Von Nizza nach Lissabon - das neue konstitutionelle Angebot für die Gemeinsame Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der EU.

Compared to the existing provisions of the Nice Treaty, the Lisbon Treaty offers a remarkable potential to improve the EU's role as a global actor in foreign and security policy. Readers might have pains to find their way through a much more complex and partly repetitive contractual basis but the new text opens ways to improve the visibility, continuity and effectiveness of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The end of the rotating presidency and its replacement by a more permanent and double-hatted 'face and figure' in the form of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, accompanied by an European External Action Service is key hereof. Permanent Structured Cooperation in the area of the somewhat re-named 'Common' Security and Defence Policy (CSDP, currently ESDP) will turn out as another important tool to improve ESDP-capabilities of those among the 27 who wish to advance quicker than the others. The Irish 'No' will not only prolong the ratification procedure but might also have negative effects for the solution of a number of institutional details the reform debate has been unable to tackle sufficiently so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]