European Parliament and the Framing of the EU Foreign Policy: Emancipated Actor or the Loyal Follower?[Európsky parlament a rámovanie zahraničnej politiky EÚ: emancipovaný aktér alebo verný nasledovateľ?]

Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, as an another milestone of the European integration process, the role of the European parliament has increased, and the area of EU foreign policy has not been an exception. The enhancing of the EP's powers and accountability in the area of the Union's external action regarding political control or budgetary authority, has changed the balance of powers in the institutional framework of the European Union. Although the EP dispose of a few formal competences, its work in the field of democratisation, human rights protection, or external trade policy, leads to the beliefs that the influence of the Parliament in the CFSP/CSDP area cannot be ignored. Despite this, the issue of the EP as an external action actor and the maker of the foreign policy discourse is in the Czech and Slovak European studies research agenda neglected. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the attitude of the European parliament towards the character of CFSP/CSDP. The EP's position will be analysed through a discourse analysis method in order to understand the ideas towards this policy and to identify the main conceptual frames created by the Parliament in the foreign policy and defence issues. Moreover, the paper will use the quantitative content analysis approach to find the level of consensus with the attitudes of the main strategic documents of the European Union as a whole.