EU Global Strategy Research Articles

Political conditionality as an EU foreign policy and crisis management tool. The case of EU wartime political conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine

ABSTRACT This article explores the compatibility between the EU’s political conditionality as a policy tool and the EU’s approach to conflict management, guided by the EU Global Strategy. It does so based on the unique case of the EU’s application of political conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine amidst the war and the reinvigoration of the EU’s enlargement policy in response thereto. We find conditionality to fit the EU’s crisis management toolbox, especially when it comes to the long-term approach and building resilience of state institutions in a target country. Though not yet strongly visible in the case of Ukraine, the application of conditionality may come into contradiction with the principles of societal resilience and local ownership, embedded into the EU’s approach to conflict management and the EU Global Strategy, more broadly.

Stanowisko Niemiec wobec reformy Wspólnej Polityki Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony UE (2016-2022)

GERMANY’S POSITION TOWARDS THE REFORM OF THE EU’S COMMON SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY (2016-2022) The aim of this article is to analyze Germany’s position towards the development of CSDP between 2016 and 2023, that is, from the enactment of the EU Global Strategy to the publication of the Strategic Compass. For the CDU/CSU-SPD (2013-2017 and 2017-2021) and SPD-Green-FDP (2021-2022) coalition governments, deepening security and defense integration was a means to advance European integration. The reasons for Germany’s increased interest in developing CSDP from 2016 onwards, regardless of the international context (Brexit, Trump’s presidency), were linked to the political elite’s growing aspirations to develop a more influential international role for Germany. However, hesitation was evident. European defense was seen as an instrument for aiding European integration and as a factor for activating the Franco-German engine. However, France – in strong contrast to Germany – saw the development of a common defense as a means to achieve strong European autonomy in the sense of independence from the US. In Germany, it was feared that this would damage the traditional relationship with NATO. Acceptance of strategic autonomy was therefore limited by the primacy of the Atlantic orientation, which was even revitalized because of the war in Ukraine. Berlin’s ambivalent position on CSDP was also due to the lack of political will to act militarily, constitutional constraints, that is, the strong role of parliament and the influence of a restrained political-military culture.

Half-Hearted or Pragmatic? Explaining EU Strategic Autonomy and the European Defence Fund through Institutional Dynamics

In 2016, the EU Global Strategy introduced the ambition of strategic autonomy, referring to the ability to protect the Union against external threats autonomously. To realise this ambition, the EU also launched various capability development initiatives, in particular, the European Defence Fund (EDF). Much of the available literature presents rationalist explanations of the EU’s development of strategic autonomy and the EDF. These studies attribute strategic autonomy ambition to external conditions and consider it as an act of strategic hedging or bandwagoning. However, the subsequent limited progress in actual capability development casts doubt on these explanations. By drawing on historical institutionalism, this study examines the EU’s current approach to strategic autonomy to see whether internal factors would offer an alternative explanation to the disjunction between the ambitions and actions. For this aim, the study scrutinises the evolution of the EDF as an instrument and the role of the Commission as an agent of change. Based on primary and secondary data, the analysis shows that even though external crises have created critical junctures that compel the EU to reorient its goals, the endogenous elements of institutional change have significantly influenced the EU’s choice of means and redistribution of resources. The findings reveal that the Commission’s ability to reinterpret the original rules and exploit gaps and ambiguities in their local enactment in a path-dependent manner has considerably affected the outcome of this change.

The EC DG INTPA - World Health Organization partnership in the new global health order

Abstract Issue The 2022 EU global health strategy recognizes health as a global common good and sets twenty guiding principles, including the need to support a stronger, effective and accountable WHO as the indispensable cornerstone of the multilateral health system. Description Mixed-methods study using documentary, quantitative, and qualitative analyses to answer two questions: 1) Is the current EC DG INTPA-WHO partnership adequate to support the role envisaged for WHO in the new EU global health strategy)? and 2) How should the EC-DG INTPA-WHO partnership be restructured?. Documentary analysis includes review of academic literature, historical/contemporary documentation on EC-WHO collaboration agreements, monitoring reports of DG INTPA funded interventions since 2016, and selected WHO projects since 2010. Key informant in-depth interviews are conducted with 10 EC senior officials. Guided by results-oriented monitoring frameworks, we analyse interview notes/transcripts and key documents using NVIVO software. Projects are classified by geographic areas and mapped against priorities outlined in the strategy. Results WHO's essential role to provide global public health goods is hampered by insufficient authority and core funds to implement its constitutional mandate. As EU member states see the value of holding a common position, the EU can increase its political role in global health. The EC focusses on specific health threats while also adopting a health system strengthening approach including longstanding collaboration between WHO and the Directorate General for International Partnerships. With remarkable overall achievements, a clear pattern of strengths and weaknesses emerges with key cross cutting areas where the EU has extensive expertise to be strengthened (e.g., evaluation, visibility, inequality markers). Lessons Supporting the development of monitoring and evaluation frameworks could be useful to enhance the visibility and added value of the EC DG INTPA /WHO partnership. Key messages • As a new global health order emerges, the EU must contribute to shape it through a more strategic, coordinated, and effective cooperation with WHO. • To enhance the EC DG INTPA/WHO partnership it is important to support the development of visibility strategies, as well as the further development of monitoring and evaluation frameworks.

Resilience-building in grey security zone countries

EU Global Strategy of 2016 assesses vulnerabilities and fragility in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods as a threat to the security of the Union and addresses them with a relatively new concept of resilience building. Given undertheorizing of the concept as well as the EU’s intention to employ the resilience as a tool of its foreign and security policy to its neighbourhoods, the author aims to show the particularities of the Eastern and Central European states’ approach to resilience. This could provide some corrections to the EU tailored-made to each region policies and measuring of resilience building to ensure peaceful transformations in its eastern borderlands.

Peculiarities and Prospects of the European Union Involvement in the Settlement of Conflicts on the Territory of the Eastern Partnership Countries1

Abstract A new EU global strategy is being formed, as opposed to the European Security Strategy, which no longer corresponds to the geopolitical environment. In accordance with the evolution of security threats at the basis of the Global Strategy, the trends of ensuring unity within the EU and its global leadership, as well as strengthening the EU’s defence capabilities and changing its security approaches are now becoming of vital importance. It is the security structural transformations that currently pose the task of geopolitical repositioning to international actors in the global security system. In the conditions of such restructuring, the role of the EU in resolving international conflicts is given a special place. It is obvious that its classic approaches to conflict resolution have lost their perspective.

Irregular Migration under the EU Global Strategy between Peace and Security: The case of EU-Morocco Partnership

Irregular Migration under the EU Global Strategy between Peace and Security: The case of EU-Morocco Partnership

Irregular Migration under the EU Global Strategy between Peace and Security: The case of EU-Morocco Partnership

Irregular Migration under the EU Global Strategy between Peace and Security: The case of EU-Morocco Partnership

EU Searching for Gatekeepers: Lebanon in European Externalized Migration Management

Today 1 per 5 people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. Lebanon, largely impacted by the Syrian-refugee crisis, followed a “non-policy” and later confining policy for refugees-management. Based on the EU Global Strategy of 2016, migration is identified as principal threat for European security. Recently, EU has exerted its external migration governance in refugee-hosting countries like Lebanon. Having the Union implemented a resilience-building approach, which ended up ignoring the Lebanese system’s structural deficiencies and not accomplishing the desired outcomes, this Policy Brief recommends:
 
 Establishment of legal binding EU-Lebanon refugee governance agreement
 Further EIDHR funding conditional to human rights and good governance alignment
 Incentives to Lebanese private sector for refugees’ recruitment

EU-NATO and the Eastern Partnership countries against hybrid threats: From the EU Global Strategy till the war in Ukraine

EU-NATO and the Eastern Partnership countries against hybrid threats: From the EU Global Strategy till the war in Ukraine

Інституціональні проблеми безпеки та оборони ЄС у контексті розширення співробітництва з Україною

Розглянуто проблеми функціонування та розвитку наднаціональних інституцій Європейського Союзу (далі – ЄС) у сфері безпеки та оборони на фоні змін військово-політичної ситуації у світі. Проаналізовано діяльність безпекових структур, визначено їх організаційно-правовий статус та обсяг завдань із забезпечення обороноздатності ЄС. Охарактеризовано їх повноваження стосовно національних систем безпеки та оборони. Розкрито основні напрямки забезпечення інституціональної стійкості оборонних структур у контексті зміни позиції Сполучених Штатів Америки (далі – США) як основи військової могутності Північноатлантичного альянсу (далі – НАТО) та охарактеризовано можливості створення Європейського оборонного союзу. Доведено, що ЄС необхідно кардинально переглянути свої підходи до забезпечення безпеки передусім у сфері взаємодії збройних сил країн-членів при проведенні спільних операцій і їх ресурсного забезпечення. Встановлено, що для України розвиток автономних наднаціональних європейських оборонних структур відкриває можливість для додаткового поглиблення співпраці із ЄС і паралельного посилення обороноздатності.

The EU Global Strategy – 5 Years After. The Appropriateness in Face of the Dynamic Strategic Realities

The objective of the article is to verify to what extent the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) keeps up with the main global trends (at the level of international order as well as in relation to the global distribution of power) and the processes shaping the EU member states security environment of a regional scale which are perceptible from the perspective of five years following the EUGS adoption. This is also what the main research question concerns – to what extent do the diagnosis and postulates formulated inside the discussed document follow such processes in relation to the 2016–2021 period? For this reason too, the key research approach employed within the study is a critical analysis of source material.
 The EU Global Strategy mostly appropriately diagnoses and interprets the realities affecting the member states security – especially when it comes to enduring processes of a global scale regarding the erosion of the liberal international order as well as the roots of possible threats for international security in its military dimension – and formulates the postulates that are pragmatic and detailed. At the same time the document underestimates some of important occurrences or even does not refer to them at all. Examples of such omissions were given in the paper.

Política europea de seguridad y defensa y sus efectos en la industria de defensa

Defence has traditionally not been a priority within Community policies. However, in recent years it had become aware of the need to promote it, with special attention to the development of the industrial base. The most significant milestone for change comes in December 2013 when the Council discusses the future of security and defence. Until then, the Council took precedence over national optics and the Commission acted in the face of industry as a regulator to promote the implementation of single market rules in the defence market. The Libyan crisis of 2011 highlighted the need for strategic autonomy. This abstract concept implies the capability to act. It highlights the need for greater autonomy in industrial matters to support military capabilities without external dependencies. The crisis also occurs at a time of widespread decline in defence budgets that makes it difficult for nations to tackle large programs individually. The need for a competitive industrial base to support autonomous operations is of value. It is in this context that the EU Global Strategy in 2016 is enacted, resulting in the implementation in defence of the CFSP initiative aimed at streamlining demand, and the European Defence Plan, which includes the creation of a specific fund, the EDF, aimed at incentivising industrial cooperation to act on the supply side. The initiatives launched over the past four years to promote security and defence cooperation, with particular attention to the industrial component, are underway and will be difficult to go back even if European countries are in the dilemma between protectionism and cooperation. The COVID 19 crisis has diverted that attention. The future presents a scenario of greater strategic instability, which is faced with different national perspectives, greater competition between great powers in which Europe does not present a single voice, and a European society that seems far from its defence. Under these conditions, Europe faces the need to decide between having military and industrial capabilities appropriate to its political objectives or maintaining formulas for cooperation with third parties following current models. If the strategic objective is to have sufficient autonomy to address actions independently, the development of an industrial defence policy will be a basic element and will be conditioned by member states' visions, budgetary effort, and level of coordination of operational demand and industrial supply.

Not so unique after all? Urgency and norms in EU foreign and security policy

ABSTRACT The EU Global Strategy puts ‘principled pragmatism’ at the core of EU foreign and security policy. This has also been promoted as away of closing the gap between talk and action. Still, the concept has been widely criticized and interpreted as away of making the Union’s ‘organized hypocrisy’ less glaring. By exploring key EU foreign and security policy strategies and policies implemented over the past decade, this article suggests that a certain pattern for when the EU acts normatively and when it acts strategically can be identified. While the overall ambition is still to promote a more normative policy, also when it comes at a considerable economic cost, there is a limit to how it is willing to go. Evidence suggests that when faced with a situation perceived as urgent, the EU becomes more prone to implement policies that are at odds with its own principles.

INTRODUCTION THE FUTURE OF THE EU’S COMMON SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

INTRODUCTION THE FUTURE OF THE EU’S COMMON SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY

Supranational entrepreneurs: the High Representative and the EU global strategy

Abstract By applying the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) developed by Kingdon and adapted to EU policy-making, this article explores a new analytical lens that provides a more substantiated insight into the role of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) in the policy-making process. According to the MSA, policy change happens when policy entrepreneurs successfully explore a window of opportunity that opens in the problems or policies stream. Applying a single case-study approach, this article argues that it was the entrepreneurship of HR Federica Mogherini that coupled problems, politics and policies streams which presented themselves between 2014 and 2015, made use of the window of opportunity, and pushed for policy change in EU's foreign and security policy. By finding observable evidence for the HR's deployment of entrepreneurial strategies during the drafting and implementation of the European Union's Global Strategy, this contribution unpacks Mogherini's footprint in the recent progress. The conceptualization of the HR office-holder as a policy entrepreneur lets us systematically investigate their agency and impact on the policy change within the existing formal constraints, and thus it paves a way towards a more fruitful research direction regarding the HR's role than the concept of the constrained agent that is dominant in the literature. More broadly, since the office-holder can be perceived as a supranational agent that is dependent upon an intergovernmental system for its mandate, by examining its entrepreneurial strategies this article offers insights on the role of supranational agents beyond the EU context, i.e. within UN and NATO.

The Lonely Strategist: Who but the High Representative and the EEAS Cares About the EU Global Strategy?

EU Member States have agreed on a grand strategy, the 2016 Global Strategy (EUGS). However, the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC), where Member States define the EU’s foreign, security and defence policies, has failed to fully implement it. In fact, neither the Member States nor the European Commission feel ownership of the EUGS. However, the need to leverage the internal competences of the Commission in order to maintain the EU’s position in the competition between the great powers, may forge more grand strategic unity. Nevertheless, introducing majority decision-making remains imperative – but unlikely. What the EU could and ought to do immediately, however, is to introduce a regular strategic review. Strategy, CFSP, CSDP, High Representative, EEAS

The EEAS at Ten: Reason for a Celebration?

The tenth anniversary of the creation of the European External Action Service provides an opportune moment to take stock of the role which the Service has played in forging a more coherent, visible and effective EU foreign and security policy. At the same time, it offers a chance to field ideas on how the Union’s foreign policy actors might chart a course to guide the European External Action Service (EEAS) to what could be tumultuous teenage years. This article contextualizes the contributions to this first European Foreign Affairs Review (EFAR) Issue of 2021, which is devoted entirely to an assessment of where the EEAS’ strengths and opportunities lie, and which weaknesses need to be addressed to fit the Service for future purpose. European External Action Service, Common Foreign and Security Policy, esprit de corps, European Commission, Foreign Affairs Council, representation, EU Global Strategy

ПІДХОДИ ЄС ЩОДО ВРЕГУЛЮВАННЯ КОНФЛІКТІВ: НАСЛІДКИ ДЛЯ КРАЇН СХІДНОГО ПАРТНЕРСТВА

The article deals with examining the EU main approaches on crisis management and conflict prevention on the example of the Eastern Partnership countries, internal and external factors that affect implementation of the EU activities in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus, implications for the EU and the region. The EU has a unique experience of activities in all crisis phases: early warning, mediation, deployment of EU missions and operations in conflict areas, post-conflict peacebuilding (stabilisation, reconstruction and reconciliation). The EU’s comprehensive and integrated approach towards crisis management includes a package of mixed political-military measures with focus on civilian component of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The strategic autonomy outlined as the guideline in the EU Global Strategy 2016 is an impetus for the EU more active and distinct role as a security actor, for enhancing its institutional and operational capabilities in the area of crisis regulation. Though there is a lack of EU capacity as a security provider in case of protracted conflicts in Eastern partner countries. The EU has sought to avoid direct involvement in conflict settlement: there aren’t any efficient mechanisms of it within the European Neighborhood Policy and Eastern Partnership initiative. The determining factors of the EU’s approach to conflict resolution in Easter Europe are: absence of direct military threats and less challenges comparing to Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region; lack of political will and unity, multi-vector member-states’ policy; external influence of other actors, mainly Russia, unwillingness of the EU member-states to be engaged in geopolitical tensions with it. The regional security deficit requires more active and efficient EU engagement as a security provider in settling the protracted conflicts. The relevant measures should be: establishment of security compact within the Eastern Partnership initiative, deployment of additional missions in the region, coordination of activities with the OSCE, US and NATO.

Mining the EU Global Strategy of 2016

This study proposes to apply an automated lexical analysis to the European Security Strategy of 2003, entitled “A Secure Europe in a Better World”, and the European Union Global Strategy of 2016, entitled “Shared Vision, Common Acton: A Stronger Europe”. The findings are not limited to supporting the predominant interpretations of scholars and experts, but aim at exploring the usefulness of text mining techniques in the interpretation of EU documents. Furthermore, the conclusions drawn from the lexical analysis are discussed in the light of complex systems theory, which may be beneficial for the proper understanding of the concept of resilience (mainly its multidimensional nature) and its subsequent operationalization. The last part of the paper includes an in-depth analysis of the EU rhetoric on the UN fora (period: 2014–2019) regarding the concept of resilience, in particular its linkages with human rights.