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Revisiting the Lisbon Treaty's Constitutional Design of EU External Relations
Abstract
The Lisbon Treaty is the result of a long gestation period that started out with extraordinary ambitions but was ultimately stunted by political constraints. One of the major and most visible goals of this reform has been to instil greater coherence in EU external action. In order to achieve this, the drafters of the Treaty attempted to integrate the different parts of EU external action. This effort was only partly successful. Although it allowed for improved coherence, effectiveness and continuity in EU external action, this could only occur if the EU institutions and the Member States were able to manage to garner the political will. In this Working Paper, we argue that the current text of the Treaties carries a largely untapped potential for non-negligible improvements in the exercise of Union action abroad. By revisiting the constitutional design of the Lisbon Treaty, this paper attempts to reveal this potential. It also analyses the political constraints, both in the process that led to Lisbon and in the implementation of the new text of the Treaties.
... 265-266). In fact, the CFSP has remained a competence distinct from others with regard to its procedures and instruments (Wouters & Ramopoulos, 2013). Source: Schütze (2012, p. 191) At the same time, we have to move beyond pillar talk in the post-Lisbon era. ...
Executive Summary This Working Paper explores the current legal basis and governance structures of the European Union's (EU) "external action plus". In our understanding, the notion of "external action plus" not only includes the foreign, security and defence policy, trade, sanctions policy, development cooperation or humanitarian aid but also EU sectoral policies with an external dimension. In line with this definition, this Working Paper presents both the traditional external action areas of common commercial policy, sanctions policy and development cooperation and humanitarian aid, as well as the external dimension of some internal policy areas, including competition, health and environment. Despite several Treaty amendments, the EU's external actions are still fragmented and competences are scattered throughout the two Treaties. The list of common objectives under Article 21(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) or the dual role of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) are clear attempts to overcome the "bipolarity" of EU external actions. The continued existence of different legal bases that enable the Union to act externally still represents a significant challenge for EU policymakers. ENGAGE_Europe @ENGAGE_Europe engage-eu.eu For More Information
... Thus far, the focus of the EU on the rule of law has been mostly studied from a legal perspective. Some authors have, for instance, analyzed the place of the rule of law in the EU treaties (Pech 2012;Wouters and Ramopoulos 2013). Others have criticized the fact that, while the EU puts great emphasis on the Rule of Law in both its internal and external policies (Pech 2012, 78), it has never provided a clear definition of this key concept (Kochenov 2004). ...
The promotion of the “Rule of Law” is a leading ambition of the EU’s external action (Article 21 TEU). The dominant approach in most policy documents is to define the rule of law in terms of legal and institutional checklists. However, several authors have criticized this “anatomical” approach and have argued for a “sociological” approach. In this paper, I will discuss two empirical models of the rule of law. Most current studies follow the model of the “Rule of Law in Action.” This approach is based on Roscoe Pound’s distinction between the “law in the books” and the “law in action.” I will argue that this conventional approach has several shortcomings. I will therefore introduce an alternative model, based on Eugen Ehrlich’s concept of the “living law.” The principal concern of the “Living Rule of Law” model is not the level of social support but rather the social definition of the rule of law. To assess the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, I will apply both models in a case study about rule of law reform in a refugee camp on the Thailand–Burma border. It will be concluded that empirical research is essential to evaluate the EU’s external action. Moreover, empirical studies based on the model of the Living Rule of Law support a legal pluralist approach, which focuses on the user perspective of citizens and which recognizes the contested notion of the rule of law across cultural borders.
This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the main changes introduced by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon (TL) to the Common Commercial Policy (CCP), which are particularly significant for the conclusion of European Union (EU) international trade agreements. The key provisions concerning the CCP in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) are Articles 206 and 207 TFEU. Together Articles 206 and 207 TFEU form Title II on the “Common Commercial Policy” of Part V of the TFEU, which is entitled “External Action by the Union”.
The Lisbon Treaty has rung in a new era of democratic and human rights governance. In an attempt to redress concerns about the EU's alleged democratic deficit and inability to speak with one voice on cross-cutting issues of human rights, both the empowered European Parliament (EP) and national parliaments (NPs) are meant to 'contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union' through inter-parliamentary cooperation (IPC). At the same time, the EU's action is also poised to systematically 'put human rights at the heart of all its policies'. Given the role of parliaments as 'guardians and promoters of human rights' at a time when their ability to influence the EU legislative process has significantly been enhanced, the question arises whether the EU's 'human rights turn' may act as a catalyst for IPC, and whether this collaboration may, in turn, strengthen the effectiveness and legitimacy of EU human rights policies. To that end, this study maps the increasingly complex network of formal and informal IPC channels in the realm of human rights, assesses their respective strengths and weaknesses, and formulates recommendations to enhance IPC in this regard.
This chapter assesses a second set of pressures: challenges to the Commission’s authority stemming from institutional reforms at the EU level. Building on the impact of progressive delegations of power to the European Parliament, two key developments in the late 2000s—the Lisbon Treaty and the Eurozone crisis—have further impacted on the Commission’s position. Focusing on the first of these developments, this chapter argues that Lisbon’s strengthening of the European Council and Parliament, together with the creation of new institutional rivals in the shape of the President of the European Council, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and EEAS have contributed to the general trend of shifting influence and power away from the Commission.
The chapter explores the role the EU has committed itself to in relation to the promotion of social rights and international labour standards in its Common Commercial Policy (CCP). In particular, it examines the EU’s practice of promoting social standards through the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP – in its three main variants, i.e. the general GSP scheme, the “GSP +” incentive scheme, and the “Everything but Arms” (EBA) scheme) and in its bilateral and regional trade agreements. In this context, the chapter seeks to assess the extent to which recent developments at European level indicate an increased willingness and true commitment of the EU to pursue social objectives more vigorously, in the broader framework of the EU’s “deep trade agenda” namely the push for further trade liberalisation focusing on the removal of domestic non-tariff regulatory measures. The analysis includes a critical review of how labour provisions have been incorporated into trade agreements and the various goals pursued in combination with the mechanisms employed to achieve them.
This article analyzes the relationship between the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and its other external policies after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. It discusses the implications of the EU’s single legal personality and the institutional innovations to enhance the coherence of the EU’s external action in light of the division of EU external powers and competences. It is argued that the ill-defined nature of CFSP competences and the abolition of the hierarchical delimitation rule of former Article 47 (now as amended Art. 40) TEU places the Court of Justice for a nearly impossible task to delineate the boundaries between the different components of EU external action. The potential for inter-institutional conflicts is illustrated with the new rules for the adoption of restrictive measures against individuals. It is concluded that the delimitation of competences in the field of EU external action cannot be disconnected from the duty of consistency.
International economic governance is one of the major contemporary fields of cross-border policy and regulatory efforts. It has gained further significance since the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis. A significant role within this framework is played by the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund). Since the beginning of the European sovereign debt crisis, the relationship between the European Union (EU), in particular the euro area, and the IMF has evolved and shifted considerably. In light of these developments this chapter examines and discusses the potential and limits that the post-Lisbon EU Treaty provisions offer with regard to the external representation of the EU and the euro area in the IMF. This discussion is subsequently approached from the viewpoint of the IMF; in particular, the Articles of Agreement of the latter. The international financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis have given rise to seemingly conflicting economic and political developments in the EU. On the one hand, they have provoked - or at least exacerbated - the problem of diverging economic and monetary interests amongst EU Member States. On the other hand, the crisis has accelerated the ongoing rebalancing of global economic and monetary power in favour of emerging economies, which, in turn, underlines the urgency for EU Member States to improve their coordination and/or representation in international financial institutions and conferences (IFIC), if they are to remain influential, fulfilling the Union’s raison d’être as elaborated by de Bárca in this volume. Hence, it is important to examine how the relevant EU Treaty provisions that have entered into force with the Treaty of Lisbon could alter EU/euro area performance in the Fund. As argued in this chapter, the euro area, but perhaps not the EU as a whole, is now equipped with the legal tools to improve the effectiveness, visibility and coherence of its external representation. Article 138 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) obliges euro area Member States to adopt common positions in international forums and even allows for a unified representation of the euro area in these forums. However, the Treaties stop short of clarifying the relationship between the external representation of the euro area and the EU. They did not formally bestow the euro area with legal personality, thereby handicapping it in becoming fully engaged in IFIC.
I. The notion of institutional balance Until the Lisbon Treaty, the institutional architecture of the European Union had seen relatively few major reforms since the formation of the Communities in the 1950s. The 1965 Merger Treaty had indeed united previously separate institutions that had been working in parallel, the transformation of the parliamentary assembly into a directly elected legislature at the end of the 1970s and the creation of the European Council as a regular meeting of Heads of State and Government all changed the shape of the original blueprint. However, the basic pattern of an institutional triangle of Parliament, Council and Commission tasked with legislative decision-making, watched over by a European Court of Justice, had been preserved over the decades. Much of the recent reforms contained in successive treaty revisions changed the relations between these three institutions, with the progressive extension of co-decision between European Parliament and Council in the legislative procedure being the most important aspect in this regard. Institutional balance, in a basic understanding of the term, is about the absence of any single institution among these three having fundamentally more weight and influence in the politics of the Union than the other two. In the past, a degree of balance has been achieved due to three cross-cutting 'cleavages' that in turn separate and unite the institutions vis-à-vis one another: 1 • first, Parliament and Council work together as the two chambers of the EU's legislature, whereas the Commission acts as the Union's sole executive; 1 Obviously the use of 'cleavages' here is not in line with the understanding of societal cleavages as developed by Lijphart and others (see A Lijphart, 'Consociational Democracy' World Politics 21, no 2 (December 1969)) but is used here in a wider sense of institutional divisions reflecting opposing logics underlying the European integration project.
This is essay examines the role of EU law in promoting and guaranteeing coherence in the external action of the European Union. A first part attempts to shed light on the notion of coherence in the context of EU primary l aw, notably by relating it to the TEU concept of 'consistency'. A second part argues that achieving coherence in the EU external action depends on the degree of deference, by EU institutions and Member States, to other organizing principles of the EU system of external relations.
The reform of the constitutional foundations of Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) featured prominently on the agenda of the European Convention. To the great surprise of many observers the much lamented absence of a common European response to the war in Iraq did not prevent the Convention from agreeing upon an ambitious reform package in the foreign-policy field. This article explores the legal implications of the new institutional balance for European foreign policy envisaged by the Convention against the background of the achievements and deficiencies of Europe's existing foreign policy regime. Thereby, we shall see in how far the Convention has met the original goal set by the Laeken European Council to consider reform steps to strengthen the Union's ability to 'shoulder its responsibilities in the governance of globalisation.'
[From the Introduction]. The European Community (EC) was initially only competent in the area of trade and gradually developed a common commercial policy. The 1970s onwards saw increasing foreign policy co-operation in the framework of European Political Co-operation (EPC). Over the next two decades the increasing number of external activities of the Union highlighted the need for consistency between the EC’s external competencies conducted in the context of the first pillar and the intergovernmental ones of the second pillar and, to an growing extent, the third pillar. By the late 1990s the European Union (EU) accounted for a greater percentage of global gross national product than the U.S. and Japan. The EU also contributes more to the UN budget and peacekeeping operations than either the U.S. or Japan. Given the enormous importance of the EU as a global actor and its potential to play an even more influential role, it is not difficult to see why concerns of consistency in the EU’s external activities are legitimate.
Consistency has become something of a refrain. Most recently the consolidated Treaty on European Union (CTEU) states that, 'The Union shall be served by a single institutional framework which shall ensure the consistency and the continuity of the activities carried out in order to attain its objectives while respecting and building upon the acquis communautaire.' [CTEU, 1997, Article 3] To this end, it is to the Union generally that the task of ensuring 'consistency in its external activities as a whole in the context of external relations, security, economic and development policies' falls. The Council and Commission are though charged with particular responsibility in this regard. The objective of achieving consistency in the Union’s external activities is to ensure that the Union can 'assert its identity on the international scheme.' [CTEU, 1997, Article 2] In support of the general theme of consistency the European Council identified the aim of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as being to enable the Union to speak with one voice. The same theme is returned to within the CFSP mechanisms, both directly but also indirectly through reference to 'common positions,' 'joint decisions,' 'joint actions,' and, most recently, 'common strategies.'
This article starts with an overview of the main changes that the Lisbon Treaty brings to the domain of foreign affairs and external relations. The main focus of the analysis, however, lies in the actual implementation of the key provisions related to the role of the High Representative (HR)/Vice-President (VP) and, in particular, the set-up and functioning of the fledgling European External Action Service (EEAS). Finally, this article raises a number of questions about the way in which this new 'architecture' might and/or should contribute to improving on the position and action of the EU on the international scene.
So much disinformation about the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe—‘the Constitutional Treaty’, as I shall call it—has been disseminated by the media in this country (and not only here) that there is an urgent need to put the record straight. I am going to tackle the problem in two ways: first, by trying to assuage some false and exaggerated fears of changes that are either fictional or minor; and, secondly, by evaluating what seem to me to be the main changes the Constitutional Treaty is designed genuinely to bring about.
This chapter traces the legal framework for the participation of the European Union (EU)2 in the activities of the UN in the field of global environmental governance. The chapter starts with a brief overview of the objectives and commitments of the EU in the field of multilateralism and the environment, where full account is taken of the strengthened language after the Lisbon Treaty. Second, this chapter will look into two key aspects for enabling the EU to participate in international relations: competence and the exercise thereof, in particular as to the external representation of the Union. While both aspects are of course linked, it is important to inquire into them in turn in order to reveal the intricacies of the post-Lisbon framework. It will be argued that precisely the field of global environmental governance offers a prime sample of the major issues that surround the EU’s external action. Moreover, a brief overview is given of the limits and possibilities of the UN legal and institutional framework when it comes to enabling a stronger role for the EU. Finally, the attention is turned to the EU’s actual participation in global environmental governance under the UN umbrella. On the one hand, the EU’s external representation in environmental matters in the UN context is examined, and, on the other hand, some concrete examples are discussed to reveal the challenges and opportunities for coherent and effective future action by the EU in the field of environmental policy through the UN system. The chapter thus offers insights into the day-today practice of the Union as it struggles to translate the vagaries of the Lisbon Treaty into practical arrangements for the EU’s external environmental policy.
‘Law as integrity, then, requires a judge to test his interpretation of any part of the great network of political structures and decisions of his community by asking whether it could form part of a coherent theory justifying the network as a whole.’
(R. Dworkin, Law’s Empire, 1986, 245)
Introduction: Since the Treaty of Maastricht, the external action of the European Union(EU) has been conducted under the distinct sets of constitutional arrangements found respectively in the EC Treaty (the first pillar) and in Title V and Title VI of the TEU (the second and third pillars). This chapter is more particularly concerned with the relationship between the Union's first pillar competences, exercised through the persona of the European Community (EC) and extending to those fields of external activity for which legal bases exist in the EC Treaty, and its directly exercisable second pillar competence in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Central to the management of that relationship (as well as of the relationship between first and third pillar competences) is Article 47 of the TEU, found among the Final Provisions in Title VIII of that Treaty. The Article states: Subject to the provisions amending the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, and to these final provisions, nothing in this Treaty shall affect the Treaties establishing the European Communities or the subsequent Treaties and Acts modifying or supplementing them. Evidently, the function of Article 47 is to preserve the integrity of the legal order that was brought into being by the EC Treaty, in the face of the new competences conferred upon the Union by the TEU. © Cambridge University Press 2008 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Expanding European Union activity on the international scene has led to development of the legal concepts, principles and rules that govern it. External relations law and practice have also been affected by events within the EU. This volume takes stock of the recent developments in the external relations law and practice of the EC/EU and investigates the increasing interaction between these different fields of Union competence. The first part of this book addresses issues that are broadly constitutional or institutional in character. The second part deals with various aspects of substantive external relations considered in a geographical or geo-political perspective. The third part selects two specific substantive law areas – intellectual property law and environment law – as examples which illustrate the specific relationship between domestic policy and external relations. © Cambridge University Press 2008 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Introduction: The Laeken Declaration The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe signed in October 2004 proposed important substantive and institutional changes to the European Union's system of external relations, and the Treaty of Lisbon (TL) signed in December 2007 largely implements these changes in its amendments of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the EC Treaty (re-named the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union). The process of commenting on the drafting of both the Constitutional Treaty and the TL, discussing their implications and evaluating them has all encouraged scholars to look again at the constitutional basis for external relations law, to address some of the remaining ambiguities in the existing state of the law, and to think about the appropriate legal framework for a policy which is ever more important for the future development of the EU. Furthermore, the revised Treaty text itself reflects recent trends in external relations, in the sense of policy developments (e.g. moving forward on security and defence policy), institutional roles (e.g. the role of the European Council), as well as attempting to reflect current thinking and current case law. In assessing the results of this reform process, the Laeken Declaration of December 2001, which mandated the Convention on the Future of Europe, still makes a good starting point. © Cambridge University Press 2008 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Given the controversies and difficulties which preceded the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, it is easy to forget that the Treaty is a complex legal document in need of detailed analysis for its impact to be fully understood. Jean-Claude Piris, the Director General of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, provides such an analysis, looking at the historical and political contexts of the Treaty, its impact on the democratic framework of the EU and its provisions in relation to substantive law. Impartial legal analysis of the EU’s functions, its powers and the treaties which govern it make this the seminal text on the most significant recent development in EU law.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, taxation of the financial sector has forcefully re-emerged on the European Union political agenda. Since then, several EU Member States and the European Parliament have sought to stimulate this proposal in the form of a financial transaction tax (FTT). What had for years existed as a political Utopia in the minds of grass roots movements reached a legal and political milestone during Commission President Barosso’s State of the Union speech on 28 September 2011. There he presented a proposal for an EU Directive on an FTT installed across the twenty-seven EU Member States, through which the Union would prove its feasibility and desirability to the world. The November 2011 G20 meeting under French Chairmanship was then supposed to give the starting shot for working towards its global implementation. However, the aspirations of the former French President were decisively cut short by the Eurozone crisis entering its most acute phase. In the months that followed, the EU’s ambitions in the field of FTT withered both outside and within the Union. On the global stage the EU no longer pushed the FTT at the G20 in Mexico, and in June 2012 it became clear that an FTT across the territory of the twenty-seven EU Member States was not feasible either. As a consequence, by September 2012 eleven Member States (Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain) had requested the Commission to outline an FTT on the basis of enhanced cooperation. The proposal to authorize enhanced cooperation followed in October 2012 for the Ecofin Council meeting in November 2012. However, at that meeting a number of Member States declined to give their authorization in accordance with Article 329(1) TFEU, pending a more detailed assessment of its impact on the Internal Market. While the consequences of a partial implementation of the FTT are justifiably questioned, it does show that the idea of the EU spearheading the FTT and therefore setting an example for the world has not yet fully disappeared in the minds of some of Europe’s political elites.
The volume explores the marked differences between the complex and rapidly changing legal organization of EU external relations and the EU's 'internal' constitutional order. The European Union is unique as a polity organized along federal lines but with fully fledged States as its component political entities. The tension between the self-conscious Member States and their constitutional relationship within the EU is especially pronounced in the foreign policy field, where they remain determined to assert their status as full subjects of the international order. This book explores how foreign policy fits within the constitutional structure of the EU, characterized by the division of external relations competences between the EU and the Member States ('the vertical axis'), and between the 'pillars' of which the Union is composed, in particular the division between the Community competences of the first pillar and the common foreign and security competences of the second pillar ('the horizontal axis'). This is a study of the extent to which foreign policy is legally sui generis within the sui generis constitutional order of the EU, and of how the common foreign and security policy is in turn sui generis within the foreign policy structure of the Union. It provides both an exploration of the constitutional reality of EU foreign policy and theoretical analysis which suggests possibilities for reform.
The Lisbon Treaty reformed the foundations of the European Union and marked the culmination of a process of Treaty reform that began after the Treaty of Nice and spanned almost a decade. This book addresses the main innovations made by the new Treaty, examining its legal and political consequences in a reformed EU. The book is organized thematically around the principal issues that occupied those engaged in the reforms over the last decade. The chapters include analysis of the reform process itself and the political forces that shaped the relevant provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. The book contains detailed analysis of the relevant legal changes made by the Lisbon Treaty on each topic covered. This legal analysis is informed by broader literature from related disciplines, such as political science and international relations, since it is only by doing so that it is possible fully to understand the legal implications of the new provisions dealing with issues such as the inter-institutional division of power within the EU, the distribution of competence, the hierarchy of legal acts, and the Charter of Rights. The book addresses the political and legal implications of the Treaty provisions, and the discussion is set against the background of the pre-existing legal and political regime, aiding a full understanding of the effect of the new rules contained in the Lisbon Treaty.
The law of the external relations of the European Union is a subject of great importance. The EU institutions have developed an extensive practice in this area, by concluding many international agreements, by participating in the work of international organizations, and by legislating and regulating on matters of external relations. It is a practice giving rise to many legal problems and questions, as evidenced by the substantial and fast expanding body of case law in this area from the EU Courts. These problems and questions are often of constitutional significance, and the external relations law of the EU therefore occupies an important place in the overall constitutional and institutional development of the EU. This book examines the legal foundations of the EU's external relations. It focuses on the EU's external competences and objectives; on the instruments, principles, and actors of external policies; and on the legal effects of international agreements and international law. It analyses a number of key external policies, particularly in the fields of trade and foreign policy.
This paper discusses the effects of the EU’s external relations institutional framework on the conduct of its diplomacy. Drawing upon the academic writing in the field, we attempt to take a step further, examining how the post-Lisbon external relations architecture influences EU diplomacy in practice, combining legal analysis with policy-making. Our conclusion is that the new architecture has not yet managed to achieve its major objective to instill coherence, consistency and unity in EU foreign policy as prerequisites for a more prominent and, thereby, effective role of the EU on the international plane. Instead of streamlining cooperation and coordination of the different actors relevant to the conduct of EU foreign policy, it has given rise to turf battles among them in the effort to determine ad novo the power balances in this field.
The analysis attempts to evaluate the current ‘strategic’ political substance of European Union (EU) global policies and to answer the question of what kind of international actor the EU is. The study is based on the reading of comprehensive analyses of the respective ‘strategies’ embedded in inter-regional relations with Latin America, Africa, the Mediterranean, East Asia, and Central Asia as well as ‘strategic partnerships’ with India, Japan, China, Canada and Brazil – the partners that, according to the European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003, reaffirmed in 2008, are gaining increasing clout in shaping global governance.
So much disinformation about the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe—‘the Constitutional Treaty’, as I shall call it—has been disseminated by the media in this country (and not only here) that there is an urgent need to put the record straight. I am going to tackle the problem in two ways: first, by trying to assuage some false and exaggerated fears of changes that are either fictional or minor; and, secondly, by evaluating what seem to me to be the main changes the Constitutional Treaty is designed genuinely to bring about.
Most of us have three colour receptors in our eyes. Opthalmologist Jay Neitz studies people who have four –and see an extra dimension of colour. He has also made it a life goal to develop a cure for colour-blindness.
The concept of horizontal coherence, or inter-pillar coherence, appears to be consubstantial with the external action of the EC/EU: it can be defined as the absence of contradictions between the policies of the European Community and the Common Foreign and Security Policy, or CFSP (consistency) on the one hand, and the achievement of a synergy between these policies (coherence) on the other hand. First considered as a political requirement, its best expression is located in the Article 3 of the Treaty on the European Union. The practice of European foreign policy has demonstrated the importance of this requirement: the control of exports of dual-use goods as well as the adoption of sanctions, whether on the basis of Article 301 EC, or in application of international agreements with third states, have given the example of overlapping competences. Besides, this overlap has been reflected in the internal organisation of the institutions (allocation of portfolios in the European Commission, conflict between the Political Committee and the Committee of the Permanent Representatives in the Council of the EU). However, the answers to these problems have been far too timid: the adoption of an integrated approach (conflict prevention) as well as the institutional adaptations of the Treaty of Amsterdam do not compensate for the absence of a vision of the European foreign policy which would overcome the old cleavage between federalism and intergovernmentalism. Indeed, it seems to us that much more innovative solutions are needed, such as an evolution towards the binding character of the coherence requirement, which would pave the way to a coherent European foreign policy, comprising external relations and CFSP (including the defence dimension).
Shaping the international order according to the Union’s values is not just a political ambition, but is also enshrined in EU primary law in the form of the external objectives of the Union. These have been streamlined and expanded significantly with the Lisbon reform (above all Arts. 3(5) and 21 TEU). However, scholarship has not given these objectives an altogether warm welcome, often dismissing them as strange, superfluous or mere wishful thinking. The aim of this paper is to put these external objectives into the wider context of the ‘dynamic internationalisation’ of constitutional law around the world and approach them as part of a constitutional norm category. It is argued that in contemporary constitutional law, externally-oriented objectives are not unusual, but indeed increasingly commonplace. Moreover, at least in German and French legal scholarship, constitutional objectives have received considerable attention and are acknowledged as legally binding, in principle justiciable norms of constitutional rank, setting objectives apart from mere ‘soft law’. This also applies to externally-oriented objectives, even though a wider margin of discretion pertains to the executive branch as the main actor in the area of foreign affairs. Applying these findings to the EU, it can be concluded that the Union’s external objectives are indeed legal norms in the vanguard of a global trend in constitutional law.
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