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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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  • 15January 2004

    2003 was a difficult year for the EU - and so was its epilogue at the European Council held in Brussels in mid-December. Paradoxically, however, 2003 was a positive year for ESDP.

  • 12January 2004

    On 12 January, the Institute organised a ‘brainstorming’ seminar on flexibility for ESDP that reviewed the latest developments in the Intergovernmental Conference as well as the Council.

  • 01January 2004

    A few months and a couple of Newsletters ago, we described the outcome of the European Convention as 'half full'. After the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference to finalise a constitutional treaty for the EU, the contrary seems almost inevitable: never before, in fact, has an IGC ended in failure.

  • 01January 2004

    Il 2003 e' stato un anno difficile per l'Unione Europea, fra crisi irachena, crisi del Patto di stabilita' per l'euro, e crisi della Conferenza Intergovernativa (CIG) che avrebbe dovuto varare la nuova "Costituzione"...

  • 01January 2004

    One year after the war in Iraq, the EU is still confronted with two major challenges. The first is in Iraq itself, where the US strategy of stabilisation and democratisation is encountering dramatic setbacks. The second challenge arises from the growing terrorist threat to Western interests and citizens, as seen in the terrible attacks in Madrid on 11 March.

  • 23December 2003

    Par ces temps de troubles transatlantiques et d'imbroglios institutionnels à la CIG, l'adoption prochaine par les chefs d'Etat européens d'une stratégie de sécurité commune mérite d'être saluée. Sous l'égide de Javier Solana, les empoignades récentes entre les vingt-cinq sur la stratégie américaine de frappes préemptives, la légalité de l'usage de la force, l'intervention militaire en Irak, se sont transmuées en quelques mois et quelques pages en une véritable vision européenne commune du monde et du rôle de l'Union dans le monde.

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    01December 2003

    With this Chaillot Paper, the ‘European defence core documents’ collection reaches its fourth volume – stretching from Copenhagen, where the last European Council of 2002 was held, to Brussels, where the last one of 2003 took place.

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    01December 2003

    The South Caucasus contains three states that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Geographically, the region is populated by some fifteen million people, and links the Caspian Sea basin to the Black Sea on the east-to-west axis, and is the juncture between the greater Middle East, Turkey and Iran, and the Russian Federation.

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    01December 2003

    The main subject of this paper is a long-term analysis of the voting behaviour of the European Union (EU) member states in the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN). Data on voting in the General Assembly is readily available, although not always in machine-readable format.

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    01December 2003

    Space is a strategic asset, and its importance both in terms of technology and security cannot be overestimated.

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