High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy after the Lisbon Treaty: a single voice of Europe as a global player?

This bachelor thesis aims to examine the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the European Union foreign policy in terms of the EU's institutional architecture. It explores how the Lisbon reform responds to the previous weaknesses of the EU foreign policy mechanisms and what is its potential for the future of this special dimension of the European integration. The paper studies the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on three main areas - coherence, effectiveness and visibility of the EU foreign policy. It concludes that the innovations introduced by the reform treaty, led by the enhanced function of the High Representative, are correctly aiming at the previous causes of incoherence. At the same time, however, they produce a risk of new inter- institutional conflicts. Effectiveness remains a problematic issue. The external action is limited by the rigid decision-making process. Although the High Representative is not a single voice of the Union on the international scene, the Lisbon Treaty significantly improves the representation of the EU. However, this may be counter-productive in case of incoherent and inefficient foreign policy formulation process. Since many provisions of the treaty related to foreign policy are vague, the question remains whether the Member States will decide to take advantage of its..