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Balancing Rights, Interests and Values: How EU Institutions Use Law in EU Foreign Policy

A legal analysis of how EU institutions use law in the conduct of its foreign policy – by balancing the Union’s rights, values and interests – can make a meaningful contribution to the long-standing debate on whether the EU acts as a norm-driven or interest-driven actor. Focusing on selected instances of such balancing at the intersection of trade and geopolitics across three areas – (i) trade agreements; (ii) unilateral trade instruments; and (iii) sanctions – demonstrates that EU institutions construct a shifting balance between these two polarities. This balance is not dichotomous but rather context-specific and contingent, depending on the policy area and thus the materially applicable legal provisions used. In some settings, the political institutions themselves undertake this balancing, while in others it is left to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Keywords: EU external relations law, EU fundamental rights, EU values, EU interests, balancing