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

由于欧盟的多面性，它集合了国家和超国家的特征，多边谈判代表着欧盟行动的内在矛盾背景。这种自相矛盾的背景说明了欧盟的体制复杂性和机构和决策背景的层次性，这在谈判过程中和之后造成了联系和协调的问题。因此，它造成了能力与预期之间的差距，欧盟渴望承担更雄心勃勃的规范角色，但由于其独特的谈判制度造成的结构性限制，往往达不到这一愿望。这引发了这样一个问题：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举措。现有的学术只能通过对欧盟的表现进行一分为二的论述，将政策目标和结果联系起来，而不是分析它在谈判中实际做了什么，从而解决了这样一个问题。该项目采用了调解即外交政策的方法，以了解在多边谈判中，欧盟是被推到了一个调解角色--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--还是调解构成了一种有前途的外交政策战略，即为特定背景制定的一种基于一套原则的纲领性方法，该方法与欧盟的身份一致，有助于克服其结构性限制，推动其外交政策目标。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？”这样的项目意义重大，以至于超越了目前将欧盟政策目标与多边谈判中的产出联系在一起的论述，以衡量其履行职能和实现外交政策目标的有效性。相反，它对欧盟在谈判中的作用是否反映其在外交政策建设中的身份进行了微妙而创新的分析。它在方法上也是创新的，因为它从有限的调解角度转变为缔造和平的工具，将其纳入国际多边谈判中更广泛的欧盟战略行动框架。在方法上，这项研究试图建立一个创新的框架，通过开展实践研究，将欧盟调解身份的理论概念化转化为对欧盟调解方式在多边谈判中的外交政策功能的实践研究。计划的结果是扩大对欧盟战略的理解，在多边谈判的悖论背景下，通过将倡议转化为调解来发挥其物质和规范权力。如果调解视角被证明是有效的，它可以导致基于实践的框架的形成，该框架将调解和谈判理论与欧盟外交政策研究相结合。这样的框架可以加强理论与实践的联系，保证理论的拓展和实践的进步。因此，这一分析将丰富当前欧盟、调解和谈判研究领域的文献，同时也为完善该领域的欧盟外交提供了现实的益处。

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.