The thesis is devoted to analysing the EU's communication with Southern Neighbours (SNs), namely Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. The purpose of the study is to identify what the EU's communications disclose about its role as Hard, Soft, Normative or Transformative Power in the region. The literature describes the actorness of the EU in the world by all four forms of power. However, the competition between these concepts inside the official discourse of the EU Delegations (EUDs) has been less investigated. Data for the current research comes from the content of the country-specific statements and press releases that appeared on the EUDs' websites from June 2016 to March 2021. The methodology is a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The work reveals that the EU appeals to its Transformative Power more often in comparison to the other concepts of power in its communications to the three SNs in focus. Moreover, the thesis critically assesses external perceptions of the EU based on 2016 and 2020 opinion polls. It unfolds the problems of the current communication strategy of the EU with SNs. This review is followed by recommendations for possible improvement of the efficiency of the EU's power representation on the international stage. The thesis attempts to add to the discussion...

It is more than a decade since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, and the European External Action Service (EEAS) was founded to unify the EU's foreign policy and make it more coherent and consistent. With the creation of the EEAS, the Commission delegations were transformed into EU delegations, and the delegations started to represent the whole EU abroad politically. The Lisbon Treaty clearly strengthened the EU foreign policy and arguably gave the EU a common voice in the world. However, the speed at which the transformation took, and takes place, is not the same in all third (non-EU) countries where the EU is present. Many scholars argue that there is still a lack of consistency in EU foreign policy, and some aspects of EU external action after Lisbon are still understudied, such as EU external action in specific regions. Against this backdrop, and within a theoretical framework of Frauke Austermann’s theory of a European diplomatic service of “different speeds,” this thesis examines the consistency of the political role between EU delegations in selected Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries in an attempt to answer the following research question: How consistent is the political role between EU delegations in the MENA region twelve years after the founding of the EEAS and the political sections of the delegations? This is done by conducting and analysing semi-structured interviews with diplomats working in the political sections of fourteen of the sixteen EU delegations in the region. With the help of a qualitative content analysis method, the consistency of the political role is examined by investigating the function of the political sections, their main tasks within the respective delegations and their relations and interaction with headquarters in Brussels, EU member states’ (EUMS) foreign missions and host country authorities. The findings of this thesis show that a few observations of the interviewees could put the consistency of the political role into question. The main issues concerned malfunctioning cooperation between the sections of the delegations, the influence of specific EUMSs on the work of the delegations and the poor staffing (although this was a rather consistent issue). Yet, for the most part, based on the aspects studied in this thesis, the political role proved to be very consistent between the delegations of the region.

Diplomatic privileges and immunities of bodies and workers of the EU institutions Le sujet de ce travail est de présenter des privilèges et immunités concernant l'Union européenne en tant qu'organisation internationale, ses fonctionnaires, agents et autres personnes susceptibles d'agir dans son intérêt. À la différence des immunités des États, accordées à ces derniers au nom de leur égalité souveraine, les immunités des organisation internationales se justifient exclusivement par leur caractère fonctionnel. Elles visent en effet à assurer à l'organisation une certaine autonomie et une indépendance indispensables à l'efficacité de son action. L'Union alors jouit des privilèges et immunités nécessaires à l'accomplissement de sa mission. Le document servant de base juridique, dans lequel les privilèges et immunités de l'UE sont définie , est le Protocole du 8 avril 1965 sur les privilèges et immunités des Communautés européennes. Ce dernier a été révisé au 1er décembre 2009 par le traité de Lisbonne. L'UE remlace ainsi, par ce traité, la Communauté européenne, ainsi duquele Protocole sur les privilèges et immunités des Communautés européennes, qui devient le Protocole sur les privilèges et immunités de l'Union européenne. Ce Protocole concerne l'UE, ses organes, les représentants des États...