This is a panel of the UACES research network RELATE.

This panel units four papers that showcase and discuss the application of relational appraoches to the understanding of EU policymaking and EU foreign policymaking in particular.

Climate diplomacy remains a core component of EU foreign and security policy‘. This was re-emphasized by the EU Foreign Affairs Council in February 2022. The Council has formulated an increasingly ambitious EU climate diplomacy agenda since 2011. Even more, in October 2022, eleven Member States launched a ‚Group of Friends for an Ambitious EU Climate Diplomacy‘, showcasing (certain) Member States‘ interest in this sectoral diplomacy. The implementation of this diplomacy can take various forms, including activities in high-level dialogues or multilateral summits as well as the activities of diplomatic offices across the globe. These include both EU Delegations and Member States embassies, who are envisaged to work together to advance EU climate diplomacy ‚[i]n a Team Europe spirit‘ (2022 Foreign Affairs Council conclusions).

This paper studies the extent to which European diplomatic offices across the globe join forces in their climate diplomacy outreach. We ask: How do Member States embassies and EU Delegations perform climate diplomatic activities? To what extent do they cooperate/coordinate or pursue separate lines of action? And: What explains choices for individual, group, or EU-level action? The study is based on qualitative interviews with European diplomats in six capitals (Ottowa, Washington D.C., Seoul, Abuja, Sarajevo, Canberra). Using social network analysis, we study the activities and interactions between European offices in foreign capitals, analysing the overall network activity and centralities of diplomatic offices. By mapping and explaining the interaction among European actors, we contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the implementation of EU/European climate diplomacy.

The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union has seen no explicit agreement in the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy: this leaves both parties questioning the future of the relationship in several fields, including that of intelligence cooperation for external security. With the EU losing its most influential Member State with regards to intelligence capabilities, it is crucial to understand the impact that Brexit had on the European intelligence architecture, and its consequences on the European Member States and the UK. In addressing these questions, this article aims to illustrate the United Kingdom’s current role in the European intelligence architecture through the lens of Network Analysis.

By framing the United Kingdom as a node in the European intelligence network, this article charts London’s post-Brexit position by observing its interconnectedness and centrality within the network since its departure from the Union. Linkages among the States and European bodies are here not only those established in formal intergovernmental agreements, but also the various informal relations among bureaucracies and practitioners, at the inter- agency and inter-personal levels. This allows the article to look beyond the incomplete formal agreements, and to inquire about the fate of those informal socialization processes that for decades have involved British intelligence practitioners alongside their European colleagues. This article contends that, despite the British position appearing formally less central and influential since Brexit, its informal linkages with the EU and its Member States ensure that the United Kingdom remains an influential player in the European intelligence stage.

Notwithstanding distinct readings of digital diplomacy and public diplomacy in international relations, less research has been conducted on the combination of the two, i.e. digital public diplomacy. This paper explores the EU's practices of digital public diplomacy and their relationship with EU image building by empirically examining the EU's response to COVID19 in South East Asia. In principle, the EU has adhered to not using vaccines as a diplomatic tool. Despite being committed to global vaccine equality, the EU’s vaccine assistance still concentrates on former colonies of EU member-states and has less impact on Southeast Asia. Whether and how the EU digitalizes its vaccine policy – as the most recent aspect of EU digital public diplomacy – in the region is the general research question of the paper. Based on Twitter data from EU delegations and ambassadors in the four primary beneficiaries of EU vaccine policy in Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan), the paper argues that the EU's digitalized discourse on vaccines contributes to a nascent EU digital public diplomacy in the region. Combining discourse analysis and comparative case study analysis, the paper proceeds by juxtaposing the EU’s vaccine discourse with the respective discourses of the four main powers influencing Southeast Asia (South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China) so as to flesh out the EU’s image building and political intentions.

In the EU studies literature, the main conception of member states´ interactions in dynamics is dominated by rational or game theoretical perspectives. Member states are considered as distinct units that react to each others policy positioning. This approach is also mainstream in explaining negotation outcomes in European foreign policy, for example the arrival of PESCO.

In this paper we offer an alternative account building on a social relational approach. We combine insights from social network analysis with practice theory to better capture social relational forms of interactions and conceptualise EU negotiations as dynamic interplay of relations. We illustrate the pitfalls and added value of such an alternative understanding of negotiation dynamics on the example of the EU negotiations fort he permanent structured cooperation in defence (PESCO).