This paper aims to provide innovative approaches on the neglected retroaction cycle between these two parameters: 1) The influence of the diplomatic experience of EU decision-makers and civil servants in implementing a crucial policy such as EU enlargement (notably described as ‘EU’s most successful foreign policy’) and 2) the legacy of EC/EU enlargement experiences in shaping the evolving challenges and potentialities of a EU diplomatic service.
To achieve this aim, this paper is based on intensive archival research (DG ELARG, Historical Archives of the European Parliament, Historical Archives of the European Union, etc.), as well as on the analysis a large number of Oral History interviews conducted with key decision-makers at the national and European level setting the implementation itinerary of the deeply intertwined EC/EU Southern and Eastern enlargement processes. Indeed, many of them developed a diplomatic career prior to their involvement on the search for a balance of the widening and deepening variables of the European integration process. Furthermore, they also generally used such experience as a reinforcement factor to consolidate consensus-building operations and to communicate changing political preferences to interconnected legitimating actors during fundamental historical turning points.
Likewise, the lessons from highly demanding EC/EU enlargement negotiations and partnerships were also reinvested in the progressive setting up of a European External Action Service (EEAS). Most importantly, this policy-making crucial feedback loop is becoming ever more significant nowadays, due to the globally transformative power of comparative regional integration principles and practices being exercised on the basis of existing diplomatic relations.
In sum, this paper aspires to elucidate the origins, directions, fruits and reciprocal influences of the seemingly overlooked intersecting practices of diplomacy and regional integration departing from an intra-European perspective towards a global governance mindset.
