Introduction: The European Union's Strategic Partnerships: conceptual approaches, debates and experiences

Abstract

[Excerpt] In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the European Union (EU) finds itself in an unprecedented polycentric world while facing a continual necessity to build bridges with different regional poles of political, economic and commercial power. At the same time, the implementation of the foreign and security policy related innovations enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, devised to empower the EU’s international persona, has been a challenging task. This was so largely due to the acute financial and economic crisis that set in during 2008, afflicting most of the member states as well as the sustainability of the Eurozone. These intricate circumstances have been having a bearing not only on how the EU is viewed worldwide, but also on how the EU redefines its role in contemporary world politics.[...]