This paper argues that the active involvement of member states in the drafting process of the EU Global Strategy should been as a crucial factor since a sense of ownership among the national diplomacies over the new strategy is essential for making the document more than another wish list. With the member states as strategy-maker, the strategy has a chance to bring more coherence to the EU foreign policy and settle for a common ground of cooperation of the whole European Union and its ‘will to project power’ in its neighbourhood and beyond.
Against this backdrop, this paper focuses the involvement of Poland as the most ambitious foreign policy player among the new member states. It looks on both the patterns and channels of cooperation with the EEAS on the strategy as well as the up-loading mechanisms of Polish national interests to the drafting process. Based on the Polish case, the paper draws some more general conclusions about the member states’ engagement in the common development of a new European strategy. Moreover, it tries to assess to what extend setting up such a comprehensive and consultative drafting process has been an opportunity for the EEAS to prove its own added value in the complex interplay between different foreign policy stakeholders in the EU.
