COHERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION’S FOREIGN POLICY ACCORDING TO THE LISBON TREATY

Abstract

The foreign policy activities of the European Union have long suffered from the fact that 
the Member States of the Union neither spoke nor acted with one voice. The European foreign 
policy has been in a process of growing harmonization of its objectives, instruments, needs and 
policies. It has gradually developed new tools and instruments with which it could address the 
new challenges imposed by the global, interdependent, and complex world. The establishment 
of objectives, principles, and guidelines through which the foreign policy activities of the 
Union would be implemented was a necessity. 
A fundamental principle of the EU’s foreign policy, which provides an illustration of the 
coordinated behavior of the Member States, is the principle of coherence. This principle 
represents a basic precondition for the effective external representation and “speaking with one 
voice.” In other words, in order to be an active and influential actor in global affairs, the Union 
must ensure coherence between the political and economic dimensions of its foreign policy. 
A serious attempt to strengthen coherence in the foreign policy actions of the Union arises 
with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which introduces important innovations and 
institutional arrangements. This paper analyzes the legal impact of the Lisbon Treaty and 
whether it has succeeded or not in its intention to achieve greater unity in the foreign policy 
decision-making of the Member States.