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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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    01October 1993

    For more than two years, wars and atrocities all too reminiscent of another epoch have set in - perhaps permanently - in the heart of Europe. Yet the Continent is for the most part focused towards its prosperity, its restored security and the extension of fundamental liberties. This coexistence of peace and war is not attributable solely to the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.

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    01September 1993

    Professor Dieter Mahncke, the Deputy Director of the Planning Staff of the German Defence Ministry in Bonn, was a visiting fellow at the Institute for the last quarter of 1992. We were pleased to welcome him and were stimulated by his many contributions to our work. The end of the Cold War has meant that very many of the concepts on which institutions and structures for security in Western Europe were based have had to be re-examined.

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    01November 1992

    Since 1945, the existence of nuclear weapons has profoundly modified our thinking on strategic issues. Nowhere was that more true than in the Europe of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War and the important progress made in the process of European integration, the roles of nuclear weapons and more generally deterrence in Europe need a new examination.

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    01March 1991

    Whether the countries of the Mediterranean littoral are linked by special bonds of solidarity is and will remain a much-debated question. After the Second World War, anti-imperialist and non-aligned thinking advocated such solidarity on the grounds that countries as diverse as Egypt and Italy, or Spain and Algeria, were none the less equally subject to political and economic domination by the more advanced countries of Northern Europe and North America.

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