Conclusion: the role of the EU in the legal dimension of global governance

This chapter revisits the main themes of the preceding discussions on the EU's role in global governance. These include rule law based collective governance, security governance, trade governance, environmental governance, financial governance, and social governance. Across different areas of governance, EU internal legislation can be a strength and a weakness: it provides a strong, and often high regulatory standard. However, as witnessed in the trade and environmental fields, this often renders the EU an immovable monolith in international negotiations, without the flexibility to respond to the diversity of its counterparts in global governance. A proposed solution is the increased utilization of bilateral and interregional dialogues in order to prepare the Union's receptiveness to individual third countries' concerns, and facilitate convergence of positions at the global level and in multilateral negotiations.