on the agenda of world politics has provoked quite some opposition, and they are cur-rently off the agenda again. Th e EU simply did not want the Singapore issues to cause the Doha Round to enter a deadlocked situation. Th is process suggests that the aspiring world trade leader somehow lacks followers, at least when it came to liberalization of services. Finally, one can argue that the EU’s development policy

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has also changed from a reactive to a proactive mode. Th e long row of revised Lomé Conventions signals strong path dependencies, whereas the Cotonou Agreement signals discontinuity and a new key to a long-term relationship with developing countries. Th e novel enterprise of negotiating EPAs demonstrates that a negotiating style with show of force may backfi re.22 Put diff erently, the assign-ment of trade negotiations to DG Trade resulted in highly asymmetrical negotia-tions, in which DG Trade diplomats played the hardball politics that they are used to from negotiations with the United States, China and other powerful world traders. Diplomats from ACP countries were less than a perfect match, and after some time they went into a ‘resist by all means’ approach. Th e UK’s inter-vention in the process by publicly and eff ectively ‘unsigning’ the mandate to EU negotiators contributes to these negotiations’ messy state of aff airs. In the context of EPAs, it is also signifi cant that the previous agreements with ACP countries were reached in large multilateral forums (such as the EC and all ACP countries), whereas the EPAs are characterized by negotiations in rather small forums (such as the EC with various regional groupings of development countries).

Reactive diplomacy that is based on a coordination mode of governance char-acterizes negotiation styles in a wide set of policy fi elds. IMF macroeconomics is representative in the sense that EU member states primarily respond to initiatives coming from other corners of the world. To the degree that they try to coordinate positions — and they do — this coordination is eff ectively blocked by the IMF’s governance structure, according to which EU member states belong to several diff erent constituencies where they are sometimes in a minority position. In con-trast to the fi eld of international fi nance, the EU works hard on coordination prior to the NPT Review Conferences. Before the 2005 NPT Review Confer-ence, the EU managed to formulate a consensus position and had given the EU’s own confi guration of both NWS and non-NWS. Th e consensus agreement had a fair chance of being adopted as the conference conclusion. However, despite the common position and the time and manpower-consuming activities that it took to hammer out the EU’s Common Position, the European NWS — France and Great Britain — partly abandoned the common position and started pleading for rolling back previous NPT achievements, especially the stated commitments to disarmament.

Finally, we can turn to a proactive style that is based on coordination. Although characterized by signifi cant variation, diplomacy in UN General Assembly com-mittees displays some of the dynamics. In many ways the degree of prior coordi-nation is impressive in its eff ectiveness and degree of consistency. Th e high percentage of consensus voting by EU member states raises some serious doubt

22) Ole Elgström, ‘Th e European Union as a Leader in International Multilateral Negotiations: A Prob-lematic Aspiration?’, International Relations, vol. 21, no. 4, 2007, pp. 445-458; and Pilegaard, ‘. . . And Never Shall the Twain Meet?’.

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about one of the default explanations of EU foreign policy-making: ‘due to dif-ferent national interests’; or ‘due to diff erent historical traditions’. In the HRC, the EU often speaks with one voice, yet fi nds itself in a minority position and, additionally, unable to persuade most ‘swing states’ to subscribe to EU positions.23 Th e rather common analytical practice of considering lack of consensus as a default mode explanation is hence in this case less than helpful. Existing literature on the topic does not allow us to conclude whether the EU’s diplomatic skills in entrepreneurial leadership have been fully exploited — that is, the degree to which the EU has tried to form alliances and seek alignment with like-minded countries. Although some cases of issue-linkage are known — for instance, link-ing Kyoto ratifi cation and general EU relations — it is diffi cult to know the extent to which the option of issue-linkage has been used. In summary, the prime downside of thorough coordination seems to be that European diplomats spend so much time on internal coordination that they have limited time to interact with third-party states, seek alignments, engage in persuasion and explore poten-tial issue-linkages, etc.

Outreach

When engaging in multilateral diplomacy, the EU is frequently deeply marked by its dual nature as both an international subsystem in its own right and an actor within the wider international system. Whereas coordination of EU member states’ positions counts as diplomacy in the international subsystem, it counts somehow diff erently when the EU acts as a (unitary) international actor. Th en it either counts as a regional-level example of classical diplomacy, or it counts as EU domestic politics that happens to be conducted by diplomats.24 In the present context, outreach should be understood as interaction with third-party diplomats — that is, non-EU diplomats. Outreach comes in diff erent versions and includes acts of persuasion, coercive diplomacy, demonstrating policy entre-preneurship, building coalitions or providing leadership. Concerning all of these features, probably the most signifi cant fi nding is that correlation between degrees of coordination (governance models) and outreach does not show a stable or unambiguous pattern. In literally all policy fi elds — that is, spanning environ-ment, trade, UN politics, security, development, value promotion and health — it is possible to identify issue-areas in which the degree of EU coordination is fairly high, yet in which the degree of outreach varies signifi cantly despite this

23) Karen E. Smith, ‘Speaking with One Voice? European Union Coordination on Human Rights Issues at the United Nations’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 44, no. 1, 2006, pp. 113-137; and Fran-ziska Brantner and Richard Gowan, ‘Complex Engagement: Th e EU and the UN System’, in Jørgensen (ed.), Th e European Union and International Organizations.24) See Knud Erik Jørgensen, ‘Modern European Diplomacy: A Research Agenda’, Journal of Interna-tional Relations and Development, vol. 2, no. 1, 1999, pp. 78-96.

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constant. In order to simplify, the following sections will be structured by a dis-tinction between low, medium and high outreach.

High Coordination — High Outreach

Outreach has been fairly high within the following issue-areas: climate; trade (WTO); ACP relations; and international justice (the International Criminal Court (ICC)). Put diff erently, the nature of representation — concretely, the composition of the negotiating team — does not seem to single-handedly deter-mine any specifi c outcomes in terms of outreach. Th e case of the WTO shows high outreach, with the EU both co-designer and co-creator of the WTO in the fi rst place, demonstrating frequent attempts at agenda-setting — such as the Singapore issues and the Doha Round — and a frequent user of the dispute set-tlement mechanism. Furthermore, the WTO example shows the EU’s fl exible approach to international trade policy: if multilateral strategies do not work, the EU does not refrain from using second priority (bilateral) strategies. In the present context, it is important to emphasize that a bilateral strategy without outreach is a poor strategy. Th e EPAs being negotiated between the EU and ACP countries can be seen as a junction between development and trade policy and also a border case between bilateral and multilateral strategy. In any case, coordi-nation and outreach have been high. In the climate policy fi eld, the EU has dem-onstrated leadership by fi rst pushing for an agreement and subsequently pushing for ratifi cation.

Coordination High — Outreach Low or Medium

It is also possible to identify issue-areas with high coordination but low or medium outreach. Examples include such diverse areas as security (the non-proliferation regime), UN General Assembly politics, and values promotion (HRC). In UN General Assembly politics, coordination has been consistently high, yet outreach has been somewhat modest. It seems that coordination is so demanding in terms of manpower and time that not much has been left for interacting with third parties. Concerning non-proliferation policy, the Union actually managed to hammer out a common position prior to the 2005 Review Conference, but out-reach was insuffi cient to get the EU’s position elevated to the global level. Fur-thermore, the Union has traditionally been reactive to US initiatives in the fi eld, implying that off ensive outreach has been less predominant. Th e case of the HRC shows that the EU’s attempt to create a new institution — that would leave the vices of the former UN Commission for Human Rights (CHR) behind — expe-rienced fi erce opposition to proposed membership criteria. Th e EU subsequently decided that even a less than ideal Human Rights Council (HRC) would be bet-ter than no new institution. Since the HRC was founded, the EU has experienced the consequences of that decision, including the experience of being consistently outvoted.

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Coordination Low — Outreach Low

Th e fi elds of macroeconomic policy (such as the IMF) and global development policy (in the World Bank) are prime examples of the EU’s eff orts to coordinate being rather low. Outreach is therefore intuitively unlikely. Not even the intro-duction of a common currency, the euro, and the creation of a common institu-tion, the European Central Bank, have changed this situation signifi cantly.25 Coordination within NATO alliance politics has traditionally also been modest, as demonstrated by the absence of a closely knit European caucus, which neither the end of the Cold War nor the dissolution of the Soviet Union changed.26 If not a European power, the United States nonetheless remains a power in Europe. Even examples of manifest opposition to US initiatives have been characterized by the absence of prior coordination. Th us, the European members of NATO simply happened accidentally to oppose the idea of engaging NATO in the fi rst Gulf War. Prior to the March 2002 UN conference in Monterey on fi nancing development, preparatory coordination meetings were not on the EU’s political agenda. National positions concerning global development issues were regarded as so precious that they should be left untouched by European integration.

Low Coordination — High Outreach

A high degree of outreach does not always require a high degree of coordination. Proceedings at the 1998 Rome Conference, where the ICC was created, consti-tute a prime example of this counter-intuitive combination. Without prior coor-dination, EU member states simply happened to agree on the basic principles of what is now known as the ICC. While some EU member states — France and the United Kingdom in particular — were rather slow to discover their interest, they nonetheless ended up being part of the EU’s consensus position. Acknowledging this consensus, support of the ICC subsequently became an aspect of the EU’s international identity and coordination changed from low to high; and consensus changed from accidental to precious, not least when under attack from abroad.27

Measuring Impact

Measuring impact is not as straightforward as it may seem. Th e prime problem is that the term is insuffi ciently specifi ed to allow for accurate measurement. A sim-ple distinction between four types of impact makes such measurement signifi -cantly more feasible:

25) Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, ‘A Single EU Seat in the IMF?’26) Barry Posen, ‘European Union Security and Defense Policy: Response to Unipolarity?’, Security Stud-ies, vol. 15, no. 2, 2006, pp. 149-186.27) Groenleer and van Schaik, ‘United We Stand?’, pp. 969-998.

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• Impact on day-to-day politics.• Impact on main objectives.• Impact on the design of international organizations (institutional design and

governance structures), including institutional reforms.• Impact on resolving the underlying problem addressed by the multilateral

institution in question.

Because of space limitations, the following overview does not address the issue of whether the EU has contributed to problem-solving, which is the issue typically addressed in literature on the eff ectiveness of international regimes. It also does not include impact on day-to-day politics. On the one hand it would be easy to fi nd examples of such impact, yet the opposite is also true. Put diff erently, it would take a very comprehensive analysis to reach solid conclusions by means of rigorous analysis. Th is leaves us with impact on main objectives and impact on institutional design, including institutional reform. Once again, the analysis has been structured by a distinction between low, medium and high impact.

Concerning impact on the main objectives of multilateral institutions within the seven selected policy fi elds, specialist studies demonstrate that the EU enjoys high impact in the fi eld of international environmental policy. In the fi eld of macroeconomics, however, the EU’s impact on the main objectives of the IMF and World Bank has been surprisingly low. In the remaining policy fi elds, the EU has, on balance, a medium impact on its main objectives. Th ere seems to be a time dimension at play. Th us, both the UN and the WHO predate the European Union’s engagement in multilateral diplomacy, and even if the political agenda within these institutions changes, it would take a determined extra eff ort for a newcomer composite entity such as the EU to make a diff erence. In contrast, the security agenda has changed so rapidly that it has been easier to board the train and have an impact on the direction of the ride. Concerning the fi eld of global development policy, it is only fairly recently that EU member states attempted coordination, so a collective impact on the main objectives has been limited. Th is said, it is a fi eld in which the larger EU member states individually enjoy so-called structural leadership, meaning that the main objectives of global development policy do have strong European fi ngerprints. Finally, it seems that the promotion of values, whether European or universal, is in a state of crossfi re. On the one hand, Franziska Brantner and Richard Gowan demonstrate that the EU has been increasingly incapable of getting its UN resolutions adopted.28 On the other hand, Europe remains one of the power houses of dissemination and protection of international values.

Several multilateral institutions experience institutional reform, whether achieved, intended or ongoing. When analysing the EU’s role in multilateral diplomacy preparing or achieving institutional reform, I focus on examining the degree to

28) Gowan and Brantner, A Global Force for Human Rights?

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which the EU is engaged in these reform endeavours, and the degree to which the EU is successful in shaping the outcome of reform. First, the EU has so far not been deeply engaged in ongoing attempts to reform thoroughly the international fi nancial institutions (the IMF and World Bank), the prime defence organization in Europe (NATO), or the backbone of non-proliferation (the NPT). Th e EU’s impact on the larger or smaller reforms has hence predictably been limited. Th is modest impact can be explained in diff erent ways. It is unlikely, but the EU might consider all of these institutions to be eff ective and therefore not in need of reform. Furthermore, the fairly widespread ‘multilateralism-as-an-end-in-itself ’ sentiment does not prompt the EU to search for more eff ective institutional designs. Second, the inclusion of a civilian crisis-management dimension in NATO could perhaps be quoted as an example of European infl uence on NATO reform, yet the novel feature has been promoted by individual European NATO members rather than EU members as a collective (even if there is a signifi cant overlap in membership). Actually, one of the few examples of impact without (collective) engagement is the creation of the ICC. Th ird, as the European Secu-rity Strategy lists support of the UN among its top foreign policy objectives, it is only natural that the EU tries to become involved in UN reform. Yet concerning UN Security Council reform, it was quickly realized that more than one position existed, which was why the EU could not have a position as such. When it comes to human rights institutions, international society increasingly acknowledged that the UN’s Commission for Human Rights was less than effi cient in promot-ing human rights. In the context of wider UN reform, a substitute institution was therefore sought. Th e EU’s engagement in this aspect of institutional reform was successful in terms of actually being a co-founder of a new institution, yet was somewhat unsuccessful in terms of subsequently getting EU proposals adopted. In general, it remains to be seen whether the Human Rights Council will be an eff ective multilateral institution in terms of actually promoting human rights. Finally, there are numerous examples of the EU being engaged and also in a position to shape institutionalization and/or institutional reform. Th e institu-tionalization of the GATT becoming the WTO and the CSCE becoming the OSCE are two prime examples. Th e creation of the UN Peace-Building Commis-sion (PBC) can also be seen as an example, although European promoters of the PBC played several games in parallel, including playing the EU card, working with like-minded nations, and attempting coalition formation.

Conclusion and Perspectives

Th e analysis demonstrates that the EU’s engagement in multilateral diplomacy is an area that is generally characterized by considerable change and signifi cantly more foreign policy substance than traditional perspectives on EU foreign policy would expect.

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We have seen that in terms of representation in international institutions, EU member states tend to be jealous of their own rights and consequently opt for fairly ineffi cient governance models, the main options being unconditional dele-gation, supervised delegation and coordination. Even if no model a priori was considered superior or inferior, the analysis demonstrates that the coordination model tends to be less than eff ective. Th e few exceptions to this rule seem to represent accidental rather than designed outcomes. Shared competence can be used by the Council Presidency, the European Commission or the EU’s foreign policy High Representative. In addition, shared competence has signifi cant costs in terms of being very time-consuming and often accompanied by modest out-reach and impact. In short, EU member states often opt for governance models that make the EU less than infl uential and less than capable of protecting Euro-pean interests or projecting European values. Th e international treaties establish-ing the multilateral institutions and associated governance systems are partly responsible for this, although reluctance among EU member states to make use of more effi cient governance models remains a key factor in any comprehensive explanation of why the EU rather consistently punches below its weight.

In most cases, the domestic factor proved to be crucially important. Th e very existence of a single market and EU-wide regulations simply changes the position from which EU diplomats negotiate. It works both ways — that is, both when the aim is to project EU features internationally (the externalization factor) and when the aim is to shield EU interest from being challenged by a given interna-tional agreement. Prime examples of the domestic factor at play include EU domestic policy on climate change and EU reform of the CAP vis-à-vis negotia-tions in the WTO. Paradoxically, the EU’s high human rights standards do not have a similar spillover eff ect, and the creation of the euro zone seems to be slow in generating an international impact on monetary and macroeconomic policies.

Concerning the highly publicized sponsorship of ‘eff ective multilateralism’, the problem is not that diff erent modes of multilateral diplomacy have been employed. Given that the multilateral system includes some very diverse policy fi elds, any-thing but varying modes should be expected. Problems hence seem to occur when the chosen mode of governance does not fi t its policy fi elds, produces less than eff ective outcomes or when the gap between stated goals and real intentions is so wide or so old that it harms the EU’s credibility as an international player.

Several policy fi elds are characterized by signifi cant changes and new emerging players. Within the context of the WTO, for instance, the Quad seems largely defunct these days, whereas new groupings pop up. Within the UN HRC, the EU encounters the increasing role of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the decline of the United States (because of its exit strategy). To the degree that the EU goes beyond coordination and engages in outreach in its dip-lomatic activities, the EU will operate in a context that is characterized by these changing confi gurations. In order to preserve or secure impact, the EU will be

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increasingly forced to emphasize coalition-building activities and perform a range of diff erent leadership roles. An integrated approach to multilateral diplomacy, which connects multilateral forums and bilateralism vis-à-vis third-country capi-tals, seems to be a precondition for improvement.29

In addition, there is a dilemma between promoting eff ective multilateralism and supporting ineff ective multilateral institutions. Despite making support of eff ective multilateralism a key foreign policy objective, the EU has played a lim-ited and hardly consistent role in the context of institutional reform. In the case of the UN Security Council, the EU, being split on the issue, was unable to spon-sor a particular reform model. In the case of the WTO, the EU co-sponsored the metamorphosis of the GATT into the WTO and has pleaded for WTO enlarge-ment (in terms of new members such as China). Th e EU also supports upgrading the UN Environment Programme and other aspects of global environmental gov-ernance reform. But in the big picture, the EU seems somewhat to lack ambition, aspiration or interest in reforming existing institutions, proposing to terminate obsolete institutions or sponsoring new ones.

Finally, it should be added that the EU’s late arrival to multilateralism, praising and sponsoring multilateral institutions, occurs at a time when the illiberal char-acteristics of these institutions are being increasingly emphasized.30 Th e EU’s late arrival also occurs at a time when states seem to demand more from multilateral institutions than the very same states are willing to invest. Th e chances for outcomes in the form of big-forum multilateral agreements that make a diff er-ence are therefore slim — consider the stalled negotiations concerning trade (Doha), security (NPT), human rights (HRC) and the backbone of the multilat-eral system, the United Nations. Th e EU hence faces a huge political-diplomatic challenge.

Knud Erik Jørgensen is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His main areas of interest include international organizations, international relations theory, and Europe and the world. Professor Jørgensen’s recent publications include: Th e European Union and Interna-tional Organizations (London: Routledge 2009); (edited with P. Mouritsen) Constituting Communities (London: Palgrave, 2008); (edited with M.A. Pollack and B. Rosamond) Handbook of European Union Politics (London: Sage, 2007); ‘A Multilateralist Role for the EU’, in O. Elgstrøm and M. Smith (eds), Th e European Union’s Roles in International Politics (London: Routledge, 2006); and (edited with T.B. Knudsen), International Relations in Europe (London: Routledge, 2006).

29) See David Rijks and Richard Whitman, ‘European Diplomatic Representations in Th ird Countries: Trends and Options’, in G. Avery (ed.), Th e EU Foreign Service: How to Build a More Eff ective Common Policy, Working Paper no. 28 (Brussels: European Policy Centre, 2007).30) Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

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The European Union in Multilateral Diplomacy

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