EU Administration and Interaction with International Organizations

Abstract

Does a European Union (EU) administration responsible for interactions with international organizations (IOs) exist? It does; but most people will find it difficult to indicate its precise location. Even if they point to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for External Relations (since 2010 the European External Action Service), it will be hard for them to identify the numerous interactions with a large variety of IOs. There are various reasons for this specific invisibility. Firstly, foreign policy, whether related to ‘low’ politics (for example, trade) or ‘high’ politics (for example, security), is a matter for nation states, which decidedly are aware of their national interests. Even if states cooperate in specific areas (for example, coal and steel), common foreign policies will meet with resistance, as they may reduce the national room for maneuver. Thus, it is no surprise that it took a long time before the EU had established its (still limited) foreign policies. Paradoxically, a regional group of states with internal policies needs external policies too, and EU member states only went ahead with common foreign policies after a lot of arguing and the acceptance of gradual expansion. This process resulted from ongoing evolution in practice and incremental decision making. Secondly, IOs exist and function, but for outsiders it is difficult to perceive what is going on, even if IOs are transparent about their work. Relations among IOs are even harder to recognize, and are also underresearched, although more attention is being paid to interorganizational relations (Biermann, 2011) and interregionalism (Van der Vleuten and Ribeiro Hof fmann, 2013).