Quest for Coherence: European External Action Service’s Role in the External Dimension of EU Counterterrorism Policy

This article investigates the underexplored role of the European External Action Service (EEAS) in the external dimension of EU counterterrorism policy. While formally tasked with enhancing coherence across EU internal and external security domains, the EEAS has struggled to fulfil this mandate due to entrenched intergovernmental rivalries, bureaucratic turf wars, and conflicting priorities between development and security objectives. Drawing on elite interviews, the article traces how overlapping institutional competences, particularly with the European Commission and the EU Counterterrorism Coordinator, have made external communication and internal coordination unnecessarily burdensome, weakening the EU’s ability to present a unified counterterrorism “face” to third countries and international partners. Despite incremental achievements through strategic counterterrorism dialogues, capacity-building efforts, and enhanced information sharing, the EEAS’s institutional positioning in an already crowded EU counterterrorism field remains contested.