‘Let’s Keep This Informal’: Ad hoc differentiation in EU approach to conflicts and crises

This article addresses the occurrence of informal groups of EU member states in EU approach to conflicts and crises. Despite the Lisbon Treaty’s attempts to further centralize member states’ foreign and security policies, subsets of member states have frequently steered EU foreign and security policy by cooperating with non-EU countries in international contact groups. This phenomenon is unprecedented in polities that share common features with the EU, namely federal regimes and international organizations. Yet there is no systematic knowledge about it. This article aims to map the shared features of internal differentiated cooperation of these groups that may influence the evolution and understanding of EU foreign and security policy. To do so, it examines EU approach to external conflicts and crises. In particular, the article zooms-in on: two sub-cases in Europe’s eastern surroundings, namely Kosovo and Ukraine; and on two sub-cases in Europe’s southern surroundings, namely Libya and Syria.