Paper Titles & Abstracts

One of the European External Action Service's overall functions is to look after policy coherence in EU foreign policy. During the first years of its existence, the EU's policy towards the EU Strategic Partners, including China, has been one of its major focuses. Given the strategic importance of the EU's interdependent relationship with People's Republic, the EEAS is meant to help formulate and put in practice a coherent and effective foreign policy towards China, that builds both upon the EU's foreign policy norms and interests. To this end, intensive coordination between the EEAS and EU actors and institutions seems indispensable. While coordination of the EEAS with EU Member States, the Council, and the European Commission is regularly in the academic focus, also the EEAS' coordination with the European Parliament becomes increasingly important. Institutionally, the EP gained more legislative, supervisory and budgetary powers in EU foreign policy after Lisbon, enlarging its potential impact in EU external affairs. Substance-wise, the EP's position towards China has addressed the lack of human rights in China and advocated the prolonging of the EU's arms embargo towards China, making the EP an outspoken critique of China. Finally, the EP's extensive network of parliamentary diplomacy covers relations with many parliaments around the world, including the National People's Congress of China, and contributes to the external representation of EU foreign policy. In our contribution, we address the question how - given the EP's various roles and practices in EU foreign policy - the EEAS coordinates the China policy with the EP in order to arrive at a coherent and effective policy of the EU. We ask whether the EEAS helps contributing to an alignment of policy positions towards China, or whether it contributes to a management of different policy positions?