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IR473 EUROPEAN UNION IN WORLD AFFAIRS

Course Objectives

This course is designed to give students an understanding of:

• the foreign policy of the EU or, more precisely the EU’s ‘foreign policy system’, which includes the external economic relations of the EC, the CFSP, the CSDP, as well as the evolving international role and identity of the Union;

• the main aspects of relations between, on the one hand, the EU and, on the other, its key partners and main interest areas, including in particular the Neighbourhood, the Developing World and the BRICS;

• the main analytical concepts used in the literature to understand and explain developments in the foreign policy of the EU.

Course Content

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a general understanding of the role of the EU in wider European and international arenas. The course is divided into three sections.
First, various attempts to develop a European foreign policy are traced, beginning with the creation of EPC in 1970, culminating in the EU s CFSP as laid down in the Treaty on the EU. Secondly, alternative approaches for understanding the EU s foreign policy behavior are presented. Against this theoretical background, the Union s relations with the rest of Europe, with the developing countries and with the US are examined.

Course Learning Outcomes

Students completing the course will have acquired the ability to analyze critically the three sets of issues identified under course objectives. 

Program Outcomes Matrix

0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution