This chapter argues that the European Communities (EC) and then the European Union (EU) rapidly became an international political actor which, despite the lack of military tools, did not limit its actions to the exercise of soft or civilian power.

Since the 1990s, numerous political scientists have debated the nature of the EU as an international actor, proposing the similar concepts of civilian power, quiet superpower, normative power, transformative power and liberal power. Many debated and reappraised these definitions. In the last 20 years, several historians have added their contributions to studies about the international political role of the EC/EU, revealing how the EC polity increasingly asserted itself as more than just an international economic heavyweight, with some successes, some failures and several limitations.