The Foreign Policy of the European Union

Keukeleire and Delreux demonstrate the scope and diversity of the European Union’s foreign policy, showing that EU foreign policy is broader than the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy, and that areas such as trade, development, environment and energy are inextricable elements of it.

This book offers a comprehensive and critical account of the EU’s key foreign relations - with its neighbourhood, with the US, China and Russia, and with emerged powers - and argues that the EU’s foreign policy needs to be understood not only as a response to crises and conflicts, but also as a means of shaping international structures and influencing long-term processes.

This third edition reflects recent changes and trends in EU foreign policy as well as the international context in which it operates, addressing issues such as the increasingly contested international order, the conflict in Ukraine, the migration and refugee crisis, Brexit and Covid-19. The book not only clarifies the formal procedures in EU foreign policy-making but also elucidates how it works in practice. The third edition includes new sections and boxes on ‘strategic autonomy’, European arms exports, the EU’s external representation, the ‘Brussels Effect’, and decentring and gender approaches to EU foreign policy.

Up to date, jargon-free and supported by its own website (www.eufp.eu), this systematic and innovative appraisal of this key policy area is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as practitioners.