In contrast to other global players, the EU is characterized by a pronounced rule-based approach and a strong aversion to coercive power, including the use of military instruments. Its foreign and security policy decisions are based on the principle of consensus.
Scholars often dispute about the reasons for this unique behavior. In the new PRIF Working Paper No. 63, Matthias Dembinski draws on these discourses to argue that the external behavior of the EU is due to its internal institutional structures. Since Maastricht in 1992, the EU has increasingly delegated competences to international bureaucracies such as the European External Action Service in order to mitigate its deficits in action, which in turn shapes the EU's behavior as a global actor. Dembinski examines the bureaucratization of EU foreign policy and uses a case study on the EU's Ukraine policy to show the character of the EU as a bureaucratic force.
Download (PDF): Dembinski, Matthias (2024): Bureaucratic Power Europe, PRIF Working Papers No. 63, Frankfurt/M.