The EU strategic partnerships: work in progress
Herman Van Rompuy, José Manuel Barroso and Catherine Ashton have each identified strategic partnerships as a priority axis for their mandate, and most Member States agreed it should top the European foreign policy agenda. It remains essentially a vague concept, which is difficult to grasp for most scholars. But the flexibility resulting thereof is perhaps what is most widely appreciated by policy-makers. More broadly, strategic partnerships are a useful narrative and instrument to define the EU’s policies in a new global order in the making. As uncertainty continues to underpin the conduct of international relations, under the forces of globalization and multipolarization, strategic partnerships are likely to remain a useful tool in the EU’s foreign policy toolbox.
Published under the title “De strategische partnerschappen van de EU: work in progress” in Internationale Spectator, jr. 68, nr.6, June 2014, pp. 16-19 [in Dutch].
De PDF van dit artikel is met toestemming van de redactie overgenomen uit de Internationale Spectator, maandblad voor internationale politiek, uitgegeven door de Koninklijke Van Gorcum te Assen namens het Nederlands Instituut voor Internationale Betrekkingen ‘Clingendael’ te Den Haag.
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