Paper Titles & Abstracts

The EU is often depicted as a 'normative power' which promotes its own values and norms, such as sustainable development, on the world stage. However, in its relations with Africa, the EU is sometimes accused of acting as a neo-colonial power (i.e. motivated by economic interests). This paper attempts to move away from the rather binary debate on whether the EU is or is not a normative power by teasing out a more nuanced picture of how the EU mediates between its norms and interests in the field of raw materials. Many African countries are heavily dependent on exports of raw materials and primary products while at the same time keen to use these natural resources to kick-start their own (sustainable) development. Europe is uniquely placed to assist in this regard as Africa is a priority area for EU development policy. However, when the European Commission published its Raw Materials Initiative in 2008 NGOS argued that it was driven primarily by concerns of EU industry over increased global competition for natural resources and was incoherent with the EU's own sustainable development objectives. This paper traces the process leading up to the adoption of Raw Materials Initiative, as well as its update in 2011, to explore how (and how well) the EU mediated between its economic interests and its more normative (global sustainable development) aspirations to coordinate its different policy objectives. The paper argues that the EU is not necessarily normative by nature: how well the EU approximates a normative power externally depends on how well it first coordinates its norms and interests internally.