Introduction: the Laeken Declaration

The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe signed in October 2004 proposed important substantive and institutional changes to the European Union's system of external relations, and the Treaty of Lisbon (TL) signed in December 2007 largely implements these changes in its amendments of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the EC Treaty (re-named the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union). The process of commenting on the drafting of both the Constitutional Treaty and the TL, discussing their implications and evaluating them has all encouraged scholars to look again at the constitutional basis for external relations law, to address some of the remaining ambiguities in the existing state of the law, and to think about the appropriate legal framework for a policy which is ever more important for the future development of the EU. Furthermore, the revised Treaty text itself reflects recent trends in external relations, in the sense of policy developments (e.g. moving forward on security and defence policy), institutional roles (e.g. the role of the European Council), as well as attempting to reflect current thinking and current case law.

In assessing the results of this reform process, the Laeken Declaration of December 2001, which mandated the Convention on the Future of Europe, still makes a good starting point.