Understanding and Strengthening EU Foreign and Security Policy in a Complex and Contested World

Challenges to EU foreign and security policy have been mounting in recent years.

The dwindling global engagement of the US and the growing assertiveness of Russia and China hamper the ability of the EU and its member states to shape multilateral rules and compel them to rethink their role along new patterns of multipolar interactions.

The collapse or severe weakening of state authority in the EU’s neighbourhood create interconnected challenges extending into policy areas outside the remit of foreign and security policy, thus augmenting the need for an integrated response.

Meanwhile, the emergence of nationalist forces often espousing Eurosceptic views complicates efforts to reach intra-EU consensus on international security matters. The interplay between these factors is most evident in the EU’s difficulty in addressing crises and conflicts.

JOINT, a project involving 14 partners from 12 countries, will analyse how intra-EU contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition affect the capacity of the EU to set foreign and security policy objectives and generate and integrate diplomatic, military, economic and other sectorial capabilities to handle conflicts, crises and relations with external players.

It will devise assessment criteria for effective foreign and security policy governance structures involving EU institutions and member states, encompassing multiple policy areas and unfolding in different formats of engagement of external players.

It will survey public perceptions to inform an assessment of the political acceptability of an enhanced EU foreign, security and defence policy.

And it will promote mutual learning between researchers and policymakers through the secondment of scholars to the foreign ministries of France, Germany and Italy, as well as the EEAS.

JOINT will advance our knowledge of how EU foreign and security policy can become more joined-up and sustainable in an increasingly complex and contested world.