The strengthening of multilateral institutions is one of the strategic priorities of the European Union’s foreign policy, as reflected in the European Security Strategy. Spain has also included the reinforcement of multilateral institutions in the guidelines for consensus in foreign and cooperation policy and the National Defence Directive. Nevertheless, the interaction between the EU and the multilateral institutions in the different areas of global governance has not really been subject to scientific analysis up to now.

The aim of the DYNAMUS project is to develop an analysis framework to describe and explain the EU’s varying impact on the multilateral system, and vice versa. This analysis framework will be systematically applied to eight case studies relating to four key thematic areas: business and development policies, energy and environment, conflict management and disarmament, and human and social rights. The analysis framework will distinguish between three types of impact, depending on whether the changes occur in the area of (i) constitutive rules, (ii) regulative rules or (iii) standardization rules. In addition to identifying the type of impact produced in the different empirical cases, the project will analyse the mechanisms by which the impact was produced, for example coercion, socialization, persuasion, emulation and manipulation of the different tools available to the actors.

The systematic study of the mutual influence between multilateral institutions and the EU makes it possible to provide a baseline analysis of the EU as a rule maker and rule taker in the international arena. Furthermore, it makes it possible to establish comparisons between the EU and other international actors (the USA and emerging powers such as Russia, China and Brazil), which are also potential rule makers and rule takers. In practice, the research will help to scientifically identify the main obstacles for the policies for the promotion of multilateralism.