AbstractThe assumption that the European Union is creating a new diplomacy begs many questions. However, it is clear that the role of national diplomats in the integrative processes has changed dramatically during the last 50 years, producing a blueprint for a new form of European diplomacy. It is apparent that European diplomacy has been characterized by the existence of two broad but distinct diplomatic career paths, each with a separate and specific mindset, and that there are, arguably, two identifiable epistemic communities of European diplomats — national and supranational — sometimes cooperating willingly, sometimes reluctantly, in an interplay between national and EU diplomacy. Against this background, in the short term a 'variable geometry' of representation is likely to continue, as member states refashion their networks of representation, influenced by a combination of international involvement, perceptions of national need and, at times, the unwelcome dictates of diminishing national resources. But a new European diplomacy already exists alongside the old, and its distinctive feature is the withering away of explicit national interests.
Selected problems of value added tax application in the agricultural sector of the European Union internal market
