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Abstract

European Union foreign policy is a problematic issue, in theory as well as in practice. The EU implements policies outside its borders but it does not do so in quite the same way as any individual state such as Britain, or the United States or El Salvador, or Nicaragua for example. The EU does not possess one centralised authority with the power to make policy. Instead it has three: the Council, the Commission and the Parliament. To make matters even more complex the Council is itself composed of another twelve separate entities (as at 1994) — that is, the member states, all with veto powers over foreign policy making. To even conceive of an European Union foreign policy for Central America, then, it is necessary first to investigate the nature of that policy. What is it and how does it operate?

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© 1995 Hazel Smith

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Smith, H. (1995). The Nature of European Union Foreign Policy. In: European Union Foreign Policy and Central America. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230378599_2

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