European Integration and Transatlantic Relations

What role does the European integration process play in shaping transatlantic relations, if any? The question brings forth the related issue of whether the EU is able to exercise leadership in fostering changes in the international system and through its relationship with the US. The paper provides a literature review on the EU as a foreign policy actor, specifically the extent to which it contributed to changes in the international system along a multipolar pattern. To do so, the paper looks at the EU’s ability to strengthen multilateralism in international trade, in particular through the WTO and its role in international security through NATO. The paper’s analysis of the EU and its ability to speak with one unified voice is significant in understanding the EU’s role in Transatlantic relations and its ability to become player on its own right with regard to the US.

Paper produced within the framework of the IAI project Transworld [6].