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The European External Action Service: An Encompassing and Adaptive Agency at the Service of the EU Global Security Strategy?

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European Union Security and Defence

Part of the book series: Contributions to Political Science ((CPS))

Abstract

The evolving security challenges that the European Union (EU) has encountered in recent decades have set the stage for a consequent institutional adaptation. Previous oscillations by EU member states (MS) to develop and strengthen the Common Foreign and Security Policy were reflected in the weak institutional framework that was gradually formed to its service especially in the 2000s. However, the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) reflects the very vision of the EU member states to depart from previous inconsistencies and to empower the EU’s multi-layered external action by establishing a uniquely compound institution destined to serve and to upgrade the EU into an effective global security actor. The EEAS has wrestled to encompass all forms of policies having a foreign and security policy impact, while trying to entertain all contestations and turf wars around the scope and effectiveness of its actions. The article argues that EEAS hosts a ‘dynamic hybridity logic’, which favours the formation of niche co-operation schemes that could better serve or improve the implementation of the EU external action by involving different services and assets from other policy sectors of the EU.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Personal Interview with former senior Commission officer who wishes to remain anonymous, Brussels, 25 November 2015.

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  1. Department of International and European Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Fotini Bellou

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  1. International and European Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    George Voskopoulos

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Bellou, F. (2021). The European External Action Service: An Encompassing and Adaptive Agency at the Service of the EU Global Security Strategy?. In: Voskopoulos, G. (eds) European Union Security and Defence. Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48893-2_7

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