Political Actorness of the EU?

The ability of the European Union to actively interact with other partners in world politics and the  unique dynamic of its behavior draw attention to the phenomenon of its “actorness”. The major theoretical approaches substantially disagree on how to evaluate the EU as an international actor. The study of key striking points may be helpful in investigating why there is no substantial progress in this field.

The realist interpretation of the EU is based on the denial of any possibility for a non-state entity to become an international actor because it is deprived of some key characteristics, the most important of which is the ability to use its armed forces. As a result, the EU is classified as an international institutional framework, which helps to prevent a conflict between European countries and provide an opportunity to project their power beyond its borders. Development of the EU as an international actor will depend on its ability to continue the process of political unification: further centralization may lead to the formation of a state- like entity; and vice-versa, the maintaining of the current institutional framework means that the EU would combine its status of being an international organization with the characteristics of an international regime and political union, which has a certain level of autonomy in the areas of delegated competences. At the same time, the EU already has the ability to exercise significant political influence and the potential to change the common way of dealing with international relations (the neoliberal interpretation). The most important consequence of its international presence is the transformation of the concept of national interests. Despite the fact that the system of cooperation within the EU cannot overcome the conditions of international anarchy, it provides opportunities and encourages the implementation of common interests, turning the EU into a powerful global political and economic player. The political challenges of globalization push forward the process of institutional unification on the EU level. The formation of a common system of values, loyalty, and forms of collective identity makes it extremely difficult for the architects to control their new entity. For many constructivist scholars, the political structure of the EU can be compared with the state or is understood as being its postmodern form. The results of this study indicate that key disagreements over the investigated theoretical approaches about the phenomenon of the EU’s “actorness” are associated primarily with a one-sided interpretation of the relationship between the structure of the international system and its elements. A possible solution for this theoretical stalemate could be assumptions about ontological equality between structures and actors/agents. In this case, it opens up a way to find out the extent to which the EU has an “actorness” in the current international system, what in turn allows one to overcome the dichotomy of conceptualizing the EU as a“state-international organization”.

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