At 2011 Politicologenetmaal, the yearly meeting of Flemish and Dutch political scientists, I am participating in the workshop on ‘The political economy of the European Union’. I am going to present a paper entitled ‘When hands are tied externally: scope conditions for the autonomy of the EU negotiator in international negotiations’, which I co-authored with Edith Drieskens and Bart Kerremans (both K.U.Leuven).

My new book, ‘The EU as International Environmental Negotiator’ (published with Ashgate), has come out.

This book examines how the EU functions when it participates in international environmental negotiations. In particular, this book looks at the internal EU decision-making process with regard to international negotiations that lead to multilateral environmental agreements. By studying eight such decision-making processes, the book analyses how much negotiation autonomy (or ‘discretion’) the EU negotiator (the European Commission or the Council Presidency) enjoys vis-à-vis the member states it represents and how this particular degree of discretion can be explained. The book’s empirical evidence is based on extensive literature review, primary and semi-confidential document research, as well as interviews with EU decision-makers.

Theoretically, the book applies a refined principal-agent model to the EU decision-making process and the relations between the EU negotiators (as agents) and the member states (as principals). Methodologically, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and in-depth case studies are used.

More information on the book can be found here.

I will be presenting a paper at the 2011 Conference of the International Studies Association in Montreal (16-19 March). The paper, a revised version of the one I presented at the UACES Conference in September 2010 in Bruges, is entitled ‘EU Actorness in International Environmental Negotiations’. The full programme of the ISA Conference is available here.

The 1st of March, I am going to give a lecture on ‘The European Union as international environmental negotiator: EU decision-making and representation in climate change negotiations’ at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. I am going to speak about the way the European Union negotiates in international environmental negotiations, paying particular attention to the informal dynamics that the EU uses to counterbalance its rigid institutional structure and present a single European voice.

From 3 to 5 March 2011, I will be attending the Twelfth Biennial International Conference of the European Union Studies Association. I will present a paper on ‘The rotating Presidency and the EU’s external representation after Lisbon: the case of the Belgian Presidency and global climate change negotiations’ and a paper called ‘The external institutional context matters: the EU in international negotiations’ (which I co-authored with Edith Drieskens, Bart Kerremans and Chad Damro). The full program can be found here.