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This paper proposes a way of conceptualizing influence, a crucial notion in foreign policy making, in order to shed light on the (lack of) success of European foreign policy (EFP) in the neighborhood. While the word influence is widely used in both everyday conversations as well as in the bulk of International Relations (IR) literature, it is rarely conceptualized. Contrastingly, attempts to conceptualize power have been manifold. In these studies, influence tends to be amalgamated with power (Dahl 1957; Polsby 1960; Bachrach & Baratz 1963; Holsti 1964; Kuypers 1973; Lukes 2005; Morgenthau 1985). The under-conceptualization of what underpins influence is problematic for our analysis of foreign policy, because by omitting a thorough description of the concept and its constitutive dimensions from the analysis of foreign policy, the causal mechanisms that lay at the core of exerting influence are equally ignored. This while at the root of any foreign policy proposition of one actor vis-à-vis one or more others resides an aspiration to accomplish something, to instigate change.