Description
This paper will examine the evolution of the European Union’s strategic narratives. It will argue that this can be understood in terms of three phases: the Cold War, during which the EU’s predecessors narratives where of European as a peace project to be achieved primarily by internal economic integration; the post-Cold War period (the 1990s and 2000s), when the strategic narrative was as of the EU as ‘a force for good in the world’, as enshrined in the 2003 European Security Strategy; and the current period, since the 2010s, when the EU is struggling to define a new strategic narrative for itself (as, it will be argued, reflected in the 2016 EU Global Strategy and the 2022 EU Strategic Compass). The paper will explore the issue of the extent of harmony or dissonance between the EU’s strategic rhetoric and the substance and impact of EU policies and the issue of who are the targets of EU strategic narratives and the extent to which different targets are receptive to EU strategic rhetoric.
