The purpose of this paper is to analyse the essence of the European Union's development policy in the interdisciplinary perspective. To this end, it examines the legal and factual circumstances and determinants of this policy. It scrutinizes the principles and functioning of the EU development policy as well as its challenges and obstacles. In the context of changes taking place at the dawn of the new century, the paper addresses the following questions: what is the extent of the EU development policy institutionalisation; what is the attitude of political elites in Europe to the idea of international aid. The article aims to verify the assumption that the 1990s and early 21st century marked a significant revaluation of the European Union's development policy. On the one hand, development policy is becoming more crucial and comprehensive in character for the EU and its Member States. On the other hand, the current premises of EU development policy do not fully match the real needs of developing countries as it often lacks both sufficient coherence and effective co-ordination. EU development policy is divergent and multi-dimensional in nature. Hence an interdisciplinary approach seems to offer the most appropriate set of research tools. Full explanatory success can be achieved solely by reference to several theories/models. The complexity of the subject matter has made it necessary to employ a broad and wide-ranging research approach to attain an overall understanding of the problems reviewed.
The article analyses the European Union as an important actor in con-temporary international relations. The first part of the paper characterises and defines the EU as a specific, unique participant in international re¬lations and subsequently presents its capabilities and instruments in this sphere. These capabilities result from the EU’s high position and role in the global arena, and the EU’s most important instrument in this context is external policy, which includes economic external relations (in which the EU is an economic giant) as well as the foreign and security policy, the weaknesses of which make the EU a political/military dwarf. The second part of the article is devoted to an analysis of these problems, examines the main deficiencies of the EU’s foreign policy and proposes remedies, including greater Communitisation of the foreign and security policy to improve its effectiveness. The final deliberations focus on the attempt to predict the position of the European Union in the future world, most probably more multipolar than the world of today.
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