Europe in the World - Greater Coherence, Effectiveness and Visibility

This paper seeks to examine how, within the present Treaty context, we can address the external challenges facing Europe using the available internal and external policies more coherently and effectively. It is not intended to re-open a debate on the future of the Constitutional Treaty or to redefine the respective responsibilities of the different institutional actors. Rather, it seeks to make pragmatic proposals to enable the Union to define a strong sense of collective purpose in our external action and to ensure that this is backed by the necessary policy instruments.

On this basis, the paper proposes that the Member States and the EU institutions work together to address the following issues:

• How to develop and implement European external policy, anticipating future threats and opportunities.
• How to increase the effectiveness and impact of EU policies and actions, using all available instruments external policies and internal policies - more coherently and  drawing on the particular competences and strengths of the Member States and the institutions.
• How to strengthen the democratic accountability and visibility of EU policies and actions and thus to increase their public acceptance.