European Union’s policy towards Taiwan in the light of its China policy - the limits of the EU’s role in International Politics

The growing economic strength of the EU has induced a debate on its role in International Politics. Since the attempts to solve this problem were made by either those, who perceive the organization as a potential state or those who see it only as a form of intergovernmental coordination and cooperation between the states, the spectrum of answers is also varied. Words like: 'actorness', 'presence', 'role' , 'impact', 'normative power' or 'emerging global power' were used to describe its international presence.
The uniqueness of the EU can be explained by its sui generis decision-making process, institutions, their competences, policy instruments as well as its goals and values. However, as far as this approach constitutes the valuable starting point for the analysis of the European international presence, it has one fault; it is not sufficient. It is especially true in the case of the European Union where different areas of its external policy are characterized by different competences.
The purpose of this paper will be to show, that the European Union's role in the international politics is not defined only by its institutional features, procedures and preferences but also by external factors. The 'internal' developments in the EU are of great significance for the whole world (Allen and Smith 1990) but only combined with the 'outside' political and economic setting as well as external expectations, determine its capabilities as a global actor.
Therefore, to understand the EU's impact in the world, we need to see the whole picture, the 'inside' and 'outside'. Meanwhile, this paper is based on the belief that the actorness of the EU has many faces, depending on the problem in question. Thus, instead of explaining all the variations, it is necessary to concentrate on particular issue area. There is already abundant literature on the organization's impact on its closer and further neighbors, including CEECs, Mediterranean countries and even Russia. However, despite the growing significance of East Asia partners for Europe, especially China and Taiwan, there has not been much interest in the topic. To fill in this gap, the author has chosen the case of Taiwan. Nevertheless, going globally, beyond the 'European village', was not the only reason. Taiwan's special political status makes interactions with it more complicated for any partner and could be treated as a difficult test for Europe with ambition of becoming a global actor. For the same reason, the case of Taiwan must be considered in the light of EU's China policy, which has been elevated to the one of the European priorities in recent years.