One of the main achievements of the 2004 Draft Constitution Treaty in its endeavour to simplify European law and, thus, to make it more accessible to EU citizens, would have been the abolition of the three pillars under the common EU roof. Instead, one single EU would have replaced the existing supranational EC. The Union would have pursued both the supranational Community policies as well as the inter-governmental areas of cooperation, such as the CFSP. Also on the international plane, it would have simplified matters because one EU, endowed with international legal personality in Article I-7 CT, would have been able to enter into international agreements with third countries and international organisations. Alas, as things stand now, the adoption of both the Constitution Treaty and the Lisbon Reform Treaty remains unlikely and we have to live with the current complicated structures of an EC, acting on the international level mainly in the field of external trade and concluding various treaties touching upon Community powers, as well as an EU, trying to keep the Member States within the framework of the commonly agreed upon CFSP and within very limited powers of its own.

This final chapter tries to provide a brief overview of the different aspects of the activities of the EC/EU on the international plane.