Abstract
While EU strategic partnerships have gained prominence as an essential EU foreign policy tool, their meaning has remained largely vague and unspecified. This is related to a lack of institutional ownership in the EU foreign policy system. This chapter considers how the activity of key institutional actors such as the European External Action Service, the High Representative and the European Commission have shaped the meaning and role of EU strategic partnerships. This institution-centric perspective provides the background for the rest of the edited volume in that it scrutinizes the policy-setting and institutional framework of strategic partnerships. Its analysis is focused on the period after the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, as this was meant to enhance the EU’s capacity to act as a strategic and coherent foreign policy actor. The chapter focuses on institutional roles in shaping strategic partnership goals, the development of frameworks, as well as the influence of institutional complexity on their management. It ultimately argues that there is little institutional leadership on the strategic partnerships, as the presence of bureaucratic politics facilitated by the complex institutional set-up in Brussels has hindered a consideration of these in the context of the EU’s wider foreign policy.
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Notes
- 1.
This was also the term used in the initial negotiations with Canada and Japan.
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Schade, D. (2021). Institutional Perspectives on the EU’s Strategic Partnerships: Where Is the Focus and Authority?. In: Ferreira-Pereira, L.C., Smith, M. (eds) The European Union's Strategic Partnerships. The European Union in International Affairs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66061-1_3
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