Unia Europejska jako aktor globalny – aspekty polityczno-obronne

Abstract

The European Union is becoming an increasingly important economic superpower and its foreign policy has already achieved vast impact upon every part of the globe. Yet the EU is not a State and does not have a single government. The European Union’s foreign policy, rather than being just the sum of individual foreign policies of its 27 Member States, also includes the foreign policy of the EU itself, the foreign economic policy as well as external relations of the European Community. The principal aim of the article is to analyze the EU as global actor. The author presents political and international circumstances underlying the development of the EU’s position and role in the world. The articleprovides  insight into both external and internal factors determining the nature of the EU, highlighting the main areas of cooperation and their stage of development and discussing problems and challenges facing the EU on the international stage, especially in the context of globalization of economic processes and their growing interdependence.