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Transnational challenges

There is a growing overlap between the EU’s internal and external security problems. Terrorism, organised crime and unregulated migration not only pose a threat to European internal security, but also have a serious impact on the stability of Europe’s immediate neighbourhood. Very often, they find their roots in conflicts and instability further abroad in Africa or Asia.

For some time, the European Union has been active in international debates on the governance of these challenges, and has created new policy instruments of its own. Already in the early 1990s, the EU successfully linked its home-affairs priorities with its Common Foreign and Security Policy. The 2015 migration crisis showed the limits of that approach, and has sparked a new wave of reforms.

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  • 12January 2016
    Climate change and European foreign policy after COP21

    This conference brought together European policy experts to review the COP21 climate conference in Paris, and to discuss the integration of climate change into the EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS).

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    10December 2015
    20 years on: rethinking Schengen
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    Given the radically altered international environment, how can the EU best adapt its border regime? This Brief shows how it will require an innovative response, rather than replicating at an EU level the classical attributes of a national model.

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    10December 2015
    The climate-energy nexus
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    How could the EU help bridge the gap between energy and climate policies? This Alert argues that by doing so there is an opportunity to both improve European energy security in the long term and to make European climate diplomacy more effective.

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    04December 2015
    The IPCR arrangements: a joined-up approach in crisis response?
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    This Brief examines the first use of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) arrangements in response to the refugee crisis in Europe. How do they work? Can this new instrument foster a real joined-up approach to EU crisis response?

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    04December 2015
    Migration and terrorism: the new frontiers for European solidarity
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    Member states have twice come close to activating the EU’s ‘solidarity clause’, and both cases have involved an internal security crisis with roots outside the Union. But will EU member states only properly support each other if they also feel able to eliminate the root causes overseas?

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    27November 2015
    Climate change as a 'wicked problem'
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    Climate change is a 'wicked problem' and efforts to address it have been slow, uneven, and politically divisive. But building on the lessons of past debacles, diplomats and negotiators have begun to apply a series of elements, useful for addressing wicked problems, that have changed climate diplomacy for the better.

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    27November 2015
    Gender balancing in CSDP
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    How successful has the EU been in implementing gender mainstreaming and achieving gender balance in its CSDP missions and operations?

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    27November 2015
    Climate and power: ending the oil age?
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    While necessary for the climate, working through the costs and benefits of going green is an economic challenge with strategic implications. What factors will influence national efforts, and international negotiations, to cut out carbon? This Brief looks into the geopolitics of adjusting to a post-oil age.

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    17November 2015
    After Paris: why ISIL is (also) a cult
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    Following the horrific attacks in Paris, this Alert shows how ISIL is, in fact, a cult: an authoritarian organisation which brainwashes its members to the point where mass murder and self-annihilation become not only logical, but desirable.

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    13November 2015
    A global climate deal – if not now, then when?
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    Two weeks ahead of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, the international community appears to be on the cusp of clinching a global deal on mitigating climate change. This Alert takes a fresh look at the state of play of the negotiations.

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    15June 2012
    The EU's and China's institutional diplomacy in the field of climate change
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    Considering its linkages with various areas such as energy security, economic growth and diplomacy, climate change is a major ‘game-changer’ in international relations. The development of the climate change regime presents the EU with both an opportunity and a threat, in as much as it may either accelerate Europe’s decline as a foreign policy actor or, on the contrary, reinvigorate its diplomatic ambitions.

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    20December 2010
    A new farewell to arms: viewing disarmament in a new security environment
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    Advocates of disarmament have long maintained that non-conventional weapons are so destabilising to international peace and security that they should be eliminated altogether. This policy brief provides an overview of the disarmament question and examines how it is entering a new phase in a radical new context of globalisation and rapid technology diffusion.

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    19April 2010
    Nuclear weapons after the 2010 NPT Review Conference
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    The Non-Proliferation Treaty is a central pillar in global efforts to prevent a destabilising armament competition and, worse still, nuclear war. Chaillot Paper No. 120 analyses the issues affecting the NPT in the lead-up to the 2010 Review Conference that will take place amid rising proliferation concerns and a renewed focus on disarmament.

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    09April 2010
    A Good START
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    The New START, a bilateral nuclear arms reduction treaty, aims to significantly reduce the weapons stockpiles of both the US and Russia. While it may be seen as a positive step towards disarmament and for US-Russia relations, getting it past the US Senate is Obama’s next big challenge, writes Jean Pascal Zanders.

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    04November 2009
    The Obama Moment
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    'The Obama Moment' provides an authoritative analysis of the most topical global questions of our time: multilateralism, the economy, disarmament and climate change. Will the election of Obama facilitate enhanced transatlantic co-operation in dealing with these and other challenges?

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    08October 2009
    The Institute's quarterly newsletter No.30
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    Articels in this ISSue: Álvaro de Vasconcelos looks back to 1989 and draws conclusions for Europe today, Ahmet Davutoglu outlines his vision of future EU - NATO cooperation and the role of non-EU allies in contributing to the European Security and Defence Policy and Jean Pascal Zanders looks at Obama and the the first steps toward disarmament.

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    08August 2008
    E pluribus unum: decision-makers and decision-making in Iran
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    Iran’s complex and unusual political system is often perceived as opaque and even arcane by Western observers. This policy brief provides an overview of the power structure of the Islamic Republic and offers an insight into the intricacies of the Iranian system’s decision-making process. It also explains how the various centres of power influence Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the international community.

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    18June 2008
    Teheran braucht keine Atomwaffen
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    EU-Sanktionen gegen den Iran wären genau das fehlende Element, das den Anhängern Ahmadinejads noch abgeht, um sich mit ihren anti-westlichen Ansichten voll durchsetzen zu können. Über Iran, Israel und Europas Energiesicherheit.

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    03March 2008
    Missile Defence in Europe: the political and security dimensions
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    The debate over missile defence in Europe is likely to remain on the political agenda for the foreseeable future as discussions evolve on both sides of the Atlantic. This policy brief provides basic background information on missile defence and highlights some of the principal political and security aspects associated with missile defence in Europe.

  • 01July 2007
    The potential unintended consequences of missile defence in Europe
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    Missile defence in Europe is currently a hotly debated topic in international security. It has animated discussions and raised issues at multiple levels, including ramifications for international relations (e.g. between the US and Russia), intra-EU relations (e.g. concerning national positions), and institutional relations (e.g. the role of NATO).

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