The European external action service: an opportunity to reconcile development and security policies or a new battleground for inter-institutional turf wars?

“There cannot be sustainable development without peace and security, and without development and poverty eradication there will be no sustainable peace”. The commitment to intertwine development and security policies of both the European Union and the Member States has increasingly been put forward in policy documents since the early 2000s. While the security-development nexus seems at first sight obvious and rather unremarkable, it has nonetheless become one of the main trouble spots of inter-institutional coherence in EU external action. The fuzzy boundaries between both policy domains and their impact on the distribution of competences turned the implementation of the nexus into a particularly complex and tense exercise. The rationale behind many of the Lisbon Treaty innovations is to address coherence issues by reducing the potential for conflict to a minimum. This paper focuses on the European External Action Service (EEAS) and analyses to what extent it could contribute to reconciling the distinct policies, strategies and institutional cultures of development cooperation and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The new diplomatic service constitutes a functionally autonomous body with considerable policy discretion regarding both CFSP and development cooperation. Moreover, it assembles staff and resources from the Council, the Commission and the Member States that previously stood in sharp competition. Yet, the author argues that this integration has only been partial and without the necessary political will, the EEAS might become a new battleground for continued inter-institutional turf wars and thus undermine the EU’s international credibility

Article 22 TEU and the Unnoticed Resurrection of the Failed Common Strategies

The old common strategies instrument was introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to improve the coherence and effectiveness of EU external action. However, shortly after its introduction the instrument suffered an inglorious demise because it failed to provide any added value. It is therefore surprising that the Lisbon Treaty, rather unnoticed, holds on to this instrument in Article 22 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Yet, rather than a relic of the past, this move represents a deliberate endeavor to tackle the shortcomings of its predecessor. Despite its significant potential in the new external action constellation, Article 22 TEU has however not yet been used in practice, suggesting that its innovative constitutional design did in fact not reply to any pressing political needs

The external action paradox of the Lisbon treaty: reconciling integration with delimitation

Ever since its creation the CFSP constituted a deliberately separate category of EU cooperation. The Lisbon Treaty largely undoes this and takes a significant leap towards integrating the CFSP and former Community elements in a streamlined external action system. It abolishes the pillar structure, accords a single legal personality to the Union and puts in place a common external action framework governed by a single set of principles and objectives. Yet, at the same time the CFSP remains overtly separate from the other external competences and is still governed by specific rules and procedures. This concurrent emphasis on integration and delimitation places the Union for a genuine paradox that may put the accountability of the Lisbon Treaty’s institutional novelties significantly to the test and force the EU judiciary as well as policy-makers to look for creative ways of adjudicating on and conducting external policy

What Is Discussed in Mentoring Dialogues? An Analysis of How Relations of Control Influence the Content in Mentoring

Both international actors, like the OECD, and Norwegian policies for teacher education aim to increase students’ academic competence and the collaboration between university and practice. Mentoring dialogues between students and mentors in practice are in the intersection between university and the profession. Thus, this gives the mentors the responsibility to realize these policy intentions. This actualizes what is discussed in mentoring and how the negotiation of control between mentors and students has impact on what policy intentions are recontextualized in mentoring. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate which intentions are realized in mentoring through the use of criteria and the selection of the content to be discussed. The findings indicate that the mentor has strong autonomy, and where what is discussed is focused more on practical issues than considerations about the academic subject. Given these findings, this paper discusses different perspectives on a close collaboration between university and practice

The EU as a security actor in Africa

Instability and conflict in Africa create a range of security problems for Europe. Rapidly increasing migration via the Mediterranean Sea, extremism and terrorism, as well as cross-border crime, all have implications for security in Europe, but are spill-over effects of instability outside Europe. The European Union has a considerable interest in a stable Africa, and also seems willing to assume a special responsibility for the continent. This Clingendael report focuses on the European Union’s role as a security actor in Africa. It considers the use of all the policy instruments at the EU’s disposal. The authors concentrate mainly on the question how the integrated approach is evolving, and what consequences this has for the Common Security and Defence Policy

The European Union and the security-development nexus: bridging the legal divide

The long-standing commitment of the European Union to integrate and fine-tune its policies across the security-development nexus, aims to end the devastating vicious cycle of insecurity and poverty in fragile states. This research holds this pledge up to the mirror of the EU’s underlying constitutional framework. The latter submits development cooperation and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) – which includes the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – to essentially different legal regimes. This erects a legal divide that ruthlessly cuts across policy efforts, instruments and communities tackling challenges on the security-development interface. This book studies how the EU, in its endeavours to cohere development cooperation with CFSP/CSDP, copes with the constitutional delimitation between them, and whether the Lisbon Treaty’s strive for more external action coherence offers better prospects to succeed. This analysis is conducted along three main tracks: the policy track of formulating political approaches and designing legal instruments, the institutional track of cooperation and coordination across institutions and departments, and the judicial track of delineating competences by the EU Court of Justice

Earth Systems Modeling in the Brazos River Alluvium Aquifer: Improvement of Computational Methods and Development of Conceptual Model

Traditional hydrologic modeling has compartmentalized the water cycle into distinct components (e.g. Traditional hydrologic modeling has compartmentalized the water cycle into distinct components (e.g. rainfall-runoff, river routing, or groundwater flow models). In river valley alluvium aquifers, these processes are too interconnected to be represented accurately by separate models. An integrated modeling framework assesses two or more of these components simultaneously, reducing the error associated with approximated boundary conditions. One integrated model, ParFlow.CLM, offers the advantage of parallel computing, but it lacks any mechanism for incorporating time-varying streamflow as an upstream boundary condition. Previous studies have been limited to headwater catchments. Here, a generalized method is developed for applying transient streamflow at an upstream boundary in ParFlow.CLM. The upstream inflow method was successfully tested on two domains – one idealized domain with a straight channel, and one small stream catchment in the Brazos River Basin. The stream in the second domain is gaged at the upstream and downstream boundaries. Both tests assumed a homogeneous subsurface, so that the efficacy of the transient streamflow method could be evaluated with minimal complications by groundwater interactions. Additionally, an integrated conceptual model is presented for the Brazos River Alluvium Aquifer (BRAA), the Brazos River, and the overlying terrain. The BRAA is a floodplain aquifer in central to southeast Texas. This aquifer is highly connected to the Brazos River and experiences localized semi-confined conditions beneath thick surface clay layers. The conceptual model is designed to be implemented in an Earth system modeling framework and is limited to the central portion of the aquifer in Brazos and Burleson Counties, Texas. Unlike previous models in ParFlow.CLM, this is a high-order subbasin with large inflows from upstream. Additionally, the model incorporates no-flow, transient head, and free drainage boundaries. Preliminary tests suggest the need for a long spin-up period. Long-term simulations will require calibration of surface and subsurface parameters before using the model to assess system behavior