India and the EU: deal-making rather than diplomacy?

In a new LSE IDEAS report titled “Europe in an Asian Century”, Richard Youngs writes that the EU’s highly mercantile form of commercial diplomacy with Asian countries, including India, is unlikely to serve its own long-term interests

Will the EU’s Global Strategy meet the foreign policy challenges of the future?

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative, is currently preparing a Global Strategy for foreign and security policy, which is due for completion in June 2016. Richard Youngs writes that while the project is welcome, there is a danger of producing a review that lacks the detail or prescience required to deal with the future challenges the EU will face over the next decade

EU recognition of Palestinian statehood can only offer a partial solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict

In October, Sweden opted to formally recognise Palestine as an independent state. The UK, Ireland and Spain have also held symbolic parliamentary votes in favour of recognising Palestinian statehood, while the French Parliament and the European Parliament are also due to vote on the issue. Richard Youngs writes that while recognition could play a modest role in unblocking peace negotiations, it can only offer a partial solution. He argues that it is important European governments also redouble their efforts to play an active role on the ground

How we can reframe the debate about Europe’s populist threat

Is Europe facing a lurch toward populism and, if so, does this trend pose a threat for democracy? Richard Youngs writes that it is important to recognise the diversity among parties that have been labelled ‘populist’, rather than simply regarding all movements of this nature as negative developments. He argues that there is no merit in simply deriding the choices of people who voted for Brexit, Donald Trump, or other European populist parties, and that it is necessary to unpack the different dynamics at work in the shift toward anti-establishment politics

Democracy after the European Parliament elections. CEPS Policy Insights No 2019-10/June 2019

As the dust settles from last month’s European elections and the new Parliament begins its work, Richard Youngs, senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, based at Carnegie Europe, stands back from immediate political battles and assesses the longer-term implications for European democracy. What do the elections mean in a deeper sense for the quality of European democracy? What do the changes they usher in mean for democracy in a more structural sense? There are no straightforward answers

Climate change and EU security policy : an unmet challenge

A Cimeira europeia de Dezembro 2013 deu à União Europeia um mandato para uma nova estratégia de segurança. As alterações climáticas têm desempenhado um papel cada vez mais importante nos debates sobre segurança europeia. A União tem sido uma das organizações a melhor identificar as alterações climáticas como um “multiplicador de ameaça” e a desenvolver todo um conjunto de iniciativas políticas, destinadas a relacionar fatores aliados às alterações climáticas com as políticas externas e de segurança. A UE tem pressionado para um ambicioso acordo internacional sobre clima até 2015 pelo que importa considerar a relação entre duas agendas: a da política externa e da segurança. O autor examina problemas resultantes da fragmentação de responsabilidades entre vários atores institucionais europeus aos quais falta um enfoque sobre questões climáticas. O artigo explora ainda a relação entre alterações climáticas e políticas de emigração da UE; a relação entre clima, segurança energética e política de defesa e a dimensão geoeconómica das respostas políticas da União. Conclui com uma reflexão sobre se o fenómeno das alterações climáticas terá um efeito positivo sobre a cooperação europeia, em particular no domínio da gestão de crises com origem climática ou se ao invés incentivará os Estados a uma postura de isolamento

Is ‘hybrid geopolitics’ the next EU foreign policy doctrine?

The EU has faced a diverse range of criticisms over its actions during the Ukraine crisis. While some observers have accused EU states of being too weak in the face of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, others suggest that the crisis itself emerged from a misguided attempt by the EU to push for an Association Agreement with Ukraine. Richard Youngs highlights that the crisis has encouraged the EU to become a different kind of policy actor, with less emphasis on promoting EU norms and rules, and a greater focus on the potential geopolitical impact of different policy options

Keeping EU-Asia Re-engagement on track. EU Centre Singapore Policy Brief No. 8, January 2015

The relationship between the European Union (EU) and Asia is in flux. The EU intensified its economic ties to Asia and boosted its security cooperation in the region in 2011 and 2012. But new challenges, including the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, have made it difficult to sustain this incipient momentum. There are a number of steps that EU and Asian governments can and should take to continue to strengthen their relations

Arab views on democratic citizenship – and on EU support. Arab Citizenship Review No. 11

Arab views on democratic citizenship – and on EU support Much has been said about the EU’s general response to the Arab spring. And much has been written about regimes’ resistance to the far-reaching reform demanded by protestors across the Arab world. We have been engaged in a project (www.euspring.com) exploring one very specific dimension of these political trends and social debates: the question of how citizens in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) understand the concept of democratic citizenship. Within our project, our local affiliated research organizations ran throughout 2014 a series of focus groups in Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia with a range of civic stakeholders. The aim of these meetings was to explore how citizens in the three countries understand democratic citizenship and how they view EU efforts to support political reform

Proceso de Barcelona: balance de una década de Asociación Euromediterránea

Durante los días 27 y 28 de noviembre, España acogerá la Cumbre Euromediterránea que conmemorará el décimo aniversario del Proceso de Barcelona (también conocido como Asociación Euromediterránea, o AEM). Este análisis trata de arrojar luz sobre los logros y las carencias en lo referente a los principales ejes temáticos de la AEM, así como las distintas perspectivas nacionales que existen a día de hoy en dichos debates. En noviembre de 1995, la creación de la Asociación Euromediterránea representó el nacimiento de lo que parecía ser una de las iniciativas de política exterior más ambiciosas e innovadoras de la Unión Europea (UE). La AEM forjó una asociación entre los entonces quince Estados miembros de la Unión y doce países del sur del Mediterráneo en un amplio abanico de cuestiones de índole económica, social, cultural, política y de seguridad. A lo largo de su década de existencia, la AEM se ha consolidado de forma gradual, aunque no con toda la fuerza que se esperaba