1 Struggling with Performance: An Analytical Framework for the EU International Interactions Spyros Blavoukos* and Dimitris Bourantonis** Abstract The analysis of the EU international interactions has made a long conceptual sojourn from presence to actorness to performance in the last three decades. In this paper, we contribute to the emerging literature on the EU international performance, presenting and elaborating on an analytical framework that distinguishes between three levels of performance analysis, namely output, outcome, and impact. First, at micro-level, the output perspective is related basically with the intra-EU process of policy-formation, focusing on the deliverables of internal political and institutional dynamics that inform the EU international engagement. Second, at meso-level, the outcome perspective shifts attention to the implementation of the output and the deriving behavioral adjustment of the EU. It refers to the EU international activation along the output lines and captures how the EU takes this output to the international level. Third, at macro-level, the impact perspective assesses performance on the basis of the effect of the EU international outcomes, that is the result of the EU activities. For each level of analysis, we identify the main indicators/criteria of performance as well as the most important parameters that condition the EU performance. * Spyros Blavoukos, Lecturer, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, sblavo@aueb.gr ** Dimitris Bourantonis, Professor, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, bouranto@aueb.gr Paper prepared for the EUSA Thirteenth Biennial Conference Baltimore, Maryland, USA May 9-11, 2013