INTRODUCTION

TO EU’S
EXTERNAL
ACTION
The EU and the
Member States exist
as distinct legal
persons.
In the global
context, the EU has a
stand-alone identity.
The idea is to turn a
situation of this kind…
= «an entity which interacts with third
countries and international organizations
and even with its own Member States
independently of them.»

…into a situation of
this kind.*
*as regards certain areas specified by the
Founding Treaties.
A good example is
the talks between
the EU and the
pharmaceutical
companies which
produce the
Covid-19 vaccine.
The EU is not a proper federation
of states, but it is more
than a simple regional
organization as well.

So what is the EU?

Many would say «an entity sui generis with supranational
features, a high degree of constitutionalization and a complex
division of competences with its Member States.»
There is a wide series of political and
economic instruments;
EU’s external actions is coordinated
by the High Representative for
Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Its range of policies and

instruments for external
action is sui generis too.
The Member States conferred to the
EU the power to deal with some crucial
challenges in the global context:
1. Access to raw materials and markets;
2. Terrorism and proliferation of nuclear weapons;
3. Global development and humanitarian aid.

Its range of policies and

instruments for external
action is sui generis too.
Finally, the EU represents a
successful model of integration and
cooperation and its internal policies
(e.g. environment, energy, privacy, competition…)
influence many countries.

Its range of policies and

instruments for external
action is sui generis too.
To understand how the EU conducts
its external relations, we first need
to know its three pillars:
TEU TFEU The Charter
Framework treaty Functioning treaty of Fundamental
Most fundamental Rules, procedures, Rights of the
legal properties. rel. with intern. law European Union
LEGAL
PRINCIPLES OF
EU EXTERNAL
ACTION
EU’s external
relations are
based on three
main principles:
1. Conferral
2. Loyalty
3. Institutional
balance
Principles in the prism of coherence:
1. Conferral: assigning
who does what in the
EU-Member State 2. Loyalty: duty of
relationship cooperation in
coherence with the
fact that State and
Institution must be
loyal to each other.

3. Institutional balance:
related to the horizontal
coherence; assigning
who does what within
the union itself.
The objectives govern the inner working of the entire EU
machinery.
Moreover, the three principles mentioned above exist in the
light of objectives; they shape the EU’s relationship to the legal
and political global reality in which it exists.
The objectives of external relation are viewed and classified in
a prism of goals:
• Possession goals are those which focus on the
protection or the strengthening of the national
possession and resources;
• Milieu goals are those goals which seek to shape
and stabilize the surrounds.
Art. 3(5) TEU:
In its relations with the wider world, the union shall uphold and promote its
values and interests and contribute to the protection of its citizens.
It shall contribute to peace, security, the suitable development of the earth,
solidarity and mutual respect among people, free and fair trade, eradication
of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the right of the
child, as well as to the strict observation and development of international
law including respect for the principle of the United Nations Charter.
Art. 21(1) TEU:
[…] The Union shall seek to develop relations and build partnerships with
third countries, and international, regional or global organisations which
share the principles referred to in the first subparagraph. It shall promote
multilateral solutions to common problems, in particular in the framework of
the United Nations.
The TFEU contains elements regarding EU’s external relations too:
• Provisions pertaining to the EU’s external competence
• Protocols and political declarations
Protocols in relation to external relations include the following:
• Protocol 2 on the application of principle of subsidiarity and proportionality;
• Protocol 7 on the privileges and immunity of EU;
• Protocol 8 relating to accession of the ECHR;
• Protocol 19, 21, 22 and 23 regarding external dimension of the treaty
of freedom, security and justice.
Some of the declarations:
• Declaration 13 and 14 on the CFSP;
• Declaration 15 concerning establishment of the EAS;
• Declaration 36 on the negotiation and conclusion of international
agreement of member state relating to the AFSJ;
• Declaration 37 concerning the solidarity obligation in article 222 TFEU;
• Declaration 41 stating for which objectives article 3 TEU article and
article 352 TFEU can be used.
International agreements are the key
legal instruments in the EU legal relations.
They help Member States to stay
connected in case that their elements fall
under their competence.
However, they remain
complex for third states
in terms of negotiation
because they keep on
changing.
EU has made a great use of its treaty-
making competences. Tariffs and
trade formed the subject of many
early agreements, but currently EU
expanded the scope
of its external legal
relations to its other
policy areas.
INSTRUMENTS
OF EU’S
EXTERNAL
RELATIONS
• Internal and external
instruments;
• Autonomous or
conventional instruments;
• Hard law and soft law.
Hard law in eu external relations:
Art. 288 TFEU
• Regulations have a general application and binding entirely
and directly in all member states.
• Directions: shall be legal binding ,as to achieve the result
• Decisions: shall be legal binding to only those to whom it is
addresses.
• Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force

The above three instruments are legally

binding and only enjoy the status if they are
duly adopted in the relevant competence
conferring article.
For example art. 194 TFEU.
Soft law in EU’s external relations:
• The two non-binding forces such as recommendations and opinions
that are mentioned in treaties have many other measures which are
generically referred to as soft law.
• These are the rules of conduct that are laid down in instruments which
have not been attributed legal force. Nevertheless they may have certain legal
effects that are aimed to produce the practical effects.
• Soft law has accounted 13 percent of all EU laws and has a prominent position
among them.
• The EU external action states that the Council of the EU shall identify the strategic
interests and objective of the union.
• The European council will therefore trigger action at all levels of governance
within the Union, within the Member States themselves and within or between
the EU institution.
• All policy areas of EU external action, a constant stream of conclusion is adopted
and push them forward in the desirable direction.
International agreements:
International agreements can only be
defined by treaties. Article 216 TFEU
merely provides following:

The Union may conclude an agreement with one or more third

countries or international organisations where the Treaties so
provide or where the conclusion of an agreement is necessary in
order to achieve, within the framework of the Union's policies,
one of the objectives referred to in the Treaties, or is provided
for in a legally binding Union act or is likely to affect common
rules or alter their scope.
CFSP & CSDP
OF THE
EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT
CFSP: The Common Foreign
and Security Policy of the
European Union, established
in 1993 with the Maastricht
Treaty, aims to preserve
peace and strengthen
international security in
accordance with the
principles of the United
Nations Charter.
CSDP: The Common Security and
Defence Policy sets the framework for
EU political and military structures, and
military and civilian missions and
operations abroad.
The CSDP has recently undergone major
strategic and operational changes to
meet security challenges and popular
demand for increased EU responses.
A Central Counterparty Clearing
House (CCP) is an entity that helps
facilitate trading in various European
derivatives and equities markets.
Typically operated by the major
banks in each country, CCPs strive to
introduce efficiency and stability
into various financial markets.
The advantages of a central
counterparty clearing
arrangement are greater
transparency of the risks,
reduced processing costs, and
greater certainty in cases of
default by a member.
The EU–US Open Skies Agreement is an open
skies air transport agreement between the
European Union and the United States.
The agreement allows any airline of the
European Union and any airline of the United
States to fly between any point in the
European Union and any point in the US.
Because the EU is not
treated as a single
territory for the purposes
of the agreement, US
airlines can fly between
two points in the EU if
that flight is the
continuation of a flight
that started in the US.
Soft legal international agreement SLIA: instruments can then
be legally binding in hard law or may be committing in other
ways soft law.

In the typology of instruments used to carry out

EU external action, we usually distinguish
between instruments that are adopted
within the EU legal order and those are
adopted by the Union in the international
order. These may be instruments adopted
by the EU alone or these may be the result of
agreement between the Union and a counterparty.
The European Foreign Affairs
Review considers the external
posture of the EU in its
relations with the rest of the
world. Therefore, the Review
focuses on the political, legal,
and economic aspects of the
Union’s external relations.
The Review functions as an
interdisciplinary medium for
the understanding and analysis
of foreign affairs issues which
are of relevance to the EU and
its Member States on the one
hand and its international
partners on the other.
Thank you for the attention.
Elycie Karamaga
Saalim Sadman
Francesco Vaudo
Yumna Wardag