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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Policy Author Sven Biscop

1. A strategy for Europe’s neighbourhood: keep resilient and carry on?

Author:
Sven Biscop
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Elcano Royal Institute
Abstract:
If it cannot offer more than building up resilience, the EU risks locking itself out of its own neighbourhood. While external and regional powers are engaged in fierce geopolitical competition in Europe’s neighbourhood, the EU itself wants to focus on building up the resilience of its neighbours. Not only is it far from clear who is to be made resilient against what where there is no more or less benign government but, where countries are only just coming out of war, their first priority is national survival and their demand is for security guarantees. Would sovereignty and equality not be a better Leitmotiv for EU strategy in the neighbourhood?
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
European Union

2. Mali: Another European Intervention without the EU?

Author:
Sven Biscop, Jo Coelmont, and Rik Coolsaet
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
As French forces are engaged in combat operations in Mali, even belated EU involvement remains crucial, to ensure that the intervention fits in with the political end-state that the EU rightly pursues.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Islam, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Mali

3. Europe and the World or Snow White and the Seven Fallacies

Author:
Sven Biscop
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
European foreign policy: the words do not conjure up any grand images. In the absence of any real ambition, there are neither triumphs to celebrate nor disasters to mourn. There is only gentle irrelevance to contemplate. Such is the image of Europe as an international player today in the minds of those who make and study foreign policy and strategy, in our own as well as in foreign capitals. Gentle irrelevance, for Europe proclaims to wish the world well and is generous enough with its money to prove it. And it presents no cause for fear, only for irritation, in some corners, with its inconvenient insistence on universal values. But irrelevance nonetheless, for Europe lacks the unity and sense of purpose for resolute and sustained action to uphold these values, and continues to liberally spend its money quite regardless of values or effect. Increasingly irrelevant even, for in the wake of the financial crisis Europe struggles to maintain its own social model, which undermines the legitimacy of its value-based narrative and erodes the will as well as the me ans for external action.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, Power Politics, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

4. An Arab springboard for EU foreign policy?

Author:
Sven Biscop
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The Arab Spring is a revolutionary event on the EU's doorstep, of importance comparable to the end ofthe communist regimes in Eastern Europe some two decades ago. First it has ended the Arab exception to the proposition of democracy and human rights as universal values. Second it has demonstrated to all remaining authoritarian and/or grossly corrupted regimes around the world the power of the new technologies of social networking in undermining such regimes. Third it renews the challenge for both political scientists and practitioners to work out feasible political reform strategies for bridging the transition between authoritarianism and sound democratic governance.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Islam, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Europe and Arabia