Legal and institutional inadequacies in the external action of the European Union

Abstract

This contribution presents an analysis of and reflections on certain legal and institutional weaknesses which help to explain, at least in part, the challenges which the European Union faces at present in its action on the international scene. Its international action faces obstacles owing not only to the derived, limited and relative international legal personality of the Union, but also to the uncertainties which, as a result of existing institutional tensions on the delimitation of competences, are reflected in the process of negotiation, signature and conclusion of international agreements. Furthermore, the Union needs an adequate legal framework which would enable it to act effectively as a subject of international law whenever it adopts international unilateral acts, whether it be by recognizing third countries or by adopting binding unilateral declarations, or whenever challenges are brought against the legality of international sanctions which the Union adopts vis-á-vis third countries or restrictive measures which it takes against natural or legal persons, groups or non-State entities. The Union does not have a single, clear, simple and consolidated institutional structure which would facilitate its international representation because its present structure is characterized by a multiplicity of representatives and roles, by an overlapping of identical competences and the overcrowding of the functions exercised by one of them; all this undermines the effectiveness of the Union in international negotiations and impacts negatively on its influence in international organizations and conferences, particularly as concerns its ambition to obtain an appropriate status within these organizations. Lastly, there is the risk that a disproportionate opacity and excessive reluctance with regard to the reception of international law within the Union’s legal order for the sake of preserving the autonomy of the Union’s legal order or the supposedly superior values embodied by the Union, will undermine the confidence that other subjects of international law should have in the commitments undertaken by the Union, and which could even lead to the international isolation of the Union.