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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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  • Podcast season 2 logo
    15July 2020
    EUISS foresight podcast – Season 2

    The EUISS' ‘What if’ podcast returns for a second season, this time looking at the foreign policy implication of the covid19 crisis.

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    11June 2020
    From bad to worse? The impact(s) of Covid-19 on conflict dynamics
    The global crisis caused by the Covid-19 outbreak has had particularly disruptive consequences for conflict-affected countries around the world. Armed groups have capitalised on the crisis, while the global distraction caused by the pandemic has made it difficult to seize opportunities for peace. This Brief analyses key repercussions in conflict-affected countries in general, and in five countries in particular: Colombia, Libya, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen.
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    20May 2020
    Who’s first wins? International crisis response to Covid-19
    China has sought to demonstrate that its authoritarian political system has been more efficient at dealing with the coronavirus crisis than Western liberal democratic systems. This Brief examines the validity of this hypothesis, and concludes that predispositional factors – notably the demographic and age profile of a country – as well as whether a state had been previously exposed to a pandemic or not, were more important in shaping the authorities’ response than the political system in place.
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    30April 2020
    Arctic stress test
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    In the three decades after the Cold War, the perception of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’, the sense that the Arctic region is immune from broader geopolitical tensions, prevailed. However, this notion is currently being challenged: climate change is accelerating the opening of new maritime trade routes and exploitation of natural resources in the region, while great power competition between the US, Russia and China in the Arctic is intensifying, changing regional power dynamics.
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    17April 2020
    Cyber conflict uncoded
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    The complex nature of cyber conflicts makes it difficult to design effective, targeted conflict prevention instruments. Yet existing approaches to prevent conflict in cyberspace have, so far, brought about very little change in state behaviour. How might the EU lead the way in preventing conflicts from escalating or breaking out?
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    17March 2020
    A blacklist is (almost) born
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    In the sanctions practice of the EU, human rights motivations feature prominently, reflecting their centrality to the Union’s foreign policy. This Brief discusses plans to create a new EU sanctions regime addressing gross human rights violations. It examines the various challenges surrounding the initiative and its implementation, and argues that the way forward could be to disaggregate the proposed sanctions regimes into two separate strands: one dealing with breaches of international humanitarian law and a second addressing human rights abuses linked to large-scale transnational corruption.
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    04March 2020
    Building EU resilience against the extraterritorial effects of U.S. sanctions

    On 4 March 2020, Clara Portela organised a closed-door workshop in Brussels on 'Building EU resilience against the extraterritorial effects of U.S. sanctions'. The workshop brought together experts on sanctions from various disciplines with officials from Member States and EU institutions.

  • Participants at the EUISS Canada Track 1.5 cyber meeting
    19February 2020
    Canada-Europe Track 1.5: emerging technology and cyber policy

    The EUISS, Global Affairs Canada, EEAS and the CIGI hosted a cyber workshop in Brussels’.

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    24January 2020
    What if...? 14 futures for 2024
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    With contributions from

    According to a famous science fiction film, the future is what you make of it. This Chaillot Paper takes this quote from Back to the Future to heart, proposing 14 different portraits of the future for the year 2024.

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    09January 2020
    EUISS foresight podcast – Season 1

    The EUISS ‘What if’ podcast is a foreign policy foresight conversation: it looks at fictional scenarios that could happen between now and the end of 2021.

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    05April 2017
    SMS – Global migration: getting the trends right
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    The second in the new EUISS series of Security Monthly Stats (SMS) looks at the sensitive issue of global migration. Are there really more migrants than ever before? And are people from the ‘global South’ migrating northwards?

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    05April 2017
    The EU migration crisis – Getting the numbers right
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    The 2015 migration crisis revealed gaps in the EU’s migration-related statistics. This Brief looks at how unreliable migration data can be manipulated, and seeks to reverse the narratives which are put forward by certain actors in order to pursue their own agendas.

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    29March 2017
    Securing the Energy Union: five pillars and five regions
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    With contributions from

    This Report examines the energy challenges facing the different regions of Europe, investigating shared priorities and common projects, as well as barriers to integration and cooperation. A series of chapters devoted to distinct regions examines what role the Energy Union can play to help address their energy challenges, including those related to energy security and relations with external suppliers.

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    08March 2017
    Trends in terrorism
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    Although it is not the first time that Europe has experienced terrorism, for many Europeans, the phenomenon appears to be the most dangerous form of political violence today. So what is old and what new about today’s terrorism?

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    08March 2017
    Preventing terrorism in the south
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    To step up the fight against terrorism, the EU is looking to forge closer ties with strategic countries in its Southern Neighbourhood. The Union’s initiatives to set up counter-terrorism dialogues in the region have, however, been met with a hesitant response. How can the EU overcome different interpretations of what effective counter-terrorism should look like?

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    02March 2017
    Counter-terrorism cooperation with the southern neighbourhood

    Since the EU adopted its Counter-Terrorism Strategy in 2005, it has focused on forging closer ties with third countries in the fight against terrorism. This study outlines and contextualises current counter-terrorism activities in the region.

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    22February 2017
    Women in peacebuilding: the EU & others
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    Since the 1990s, the EU's gender mainstreaming strategy has spread to its foreign policy, including its CSDP. What concrete steps has it taken to promote women in the field of peace and security?

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    08February 2017
    The refugee-development nexus
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    In a marked shift from previous policies, many advanced economies are creating labour market integration initiatives for refugees. This Brief argues that although this might seem a shortcut to a more progressive strategy, it risks undermining the integrity of refugee policy and repeating the mistakes of the 1990s.

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    10November 2016
    Managing migration abroad – Why, where, what and how?
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    Because of the intertwining of internal and external security matters, the EU’s model of dealing with crisis is being challenged. This Brief looks at how integrating different approaches and distinct practises across the EU may come to represent the key change for policymakers.

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    10November 2016
    Civilian CSDP: what next?
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    Civilian CSDP missions were downsized in 2016, paradoxically at a time when security needs are growing – with threats largely of a non-military nature. This Brief shows how these changes call for renewed investment in civilian CSDP so that it can find its place in the evolving global crisis management architecture.

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