Resumen de The European Union at the Copenhagen climate negotiations: A case of contested EU actorness and effectiveness

Lisanne Groen, Arne Niemann

• This article analyses the extent of European Union (EU) actorness and effectiveness at the 15th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. Although the EU has been characterised as a leader in international climate policy-making for some time, the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen has overall brought about disappointing outcomes for the Union. This casts doubts on EU actorness and effectiveness in this field. We take the article by Jupille and Caporaso as a conceptual point of departure and then specify a more parsimonious actorness framework that consists of coherence and autonomy. Effectiveness is conceptualised as the result of actorness conditioned by the �opportunity structure�, that is, the external context that enables or constrains EU actions. We hold that EU actorness was only moderate, especially given somewhat limited coherence. In terms of the opportunity structure, we argue that the strong involvement of other important actors with rather different positions adversely impacted on EU effectiveness, along with a high degree of politicisation that constrained the European Union�s ability to negotiate effectively.