Asserting a leading role for the European Union in international aviation: When aspirations meet reality

More than a decade after the European Court of Justice’s “open skies” judgments, is the European Union (EU) now capable of asserting a leading role in the international aviation regime? This article approaches the EU’s external aviation policy through the lenses of role theory and, more precisely, through the threefold connotation of the concept of role: role conceptions, role expectations, and role performance. It finds that there is a converging tendency between the three dimensions and that the gap between external expectations and actual policy behaviour on the one hand, and the EU’s aspiration for a leading role in international aviation on the other, is diminishing. Over time, then, the EU could indeed transform from a regional trendsetter into a leading player in the international aviation regime.