Coherence and the challenge of issue linkage in EU external action plus

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.54648/eerr2025028

The European Union’s (EU’s) portfolio of external activities is expanding in important ways to include a diverse range of policy areas, which has given rise to the notion of ‘external action plus’. In practical terms, this assortment of policy areas may be linked and interact in ways that open opportunities for more coherent EU foreign policy. Given the importance of these changes, this paper develops an exploratory research framework based on the concept of horizontal coherence that helps to identify the role of internal and external factors in facilitating or challenging issue linkages among external action plus policies. The empirical analysis of three policy areas with varying legal competence - trade, development and health - reveals important factors that matter for issue linkages and suggests that coordination across policies and across EU Institutions and Member States becomes crucial to coherence and overcoming challenges in external action.