The European Union is one of the world's biggest economies. However, its role as an international actor is ambiguous and it's not always able to transform its political power into effective external policies. The development of an 'assertive' European Union challenges the image of an internal project aimed at economic integration and international relations theories based on unitary state actors. This book systematically links the EU's external relations to existing political theories, showing how existing theories need to be modified in order to deal with specific characteristics of the EU...

Policies in the EU are largely made by national civil servants who prepare and implement decisions in Brussels as well as at home. Despite their important role, these national civil servants form a relatively hidden world that has received little attention from both the media and academics. This volume considers a wide variety of sources and research methods to answer such questions as: how many civil servants are actually involved in EU-related activities? What do these civil servants do when they engage with the EU? And how do they negotiate their dual roles? "The New Eurocrats" offers...

Why does the EU deal with some issues but not others? This is the central question of this book dedicated to agenda-setting processes in the EU. Through a comparison of EU and US policy agendas and the analysis of four case studies in environmental and health policy, this book offers a new understanding of how policy issues come onto the EU agenda.