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

Project Information

JOINT

Grant agreement ID: 959143

DOI

10.3030/959143

Project closed

EC signature date 11 November 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 31 May 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 2 999 981,25

EU contribution

€ 2 999 981,25

Coordinated by

ISTITUTO AFFARI INTERNAZIONALI
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - JOINT (Understanding and Strengthening EU Foreign and Security Policy in a Complex and Contested World)

Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2024-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The JOINT project analysed EU foreign and security policy (EUFSP) in nine conflicts to understand how EU institutions and member states handle the effects of intra-EU contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition; gauged the acceptability of more integration in EUFSP; and elaborated scenarios of EUFSP evolution.

JOINT established that internal contestation impacts conflict management at the levels of problem framing, policy formulation and policy implementation. Regional fragmentation creates tension between conflict management and domestic priorities, complicates selection of interlocutors; exacerbates lack of conflict knowledge. Multipolar competition lays bare EU military weakness and reduces dependence of conflict parties on the EU.

The EU employs three types of ‘mitigation measures’ to handle the contextual challenges. Institutional measures include flexible arrangements like lead groups and Team Europe formats. Functional measures involve prioritising and compartmentalising issues to build consensus within the EU and align with external parties. Diplomatic-coalitional measures involve the EU and its member states working with foreign interlocutors, especially the US, to expand leverage. As EUFSP shows both constitutive dependence on context and resilience to it, JOINT conceptualised the EU as a ‘relational power’.

While EUFSP risks being politicised, public opinion remains mostly responsive to arguments and therefore the public could be brought to support more integration. JOINT found that only a ‘reformed EU’ could handle the contextual challenges, although it would not be able to engage in sustained geopolitical contests alone.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Research on the case studies resulted in nine reports plus two comparative papers. JOINT re-worked this body of research into a special issue on the peer-reviewed journal The International Spectator (March 2024) The special issue argues that the roots of the EU’s struggles in managing conflicts are not only located in its mostly intergovernmental institutional set-up, but also in more contested EU politics, more fragmented regions, more competitive multipolar relations. It further argues that the EU has devised creative ways to avoid paralysis in the face of the contextual challenges. These ‘mitigation measures’ include delegation of crisis management tasks to EU institutions and/or lead groups, selective engagement of conflict parties, and various forms of multilateralisation of crisis management efforts.

Research on public opinion consisted of inventories of existing literature on elite and mass opinion, the implementation of 12 focus groups in 6 countries and an online survey. JOINT found that public opinion and elite consensus strongly support further integration in EUFSP, with however low political salience confirmed over a twenty-year period in six EU countries. The focus groups revealed that foreign policy issues remained generally less salient to European citizens than domestic issues, except for Ukraine. The mass survey investigated why broad elite and public support did not result in more EUFSP integration and concluded that it was due to the "politicisation trap", where politicians fear that investing in EUFSP would be instrumentalised by their opponents. A conjoint experiment revealed that arguments influenced public opinion more than party cues or ideological beliefs, indicating that EUFSP could be effectively advocated by pro-EU political entrepreneurs.

Finally, JOINT connected research on the nine case studies and public opinion to research about the future of EUFSP. This resulted in the book “Conflict Management and the Future of EU Foreign and Security Policy: Relational Power Europe” (forthcoming). The book found that the EU's relational power is waning and member states will need to pursue security interests either collectively in a reformed EU or individually in a fractured EU.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

JOINT was conceived and designed as a scientific and policy-relevant, network-based project.

On a scientific and analytical level, JOINT first developed the concept of intra-EU contestation, regional fragmentation and multipolar competition that shape the environment of EUFSP in conflicts, detailing how each factor presents challenges through various sub-categories and variables. Second, it categorised mitigation measures across institutional, functional and diplomatic-coalitional dimensions. Finally, JOINT devised the concept of ‘relational power’ to describe the EU's structural openness to contextual influences on foreign policymaking and its proactive engagement through alliances, partnerships and multilevel dialogues.

On a policy-relevant level, JOINT’s work on case studies included recommendations. Furthermore, JOINT elaborated an Effectiveness Checklist that provides a simple framework to analyse the effectiveness of the EU’s response to conflicts. JOINT’s work on the scenarios of adjustment and reform detailed expected changes to decision-making rules, institutional structures and range and ambition of common policies to improve EUFSP governance structures: introduction of qualified majority voting into all EUFSP decisions; creation of conflict task forces assisting the European Council; expansion of the HRVP’s portfolio to neighbourhood, development and humanitarian aid; establishment of ‘security and defence troika’ consisting of Commission President, HRVP and Defence Commissioner; Defence Council; Defence Commissioner; EP Defence Committee; full involvement of member states in EDA-coordinated capability development plan; increase in size of EDF (€8-10b over the 7-year financial framework) and EDIP (€70-80b over the 7-year financial framework; incremental participation in decision-making processes and gradual access to EU funds of candidate countries; upgrade of inbound investment screening framework into single mechanism; centralisation of oversight authority over member states compliance with sanctions and export controls; outbound investment screening mechanism; toolbox to respond to energy supply and price shocks.

On a network-relevant level, JOINT partners expanded their networks within and outside the EU through internal workshops and public events. They organised 7 public conferences, 11 webinars, 2 workshop with policymakers, 9 ad hoc meetings with diplomats on each of the nine case studies, 2 lectures, and one Early Career Researchers’ Course. The secondment of JOINT scholars to the EEAS and the German and Italian foreign ministries for a period of up to 1 year allowed JOINT partners to deepen relations with policymaking communities.

On a public dissemination level, JOINT produced 26 research papers, 36 briefs, 3 public conferences, 4 public events, 7 podcasts, 11 webinars and 43 videos, plus 1 special issue and 1 book, all adequately disseminated through social media posts, including ad-hoc multimedia materials with their main findings, and newsletters. The almost 55,000 views of JOINT’s website and the papers published in JOINT’s, IAI’s and partner institutions’ websites attest to the circulation of JOINT’s output.

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