Challenges of Legitimacy in the European Union

One of the challenges with which the European Union is confronted is that of internal and external legitimacy. The Union has been faced with a clear decline in popularity among its citizens and this has had consequences for both the legitimacy and credibility of EU foreign policy. This is compounded by legitimacy-related challenges facing the EU at the international/ external level. In terms of its external legitimacy, survey figures show that the EU is a largely unknown actor among the citizens of many third countries. Moreover, those who know the EU are far from unanimously positive about its impact on their country or on international affairs. This has practical consequences too as we see third party governments actively canvassing elite and mass publics within the Union in an effort to shift or even undermine established EU foreign policy goals - creating narratives challenging the very foundations of the Union as a normative actor. It is necessary to bring these two facets of legitimacy together in making sense of contemporary discourses surrounding the effectiveness and coherence of the European Union as an international actor.