Crafting foreign policy in a supranational organization: European Union lessons for the African Union

Ibrahim Farah and Jasmine Lam

While the role of supranational, regional institutions to enhance economic integration has long been accepted, its role in crafting foreign policy is still contested. It is understood that the sovereign state is responsible for developing its foreign policy in order to “achieve its goals in its relations with external entities.”1 In practice, supranational organizations have been extending their operational scope to define foreign policy corresponding to the preferences of its member states. Thus rather than assuming the realist perspective that the primary goal of states is to preserve sovereignty,2 states in fact have different preferences when achieving their foreign policy objectives.

In this paper, two supranational institutions, the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU), are under examination.

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