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EU foreign policy

With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 and its subsequent implementation, the European Union has gradually assembled the constituent elements of a sui generis 'foreign policy', bringing together various competencies, instruments and resources that were hitherto spread across different institutions and bodies. Although the process is still on-going and progress is, in parts, uneven, certain traits of a more coherent common approach to foreign policy-making are now evident. In the Balkans, the Horn of Africa (both offshore and onshore), the Sahel, or the Middle East, joint and combined forms of external action - including diplomacy, enlargement, CSDP and development activities - are now producing more effective and lasting results.

Analysing the specific actors, instruments, policies, and strategies at the disposal of the Union and assessing their scope and outreach is also a way to illustrate what the EU does in the world - something which is not always known or appreciated by those who directly benefit from its external action, or indeed by European citizens at large. Monitoring performance, in turn, also contributes to improving it, in a constructive manner and on the basis of factual evidence.

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    01May 2002
    Terms of engagement: the paradox of American power and the transatlantic dilemma post-11 September
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    The world has never known a power such as the United States. Consequently, Europe cannot expect the United States to be anything other than unilateralist. America is simply too powerful. What matters, therefore, is the nature of American unilateralism.

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    01May 2002
    Risks of the status quo
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    Many observers have mocked the divisions among Europeans, their absence and therefore their impotence, in the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But that is to forget that it is above all the strongest player who lacks the will to act, and that today it is in particular in the European theatre that the Union’s performance, or lack of it, should be judged.

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    01April 2002
    Bigger EU, wider CFSP, stronger ESDP? The view from Central Europe
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    This paper collects the papers delivered by a group of mostly young researchers from the ten Central European candidate countries in response to a grid of common questions submitted to them by the Institute for Security Studies in 2001. The considerations that follow summarize the main results of the project, compare the national views, and put them in a broader political context.

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    01April 2002
    From Nice to Laeken - European defence: core documents
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    This is the second volume in our special series of Chaillot Papers presenting core documents on the EU’s security and defence policy. Unlike the first volume, which focused on the whole period from St-Malo to Nice (December 1998 - December 2000), this volume and subsequent ones will recapitulate developments regarding ESDP during the preceding year.

  • 28March 2002
    Europa potenza civile
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    Che l'Unione europea non sia una potenza comparabile agli Stati Uniti risulta evidente dai fatti, a cominciare dal gap crescente - tecnologico e di bilancio - fra gli investimenti militari delle due sponde dell'Atlantico. Che neanche debba porsi l'obiettivo di emulare gli Stati Uniti è invece meno evidente.

  • 18March 2002
    European defence after 11 September

    A conference on 'European Defence after 11 September' took place at the Institute on 18 March 2002. The meeting addressed the impact of 11 September and the fight against terrorism on the EU and the ESDP in particular.

  • 13March 2002
    It’s time for a trans-Atlantic summit
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    One of the most striking examples of the potential for new transatlantic solidarity after the September 11 terrorist attacks was the publication by the French newspaper Le Monde, not known to be reflexively pro-American, of an editorial entitled "We are all Americans." The degree to which that solidarity has now dissipated was illustrated by a rather different headline in that same newspaper five months later: "Has the United States gone crazy?"...

  • 01March 2002
    European football cultures and their integration: the'short' Twentieth Century
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    What is the correlation between sport and international politics? More specifically, is there any connection or causal relationship between the game of football - the most global and at the same time most European of sports - and the way in which "Europe" has developed inside its borders and projected itself outside? And, if so, exactly what? All these questions may mesmerize both the educated fan and the open-minded pundit...

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    01March 2002
    A new European Union policy for Kaliningrad
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    Just as Königsberg became known for its intellectual weight, symbolised by the brain-twister how to cross the city's seven bridges without passing one of them twice; Kaliningrad is notorious for the immense problems it has to deal with, perhaps mirrored by the inconclusive ways the EU and the Kremlin are figuring out how to assist the oblast.

  • 27February 2002
    Un Telefono per l’Europa
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    Fra le oltre 50 domande sul futuro dell’Europa contenute nel testo della Dichiarazione di Laeken, un gruppo abbastanza consistente riguarda il ruolo internazionale dell’Unione e, in particolare, il possibile sviluppo di una politica estera e di difesa piu’ "coerente" ed efficace.

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