Actorness, Differentiated Integration, and EU(rope)’s Role in the World

Evidently, actorness requires a base level of common goals, resources, interdependences, and objectives. However, having resources or common policies is not enough. To function as an effective foreign policy actor, there needs to be political will and sufficient decision-making capacity to bring these policies to action. Actorness in international politics may be understood in various ways. While some scholars stress the importance of internal resources, others put more emphasis on the perceptions of international society. In this chapter we argue that there are two basic preconditions that must be fulfilled to claim global actorness: (i) The capacity to formulate clear objectives and to make decisions according to these objectives and (ii) The existence of necessary administrative and operational capabilities to implement these decisions. In this chapter, we first investigate the extent to which Europe, with the EU as its core, has managed to develop the capabilities to pursue a global role, and then we move on to identify the levels of European DI. Finally, we will discuss what this tells us about the existence of European strategic autonomy on the global stage.