The EU in External Energy Relations: Current Crises and EU Actor Capacity

The European Union has a sui generis actorness in world politics. Consisting of nation states and supranational institutions it is defined in as many as different ways. As a multi-level international organization acting with supranational and intergovernmental features (so defined by this study), the EU in international arena is represented sometimes by the European Commission, sometimes by its member states, and sometimes by both simultaneously. Reflecting such variation in its international actorness, questions have been raised about its actor capacity, e.g., to what extend does the EU play an actorness when it involves in a relation with third parties, that is, full, limited or none? In order to act as an actor in international relations, the literature on the EU has focused on four criteria as actor capacity: authority, autonomy, external recognition and coherence. By focusing on authority (competence and mandate) and coherence (speaking with one voice), this study aims to measure and explain EU actor capacity in giving response to external crises. For this reason, by looking at from the past to present, or case by case, it seeks first to show to what extent the EU has gained an actorness in external energy relations, and then to explain whether its already acquired actor capacity has been enough to deal with the consequences caused by the current crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian-Ukrainian war. If not, why? Employing an exploratory approach, this research, based upon the preliminary conclusions, finds that EU actorness in external energy relations reflects a variation across issue areas. That is, the EU enjoys almost a full actorness where its activities as response to external crises are related to issue areas like market integration, decarbonization or nuclear safety and it reflects a limited actor capacity where the issue area is energy security.