EUROPEAN UNION EXTERNAL COMPETENCES PRACTICE KEY DETERMINANTS

The European Union supranational authorities abandoning the previously indisputable key foreign policy taboos on the supply of lethal weapons to third countries engaged in an armed conflict is a new element in the Union foreign policy, indicative of Brussels’ renunciation of a balanced approach to the key areas of its global strategy implementation, emblematic of a qualitative transformation in the hierarchy of EU regulatory priorities and suggestive of a changing nature of the Common Foreign and Security Policy pursued by the European Union. Jumpstarted from a mature project of economic integration and a monetary union, the EU as a nascent political entity is rapidly evolving into a military-political polity. Prompting revision of Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept updated in 2023, these developments largely explain the changes in this country’s stance on further development of the European project. The purpose of the author’s ensuing deliberations, based on synergy of general scientific analysis and synthesis, interdisciplinary and formal-legal approach, is to highlight the telling new elements in the EU external competencies practice, consider their validity mindful of a spiralling global competition of jurisdictions and identify the impact on current evolution of the EU international legal personality.