in Diplomacy & Statecraft, Volume 29, 2018 – Issue 2

During the first half of the 1970s, the European Community became a recognisable actor at the United Nations [UN]: The Community itself became a permanent observer, and it was customary for Community member-states to express common positions on most of the issues discussed within the organisation. It was a remarkable development for the Western European states—yet one not satisfactorily accounted for by the existing literature. The perspective adopted in this analysis highlights the connexions between the growing activity of the Community at the UN and the increasing co-ordination of its member-states even on matters falling outside the Community’s purview, as well as the connexions between the affirmation of the European Community at the UN and other major contemporary developments in European political integration. In this way, this analysis sheds light on some fundamental motives, features, and limits of Western European co-ordination on the international stage.