Between legalisation and organisational development: Explaining the evolution of EU competence in the field of foreign policy

Abstract

The absorption of the European Community by the European Union has laid the foundations for the Union to become a more coherent and effective international actor. At the same time, the merger of the previously separate legal orders of the Community and the Union has put the intergovernmental character of the Common Foreign and Security Policy under considerable strain. The nature and extent of the Union's competences in foreign policy matters constitute one of the areas where this tension is particularly acute. The present chapter investigates why the question of Union competence in the field of foreign policy was not the subject of concern before the Treaty of Lisbon and what prompted the Member States to address this question during the Treaty reform process. The chapter develops an answer to these questions by relying on two concepts borrowed from International Relations scholarship, legalisation and organisational development, and argues that the institutional design of European foreign policy cooperation is governed by what we may term the Goldilocks Principle.