RWE
Radio Web Europe

The European Union is an important global actor, because it is a big trade area and also because it plays an important role in international development and humanitarian aid (being the largest donor worldwide), conflict prevention and the promotion of human rights. Since its birth in the 1950s, the European Union has been developing relations with the rest of the world through a common policy on trade, development assistance and cooperation agreements with individual countries or regional groups.

The EU's common trade policy operates at two levels. Firstly, within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the European Union is actively involved in setting the rules for the multilateral system of global trade. Secondly, the EU negotiates its own bilateral trade agreements with countries or regional groups of countries.

Development assistance and cooperation, originally concentrated in Africa, was extended to Asia, Latin America and the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. The underlying purpose is always to support sustainable growth and development in the partner countries, so that they have the resources to tackle and eradicate poverty. In its external relations policies, the EU puts a special focus on relations with neighbouring countries.

In the last 15 years, the Union has intensified efforts to play an international political and security role more in line with its economic status. The conflicts that erupted in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 convinced EU leaders of the need for effective joint action. More recently, the fight against international terrorism has strengthened this conviction.

The idea that a strong Europe should act as one on the world stage has encouraged Member States to work together to achieve a coherent approach to foreign policy. To help achieve this, it appointed a High Representative for foreign and security policy in 1999.