EU External Relations Law and the European Neighbourhood Policy. A Paradigm for Coherence: Bart van Vooren, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. 356 pages. ISBN: 978-0-415-67466-9.

It seems only a short time ago when works by legal scholars on the EU’s external relations were relatively few and far between. Nowadays there is a burgeoning literature on the many different dimensions of the EU’s engagement with the wider world and the connections with wider debates on law, policy and integration. A number of recent works have furthered the academic debate on the place of law within the variety of means by which the EU conceives and operates its external relations and how the constitutional principles within the EU’s legal/political order apply. Van Vooren’s book sits firmly within this category. Emerging from a PhD thesis defended at the European University Institute, Florence, Van Vooren’s book critically analyses the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and its relationship with EU external relations moregenerally, and in particular the “concept of coherence”.