Analysing Shared Competences in EU External Action: the case for a politico-legal framework

Over the past decade, the representation and performance of the European Union in international institutions in particular have been on the agenda of academics and practitioners alike.The widespread ‘representation battle’ about the issuing of statements in 2011 at the United Nations is emblematic. Several dozen EU statements in the UN were blocked for a couple of months over deep disagreement, not on content but on the mere symbolic issue of who ‘delivers’ the statement: ‘the EU’ or ‘the EU and its Member States’ in the United Nations. Internally, this issue was (only partly) solved by agreeing on a guideline for ‘general arrangements for EU statements’. The UN-representation saga is symptomatic of the difficulties that both EU and Member States actors experience more generally in international organizations and at international conferences.