EU Relations with European Micro‐States. Happily Ever After?

Abstract:  The last decade has seen the EU striving to bring uniformity into its relations with its immediate neighbours. Such endeavor has led the EU to adopt the European Neighbourhood Policy towards countries with no immediate prospects of accession and to follow more or less similar pre-accession strategies towards candidate and to-be candidate countries. However, European micro-states (Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Monaco—the Vatican not being the subject of this article) have always occupied an exceptional position in the EU's web of external relations. This article provides a brief but concise overview of the international legal framework governing the bilateral relations of the EU with these small countries. Through the examination of their peculiar historical, social, geographic and economic attributes, it is argued that the advantages that micro-states have been able to reap so far from the unique position they enjoy in the EU and the global economy may not be easily reconcilable in the future with the EU's ever-increasing appetite to unify, standardise and harmonise.