  We adapt the formally-defined Fokker action into a variational principle for
the electromagnetic two-body problem. We introduce properly defined boundary
conditions to construct a Poincare-invariant-action-functional of a finite
orbital segment into the reals. The boundary conditions for the variational
principle are an endpoint along each trajectory plus the respective segment of
trajectory for the other particle inside the lightcone of each endpoint. We
show that the conditions for an extremum of our functional are the
mixed-type-neutral-equations with implicit state-dependent-delay of the
electromagnetic-two-body problem. We put the functional on a natural Banach
space and show that the functional is Frechet-differentiable. We develop a
method to calculate the second variation for C2 orbital perturbations in
general and in particular about circular orbits of large enough radii. We prove
that our functional has a local minimum at circular orbits of large enough
radii, at variance with the limiting Kepler action that has a minimum at
circular orbits of arbitrary radii. Our results suggest a bifurcation at some
radius below which the circular orbits become saddle-point extrema. We give a
precise definition for the distributional-like integrals of the Fokker action
and discuss a generalization to a Sobolev space of trajectories where the
equations of motion are satisfied almost everywhere. Last, we discuss the
existence of solutions for the state-dependent delay equations with slightly
perturbated arcs of circle as the boundary conditions and the possibility of
nontrivial solenoidal orbits.
