EU-humanitarian assistance affairs: The utility of 'actorness' and 'presence' for conceptualising this EU-foreign policy-area

Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,3, University of Edinburgh, course: The European Union in International Affairs, language: English, abstract: The EU plays a multiplicity of roles in a range of policy areas in the international system1 and the global context is increasingly seen as the stage on which the Union must act.2 However, the EU is not a traditional global actor -it has a rather distinctive and unique international identity due to its institutional structure and decision- making procedures. Several theories have attempted to grasp this unique identity and are concerned with the question of how significant a global actor the Union is. The following paper assesses the utility of two specific theories- "e;actorness"e; and "e;presence"e;- for conceptualising the role of the EU in one particular foreign policy-area- humanitarian assistance affairs.3 Section one examines how the concept of "e;actorness"e; can be applied to the policy-area of humanitarian assistance and evaluates the result of this analysis. The same method is used in section two that discusses the concept of "e;presence"e;. The essay concludes by comparing and reflecting on the overall utility of the two concepts. 1 Bretherton and Vogler, 1999: 15. These EU-foreign policy areas mainly include trade relations, security and defence issues, development affairs, environmental issues and humanitarian assistance. The role of the EU varies from area to area. 2 Cremona, 2004: 553. 3 Humanitarian assistance affairs fall under the portfolio of the Development-Commissioner. However, it has to be emphasized at this point that this essay exclusively deals with humanitarian assistance. On development affairs for example see Holland (2004), Santiso (2002), Brenton (2003), Grilli (1993), Babarinde/Faber (2004) and Pernice/Thym (2002).