Dans le cadre de son cycle de conférences consacrées à l’UE en tant qu’acteur international, l’unité de recherche en droit de l’Université du Luxembourg invite Steven Blockmans et Dimosthenis Mammonas à discuter des bases juridiques du SEAE et de son fonctionnement le lundi 31 mars 2014 de 17 à 19 heures.

The legal basis for the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Article 27(3) TEU, is surprisingly concise and open-ended. In fact, most of the questions with regard to the setting up of the EEAS were therefore left open by the Lisbon Treaty. The debates about the establishment of the Service carried great significance, as if it were about the introduction of the eighth official EU institution. Once adopted, the implementation of Council Decision 2010/427/EU on the EEAS proved challenging. The EEAS was born and formally launched on a stage crowded with jealous protagonists and was baptised by fire.

Three-and-a-half years, a number of strategies, policy successes and failures since the start on 1 January 2011, this lecture will focus on the inter-institutional complexities and the ways in which the main actors on the Union’s scene dealt with the Lisbon Treaty’s new arrangements so as to render the EU’s external action more coherent, visible and effective. It will critically assess the organisation and functioning of the EEAS, in the light of the EEAS Review, and question whether amendments to the Decision are necessary to improve the organisation and functioning of the EEAS. As such, the lecture will build upon the findings produced by a group of independent scholars brought together by the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS), the European University Institute (EUI) and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in the framework of the ‘EEAS 2.0’ research project.

Steven Blockmans is a senior research fellow and the head of the ‘Politics and Institutions’ and ‘EU foreign policy’ units of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). He is also Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam (part-time), a visiting professor at the University of Leuven (Belgium), and one of the founding members of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER). He holds a PhD in law from Leiden University (Netherlands).

Dimosthenis Mammonas (discutant) is a Political Administrator at the Council of the EU (DG C 2B: Enlargement, Civil Protection, Foreign Affairs Council). He also served in the Council Legal Service (2002-2005) and in the Greek public administration (2005-2010). As from January 2011 he is the Desk Officer for Middle East and Mediterranean in the Council's Directorate supporting the Foreign Affairs Council. He holds a PhD in EU Law from University Paris II (Panthéon-Assas).

Registration by e-mail to fdef-colloques@uni.lu (specifying name and institution)

Contact : Nadja Risch Tel: +352 46 66 44 6619