Eu External Aid And European Integration

Foreign aid policy is an important part of EU's foreign policies, as the product of European integration and the useful tool of developing foreign relations. The idea of European integration has existed for centuries: from Charlemagne to the Habsburg Empire, from Napoleon to Hitler, many people dreamed of conquest by force to unify of the European continent. From Saint-Simon's"United States of Europe"program, to Bentham and Hugo's blueprint of European unity, many philosophers advocated the European cooperation to win the peace in Europe. Since World War II, with the development of European integration and changes in the external international environment, the idea of European integration philosophy has changed profoundly, that could be found from the foreign aid policies in different times.On the other side, EU's aid policy is not affected by the European integration passively, and it also promotes the development of the European integration in many ways. For example, the foreign aid policy could promote the EU's enlargement, intensification and the development of the concept of European integration. More important, aid policy, as the reaction to the outside world for the European integration, is the important way of promoting its values, ideas and social models worldwidly, particularly in those developing countries and new emerging ones, including the Central and Eastern Europe countries. It also constructs the core of EU's international image, and enhances the"Identification"of European Union both in domestic and external world. In that case, the analysis of EU's aid policy is quite significant for understanding the European integration process deeply.The dissertation will try to link EU's aid policy, as a foreign policy, with the inner idea and process of European integration, in order to have a better understanding of the integration. Comparing to the existing studies, the paper does not only regard the EU as a multilateral donor, but also tries to make the following attempts: first, as a product of European integration, exposing the links between EU's foreign aid policy and the idea, process of European integration; second, as an important EU foreign policy tool, analyzing the unique role of EU's foreign aid policy in EU's external relations; third, the European integration theories could be found through the development of EU's foreign aid policy; Fourth, the impact brought by EU foreign aid for the development of European integration.This paper will adopt the new research perspectives of EU's foreign aid policy to analyze the idea and process of European integration on the basis of the existing studies. The idea of European integration has been always changing, and it has different characteristics during many historical periods, whose impacts on EU's domestic and foreign policies is a meaningful and endless topic. Because of the space limitations, the paper only adopts the EU's foreign aid as a starting point, hoping to have a more profound understanding of European integration.