For years the European Union has been looked on as a potential model for cosmopolitan governance, and enjoyed considerable influence on the global stage. The EU has a uniquely strong and legally binding mission statement to pursue international relations on a multilateral basis, founded on the progressive development of international law. The political vision was for the EU to export its values of the rule of law and sophisticated governance mechanisms to the international sphere.
Globalization and the financial crisis have starkly illustrated the limits of this vision, and the EU's...

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is a recent example of an external EU policy drawn up explicitly with the objective of achieving coherence in the external policies of the EU and its Member States. Positioning the ENP in the legal-historical context of political union, this book explains why coherence has become a substantive issue in EU external relations, and why law is integral to attaining the ever-enigmatic single voice of the European Union.

The text examines the role of EU external relations law in attaining a coherent neighbourhood policy and goes on to undertake an...