Project description
EU foreign and security policy in a multipolar environment
The EU faces a range of challenges, including multipolar interactions between the United States, Russia and China, unstable neighbouring regions, and the rise of nationalist forces in EU Member States. The EU-funded JOINT project will analyse the impact of multipolar competition, regional fragmentation and intra-EU contestation on the EU’s ability to determine foreign and security objectives and generate the diplomatic, military and economic capacity to confront conflicts and crises as well as to handle foreign relations. The project will devise assessment criteria for effective foreign and security policy, measure public perceptions, and promote mutual learning between researchers and policymakers.
Objective
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.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.3.6. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies Main Programme
- H2020-EU.3.6.2.4. - Promote coherent and effective cooperation with third countries
- H2020-EU.3.6.1.2. - Trusted organisations, practices, services and policies that are necessary to build resilient, inclusive, participatory, open and creative societies in Europe, in particular taking into account migration, integration and demographic change
Call for proposal
H2020-SC6-GOVERNANCE-2018-2019-2020
See other projects for this callSub call
H2020-SC6-GOVERNANCE-2020
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
00186 Roma
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.