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Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has upended Europe's security order, with many observers calling it a turning point for the European Union. This article contends, however, that the EU's response has been less a turning point and more of an epiphany, providing a reality check for the EU and its member states about how far European foreign policy cooperation has evolved in recent decades. It suggests that an understanding of the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine requires consideration of the member states' foreign policy co-operation, which has intensified over the past half-century, and its underpinning norm which we term a 'collective European responsibility to act'. In emphasizing this norm, we identify core ideas about the functioning of collective European foreign policy. We re-examine three key preoccupations of the EU foreign policy-making practice and assessment through the lens of the collective European responsibility to act and show how it enables a different and novel re-reading of the added value of EU foreign policy cooperation. The EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine thus serves as a timely focusing event that demands a rethink of the premises that have underpinned our analysis and understanding of collective European foreign policy-making over decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we are, then the crises of the EU may bring about change not only in the EU but also in EU studies. This is largely because of the enforced requirement to read widely on our collective attempts to understand Europe and the European Union (EU). I will take away four main understandings of the academic study of Europe and the EU after completing the term as co-editor: First, the eco-system of our scholarship on Europe is finely balanced. For example, Huszka (2018) explores critically the EU enlargement process through the effectiveness of EU human rights conditionality and shows the limit of the EU's capacity to achieve compliance from candidate countries. [Extracted from the article]

Brexit has transformed the EU–UK relationship into a foreign-policy challenge for both sides. The negotiations on the EU–UK future relationship have been a process in which both sides have been learning about the other as a third-party negotiator. The UK has taken a very different attitude to the Political Declaration, agreed alongside the Withdrawal Agreement (covering the terms of the UK's departure from the EU), treating it as a guide rather than a roadmap for negotiations. And the UK has decided not to pursue negotiations with the EU on a future foreign, security and defence policy relationship. This is in a context in which the EU's member states have committed to deepening security and defence cooperation. At present, and despite shared international challenges, a formal agreement on EU–UK foreign, security and defence policy looks set to be replaced by an approach of 'muddling through'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's departure from the European Union (EU) represents a major shift in the diplomatic strategy of one of Europe's leading economic, diplomatic and security players. This article limits its focus to the UK's European diplomatic strategy. The article argues that the UK's future relationship with the EU will condition the UK's broader diplomatic approach to Europe. But in exiting the EU the ambitions and modalities of the UK's other bilateral and multilateral relationships in Europe will undergo a recalibration. With the UK government having struggled since June 2016 to provide comprehensive detail on its ambitions for its future economic, political and security relationship with the EU, the development of the broader aspects of the UK's post-Brexit European diplomatic strategy has been retarded. However, through analysis of key speeches, government white papers, and other supporting documents and statements (and the experience of negotiating Brexit with the EU27), the outlines of a nascent post-Brexit UK European diplomatic strategy can be discerned. Whether this strategy will be adequate to provide the UK with a significant degree of influence on Europe's international relations and whether it gives the UK sufficient ability to addresses the key challenges that it will face in Europe is less certain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the European Union's (EU) role as international security provider along with development of EU's mid-range theory. Topics discussed include process of policy-making and effectiveness in security provision, foreign policy of EU, Muslim immigrant communities and notion of EU decision makers towards them, priorities of U.S. security in fighting terrorism, Europe's security which is threatened due to African states somaliasation.

The article discusses the challenges, diminishing influence and relation of the European Union with its wider neighbourhood in Europe. Topics discussed include the lack of progress regarding political reform in Bosnia & Herzegovina, the impact of financial & economic crisis and the challenges of economic development, democracy and bilateral disputes. Other topics include the negative consequences of the eurozone crisis, structural problems regarding labour market and issues of corruption and crime in Great Britain and the Netherlands.

Introduced by Ian Manners in an article published in 2002, the idea of ‘normative power Europe’ has been very widely debated by scholars in the fields of European studies and international relations. This article marks the first decade of scholarship on normative power Europe through a critical engagement with the concept, its influence and the wider normative turn within the literature on the European Union’s role beyond its borders. The article reviews the strands of literature that have drawn on the concept of normative power and outlines the contours of the international debate on the concept. It provides an assessment of the impact of normative power and its application through the variety of ways it has been used via engagement, reaction and counter-reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the strategic partnership between European Union (EU) and Brazil. It notes that EU has planned to promote its interests and influence outside its borders through strategic partnership. It mentions that the intention of EU in establishing relation with Brazil since the country has become an important regional and international player.

The European Union is often compared to other political systems in order to better understand its basic features and how they structure politics. This article argues that this focus on comparative politics instils a domestic bias into the study of the EU, which also ignores the impact of enlargement. To remedy this, a comparison is suggested between the order of the EU as a regional international society and the order of the traditional, global international society as analysed by the English School of International Relations, and in particular by Hedley Bull. It is argued that the primary goal of the international order of the society of states, the preservation of states as its fundamental units, has been replaced by the goal of the preservation of peace in Europe. Consequently, the five core institutions of international order identified by Bull (balance of power, international law, diplomacy, war and great powers) have been modified or replaced. The new institutions of the European order are identified as the pooling of sovereignty, the acquis communautaire, multi-managerialism, pacific democracy, member state coalitions and multiperspectivity. These sustain and enlarge a regional international society that not only combines international and domestic elements, but transforms politics to such an extent that it should better be called a multiperspectival society, confounding Bull's expectation that the European integration will either lead to a European state or falter. This has potential ramifications for the organisation of international society at large, although whether the transformative potential of the EU can be realised remains to be seen, and will be decided above all in the EU's treatment of its own borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article is presented that reports on foreign relations in Europe between the European Union (EU) and nonmember countries in 2009. In 2009, the EU improved its existing policies and developed commissions for foreign and security relationships with neighboring countries. The article discusses the increase in the number of applications for EU membership, noting how the desire for membership alters relations and the effectiveness of EU conditionality. Information is also provided on conflicts in Eastern Europe, the Treaty of Lisbon for integration, the 21st century global financial crisis, and countries including Switzerland and Norway.

This article presents an introduction to the other articles within this issue regarding the European Union.

Reports that the European Union was provided with an aspiration for the creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) through the Treaty of the European Union (TEU). Details on the CFSP; Background information on attempts for the creation of a European foreign policy; Information on Title V of the TEU.

This article is intended to contribute to the development of a framework to analyse the international role of the European Union (EU). The article offers a framework to chart the network of relations that the EU has cultivated with nation‐states and regional groupings in the international system, discern differences in the extent or the depth of these relationships and analyse the manner in which such relationships are cultivated and maintained. The article commences by examining the approaches that have been adopted for conceptualizing the international role of the EU. It then proceeds to argue that the notion of international identity is valid for the analysis of the EU as an actor in the international system. The assertion is that the network of relations that the EU has cultivated, and maintains, through a set of instruments, represents one facet of an international identity of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]