The European Union’s strategic partnerships: The European Union in international affairs

SANTIAGO GARCÍA; CALCAGNO, DUILIO LORENZO

The Social Science Journal

Taylor & Francis

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2022

0362-3319

Published in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, this book, edited by Smith and Ferreira-Pereira, could not have come out at a better time. Even anticipating the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, several experts on the European Union (EU) thoroughly analyze the strategic partnerships established with 10 other nations since the concept was coined in the 90s. It was born thanks to the desire of the European Union to become a global actor with regulatory power. The authors consider that it is going through an identity crisis that was triggered by the 2008 crisis, and deepened with the growth of populist governments and Brexit. As a consequence, the role of the EU as a regional actor and federative model has been called into question.The objective of the volume is to analyze the evolution of Strategic Partnerships (SPs): bilateral agreements with states of crucial importance, their relevance in the current geopolitical context and whether they still constitute efficient tools to implement the values promulgated by the EU. In this way, the authors will question the diplomatic strategy of European foreign policy by taking into account four dimensions of it: a functional one, considering SPs as foreign policy tools to face the multilevel crisis; one as a separate but non-separable policy from the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Another institutional as a contractual base of soft law and one of identity or role in relation to whether the SPs have contributed to reinforcing the conception that the EU has of itself with respect to being a relevant international actor, especially in a global context of transition.