Est modus in rebus? Advancing European Union foreign policy through mediative practices in multilateral negotiations

由于欧盟的多重性质，它集合了国家和超国家的特点，多边谈判代表了欧盟行动的一个内在矛盾的背景。这种自相矛盾的背景下，体现了欧盟的机构的复杂性和分层的机构和决策环境，这创造了谈判过程中和之后的联系和协调的问题。因此，它加剧了能力与期望之间的差距，即欧盟渴望发挥更雄心勃勃的规范作用，但由于其独特的谈判制度所造成的结构性限制，往往福尔斯达不到这种愿望。这就提出了一个问题，即欧盟在多边谈判中的行为是其结构性弱点的结果，还是为了实现其外交政策目标而采取的战略性做法。现有的学术研究只是通过对欧盟的表现进行二分法的讨论来解决这个问题，将政策目标和结果联系起来，而不是分析它在谈判中实际上做了什么。该项目采用了一种调解作为外交政策的方法来理解欧盟在多边谈判中是否被推到了一个调解角色faute de mieux。因为其异质的谈判体系对其外交政策雄心构成了结构性限制--或者说调停构成了一种有希望的外交政策战略，也就是说，一种基于一系列原则的、针对特定背景而制定的、与欧盟身份一致的、有助于克服其结构性限制并推动其外交政策目标的方案性方法。这引发了以下问题：“欧盟的调解职能在多大程度上融入了其外交政策战略？“这一项目意义重大，因为它超越了目前将欧盟政策目标与多边谈判中的产出联系起来的讨论，以此衡量欧盟在履行其职能和实现其外交政策目标方面的效力。相反，它对欧盟在谈判中的功能是否反映了其外交政策构建中的身份进行了细致入微的创新分析。它的方法也是创新的，因为它从调解作为缔造和平工具的有限视角转变为将其纳入国际多边谈判中更广泛的欧盟战略行动框架。从方法论上讲，该研究旨在建立一个创新框架，通过开展实践研究，将欧盟调解身份的理论概念化转化为欧盟调解方法在多边谈判中的外交政策功能的实践研究。计划的结果是通过在多边谈判中将主动性转化为调解，扩大对欧盟发挥其物质和规范性力量的战略的理解。多边谈判的矛盾背景。如果调解透镜被证明是有效的，它可以导致一个基于实践的框架的形成，将调解和谈判理论与欧盟外交政策研究相结合。这种框架可以加强理论与实践之间的联系，保证理论的扩展和实践的进步。因此，这一分析将丰富欧盟，调解和谈判研究领域的现有文献，但它也提供了实际利益，以改善欧盟外交领域。

Because of the EU's manifold nature, which aggregates national and supranational features, multilateral negotiations represent an inherently paradoxical setting for EU action. Such paradoxical context exemplifies the EU's institutional complexity and layering of institutions and policy-making contexts, which create problems of linkage and coordination during and after processes of negotiation. It therefore contributes to the capability-expectations gap, whereby the EU is eager to take on a more ambitious normative role, but often falls short of such aspirations due to the structural constraints posed by its sui generis negotiation system. This raises the question of whether EU behaviour in multilateral negotiations is a result of its structural weakness or is strategically adopted to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Existing scholarship has only tackled such a question by developing a dichotomous discourse over EU performance linking policy goals and outcomes and not analysing what it actually does in negotiations.The project adopts a mediation-as-foreign-policy approach to understand whether in multilateral negotiations the EU is pushed into a mediative role faute de mieux - because its heterogenous negotiation system poses structural constraints on its foreign policy ambitions - or mediation constitutes a promising foreign policy strategy, i.e. a programmatic approach developed for a specific context that is based on a set of principles, that is coherent with the EU's identity and that can be useful to overcome its structural constraints and push through its foreign policy objectives. This prompts the following problématique: "To what extent is the EU's mediative function integrated within its foreign policy strategy?"Such project is significant as to move beyond the current discourse linking EU policy goals and outputs in multilateral negotiations as a measure of its effectiveness in fulfilling its function and achieving its foreign policy objectives. Rather, it develops a nuanced and innovative analysis of whether the EU's function in negotiation mirrors its identity in its foreign-policy building. It is also innovative in its approach, as it shifts from a limited perspective of mediation as a tool of peace-making to integrate it into a broader framework of strategic EU action within international multilateral negotiations. Methodologically, the study seeks to develop an innovative framework that translates a theoretical conceptualisation of the EU's mediative identity into a practical study of the foreign policy function of the EU's mediative approach in multilateral negotiations by undertaking practice research.The planned result is to achieve a broadened understanding of the EU's strategy to exert its material and normative power by creating initiative into mediation in the paradoxical context of multilateral negotiations. If the mediation lens proves effective, it can lead to the formulation of a framework based on praxis that integrates mediation and negotiation theory with EU foreign policy studies. Such framework can strengthen the nexus between theory and practice, guaranteeing an expansion of theory as well as advancement in practice. Therefore, this analysis will enrich the current literature in the field of EU, mediation, and negotiation studies, but it also provides practical benefits to improve EU diplomacy in the field.