OCEU 2100 - European Negotiations in a Global Context

***UPDATED for 2025/26***

Negotiation constitutes a strategic skill for diplomats, civil servants, administrators and many other professional careers. Be it internally (with colleagues, team members, or hierarchy) or externally (with stakeholders, national administrations or international organisations), negotiation capabilities are likely to make a difference. This interactive course will help students to gain a better understanding of negotiators’ behaviour and of central concepts in negotiation as they apply in the global context and in the European Union. It will also help them improve their ability to analyse negotiation situations and learn how to develop a toolkit of useful negotiation skills, strategies, and approaches adapted to work in the international and EU institutional context at large. The course draws on case studies from the field of EU external relations.

The course is structured around a series of negotiation simulations and exercises. These are framed and analysed in terms of readings, lectures, and in-depth class discussions. The course will follow a three step sequential approach:

• Experiential learning through simulations: In each module students will engage in an exercise or a simulation pertaining to a key aspect of negotiation in the EU.
• Debriefing, feedback & self-examination: After the practice, the professor will lead a discussion that involves analysing students’ performance so that the class can analyse the relationship between different negotiation strategies and outcomes and learn from everyone’s experiences.
• Discussion of a case study: during the last part of each module the professor will discuss with students the relevant research findings that are connected with the key learning points of the module (including the required reading) and the specific aspects of the EU negotiation situation analysed.

Student will be encouraged to contribute to a seminar blog by regularly posting their analysis of ongoing EU and International negotiations.

Student will be divided in groups in order to write a simulation exercise based on a case study of their choice.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• analyse international negotiation processes from a theoretical and practical perspective
• better understand negotiation processes in the European Union
• explain negotiation dynamics
• apply negotiation techniques

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Capacity to prepare, organise and manage the different phase of an international negotiation in a bilateral and multilateral environment.

Students will be given feedback after each simulation exercise. They will be given also feedback on their contribution to the blog during class discussion.

The assessment is based on different activities:

30% class participation to the simulations and to class debates and discussions, 60% Final Paper (3500 WORDS), 10 % group work for designing a simulation exercise.

• In Class Presence: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Reading and Preparation for Class: 30 hours a semester
• Research and Preparation for Group Work: 30 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 40 hours a semester