With the ongoing economic crisis we are witnessing an increasingly multipolar global arena, within which the EU still has not found to its place. This has led scholars and politicians alike to reflect on the necessity for a grand strategy that would provide the EU with the necessary tools and mechanisms to cope with the developments in the international arena. Peter Feaver defines a grand strategy as “the collection of plans and policies that comprise the state’s deliberate effort to harness political, military, diplomatic, and economic tools together to advance that state’s national interest.” This paper enquires into whether such a grand strategy can be endowed with democratic legitimacy. In exploring this puzzle, the project builds on the assumption that only validated through the public sphere can the norms and principles of the EU that inform its foreign policy gain democratic legitimacy. The public sphere is seen here as the space where individuals meet politics and can form and advance their foreign policy preferences through the media. Thus the paper seeks to answer three main questions: How would a grand strategy of the EU that enjoys democratic legitimacy look like? Secondly, is it possible to achieve democratic legitimacy within the EU’s foreign policy and its grand strategy? And finally, what impact does a political concern for democratic legitimacy have on the EU’s foreign policy identity?
