The post-Lisbon high representatives: an introduction

ABSTRACT

The Lisbon Treaty recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. The 2009 legal text was an attempt to enhance the unity, consistency and effectiveness of the EU’s action in an increasingly volatile world. And yet, the post-Lisbon time period has been characterised by multiple crises coming from the West, the East, the South, and even from within the EU. Against this backdrop, our Special Issue makes a systematic assessment of the EU's foreign policy post-Lisbon and of its evolution by focusing on the role of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP). Assessing the post-Lisbon HR/VPs provides important insights on EU foreign policy processes over the past decade. In this introduction, we discuss the three research questions that guide our collection of articles, as well as our theoretical and empirical contribution to existing scholarly literature.

KEYWORDS:

• EU
• High Representative
• European foreign policy
• agency
• governance

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the European Security editors for their continuous support throughout the process of editing the special issue, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. We are particularly thankful to the authors included in the special issue. Despite the challenging time, they worked hard in revising their articles and incorporating the reviewers' feedback. And all of this, while taking care of their families in lockdown and/or adapting to online teaching.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré is a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor at LUISS University (Rome, Italy). She is also a Research Associate at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) (Rome, Italy). Before that, she has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden (NL); an elected member of the Academic Association for Contemporary European Studies' Graduate Forum Committee (UACES); a Blue Book Trainee at the European Commission (Service for Foreign Policy Instruments); and a research trainee at the European Policy Centre (Brussels, BE). Over time, she has held visiting positions at the European University Institute (RSCAS, Florence, Italy); at the University of Washington, as an EZ Founders Scholar (Seattle, WA, USA); and at the Policy Institute at King's College, (London, UK).

Giulia Tercovich is Assistant Professor at Vesalius College – VUB. Giulia has a double doctoral degree from the University of Warwick (UK) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). She has worked for the United Nations Liaison Office for Peace and Security (UNLOPS); for the European External Action Service in the Crisis Response and Operational Coordination Department; and for the Italian Permanent Representation to the EU. Giulia has published peer-reviewed articles on the EEAS Crisis Response System (Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 2014), on the European return to UN Peacekeeping (International Peacekeeping, 2016), and on the Italian approach to UN Peacekeeping (International Peacekeeping, 2016). She has recently co-edited (with Joachim Koops) the International Peacekeeping Journal Special Issue on “A European return to United Nations peacekeeping? Opportunities, challenges and ways ahead”, as well as the Routledge book on “European Approaches to United Nations Peacekeeping: Towards a stronger Re-engagement?” (2018). Moreover, she has published several briefing articles on the EU’s comprehensive approach and on the EU's interregional relations.

Caterina Carta is assistant professor at Vesalius College (Brussels). Previously, she was associate professor at the Political Science Department of Laval University (Québec City) and held a Canada Research Chair in Public Diplomacy. Her research interest includes foreign policy, cultural and public diplomacy, discourse theory and analysis. Her publications include The European Union's diplomatic Service: Ideas, Preferences and Identities (Routledge, 2012) and Making Sense of Diversity: EU's Foreign Policy through the Lenses of Discourse Analysis (Farnham: Ashgate) that she edited with Jean-Frederic Morin. Her publications have appeared in Review of International Studies, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Cooperation and Conflict, International Studies Review, Journal of Language and Politics.

Notes

1 Although the EP is a co-legislator with the Council in supranational decision-making processes (TFEU, Art. 294), this institution is essentially excluded from intergovernmental decision-making processes.