There is a widespread belief that the European Union (EU) is a novel kind of power not only in its own institutional set-up but also in its external relations. It is said to rely on civilian rather than military means and to pursue the spread of particular norms rather than self-interested geographical expansion or military superiority. In the 1970s, Franccois Duchene called it a ‘civilian power' (1972: 43); in the early 2000s it was argued that the label ‘normative power' would be better suited (Manners 2000, 2002). Just as Ducheˆne's civilian power reflected the Cold War milieu of the 1970s, the normative power approach signified a crystallisation of the EU in the post-Cold War era.