Legal Bases of the Association in the Relations of the European Union with Third Countries as a Step Towards ‘Europeanisation’

Abstract

The impact of international law on national legal systems varies considerably according to the forms not only of each national legal system, but also of specific regions. The highest level of influence has been traced on the European continent, especially the European Union (EU). The author investigates the acts of the European Union institutions and concludes that they can serve as a model for national legal regulation. In the relations of the European Union with third countries, there is a tendency to more actively promote the ideas of European integration and with different regions at different stages of integration. The aim of the paper is to analyze the legal capacity of the EU with third countries and its implementation in association agreements with third countries, which determine the first step towards “Europeanization”. Thus, the most common form of EU cooperation with third countries is association agreements. The authors carefully examine the features of associative agreements in the practice of the European Union’s external relations and pay great attention to the association as a special partnership of EU Member States with a third country.