From Mandate to Influence: The Role of the EEAS in Shaping EU Foreign Policy

Abstract: The Lisbon Treaty reformed the institutional design of the EU's foreign policy, expanding the mandate of the HR/VP and establishing a new foreign service to assist the HR/VP, the European External Action Service (EEAS). Concerns by other EU actors to delegate too much power and independence resulted in the EEAS being characterized by multiple control mechanisms and vaguely formulated tasks. Previous research on the EEAS has mainly built on these limitations, thus neglecting how and under what conditions the EEAS can exert policy influence, given the involvement of this networked administration throughout foreign policy formulation processes. The aim of this paper is to fill this research gap by exploring how and why the EEAS’s use of social and administrative capacities conditions its extent of policy influence in two foreign policy cases. Using 25 elite interviews, this thesis conducts a comparative case study between the EEAS's extent of policy influence in EU foreign policy towards Ukraine and the Sahel. The findings support the argument that the EEAS's use of social and administrative capacities affects its extent of policy influence. However, the results also show the neglect of the unanimity rule and important findings from previous research, such as the exercise of control by Member States and the importance of the behavior of individual officials. In the light of these findings, it becomes clear that these factors are as conditional as the use of social and administrative capacities for the EEAS to exert policy influence.