Strategic Choices for the 2020s. Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 122 February 2020

These past few years, the European Union (EU) has taken various decisions which, when taken together, amount to a careful repositioning in international politics. Let us be bold and call it the inkling of a Grand Strategy: an idea of the Union’s shifting place in the great power relations that determine international politics. Yet that nascent Grand Strategy is not equally shared by all EU Member States or even by all EU institutions, nor has it yet been incorporated into all relevant strands of EU policy. If the implications are not fully thought through and the repositioning stops here, the EU as well as the Member States risk ending up in a permanently ambivalent position: more than a satellite of the US, but not a really independent power either. Such a half-hearted stance would alienate their allies and partners while tempting their adversaries. For now, the EU has done enough to irritate the US but not to obtain the benefits sought: to further the European interest and to play a stabilising role in great power relations. Will 2020 see the EU and the Member States muster the courage to fully implement the choices that they have already started to make

For a ‘More Active’ EU in the Middle East: Transatlantic Relations and the Strategic Implications of Europe’s Engagement with Iran, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine. Egmont Paper, no. 13, March 2007

The 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS), calls for the EU to be ‘more active’ in pursuing its strategic objectives. The two probably most salient examples of a ‘more active’ EU are to be found in the Middle East. (2) The ‘EU3’ (France, Germany and the UK) are leading nuclear negotiations with Iran. The EU has taken the lead in reinforcing the UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, UNIFIL, as authorized by UNSC Resolution 1701 of 11 August 2006. Over 70% of the enlarged force or 7,600 troops out of 10,800 are provided by the EU27. This engagement clearly fits in with the EU’s interests as defined in the ESS, notably the need ‘to promote a ring of well governed countries […] on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations’, and to avoid ‘a WMD arms race, especially in the Middle East’. The cases of Iran and Lebanon can be seen as positive examples of an EU that is more united and hence ‘more active’. Yet, they also provoke fundamental strategic questions on the ambitions and potential of EU policy towards the region, and of the EU as a global strategic actor. These are questions which the EU inevitably will be confronted with if it continues its ‘more active’ role in the Middle East

Trump, the Middle East, and North Africa: Just Leave Things to the Proxies? Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 125 March 2020

When Trump says that he wants NATO to take more responsibility in the Middle East, what he means is that he wants the European allies to do more. He is campaigning for reelection and has promised to bring the boys (and girls) home for Christmas. And of course, in Iraq American troops are less than welcome these days, after the targeted assassination of Iranian General Soleimani near Baghdad airport (3 January 2020). In late 2019, Trump had already withdrawn most troops from Syria, and now the peace agreement with the Taliban (29 February 2020) will allow him to draw down the US military presence in Afghanistan too. And the US is considering pulling its troops out of the Sahel as well. What does this mean for Europe

From Global Strategy to Strategic Compass: Where Is the EU Heading? Egmont Security Policy Brief No, 121 December 2019

Does the EU need a “Strategic Compass” to guide the implementation of the security and defence dimension of the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS)? Does it need a military strategy perhaps? And what about a review of the EUGS itself? As Josep Borrell has assumed the post of High Representative, various proposals by Member States and EU institutional actors are being discussed in Brussels. The wish for more strategic documents may reflect the complexity of the challenges that the EU is facing. It may also result from the inability to fully implement existing strategies. Producing new documents can be a way of forging a deal between Member States on foreign policy priorities for the next five years. But it could also be window-dressing, occupying the machinery and deluding ourselves that we are active. How to take EU strategy and its implementation forward

Putting the Core at the Centre The Crisis Response Operation Core (CROC) and the Future of PESCO. Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 119 December 2019

The reader who cannot readily identify the meaning of CROC (Croque Monsieur? Croque Madame?) in the context of European defence can be forgiven. The flurry of activity in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) since 2016 has generated a host of new acronyms (PESCO, CARD, EDF…), of which the CROC, the Crisis Response Operation Core, certainly is among the least known. It deserves more attention however, for it ought to be at the centre of efforts to take Permanent Structured Cooperation forward

Coronavirus and Power: The Impact on International Politics. Egmont European Policy Brief No. 126 March 2020

This will change everything. It is an understandable feeling. When people pass through an ordeal, they want to believe that when all is over there will be some compensation. Things may indeed change, but perhaps not as radically as may seem likely today in the midst of the crisis – and not all change will be for the better. What change could the corona crisis bring to international politics