Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe

Project Information

ENGAGE

Grant agreement ID: 962533

DOI

10.3030/962533

Project closed

EC signature date 28 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 30 June 2024

Funded under

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

Total cost

€ 2 999 973,75

EU contribution

€ 2 999 973,75

Coordinated by

FUNDACION ESADE
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ENGAGE (Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ENGAGE (Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe) project advances a set of objectives that are aligned with the EC’s push to have a stronger and more united European voice in the world. The project aims to provide policymakers with tools to improve the capabilities and capacities of the EU’s external action. The project has 5 general objectives:
1. Analyse the main contextual challenges that the EU’s external action is facing, arising from the diversification of international relations and global governance and those originating from the acceptability of EU external action from the perspective of citizens and national decisionmakers.
2. Assess existing governance structures and policy processes, those that are foreseen in the Treaties but are yet to come into fruition and those that should be devised in relation to the multiple domains of the EU’s external action.
3. Examine the ways in which the EU can more effectively achieve a set of key goals, including a successful engagement with strategic partners, neighbouring regions and conflict and crisis scenarios.
4. Formulate recommendations on how to accommodate multiple action domains, including traditionally internal policy areas, in a joined-up, coherent, sustainable and effective external action. ENGAGE will produce suggestions on how to coordinate EU Member States’ foreign policies on the basis of common EU positions.
5. Inform policymakers on the governance structures needed to ensure joined-up and sustainable EU diplomatic action and international cooperation. ENGAGE will also reach out to other key stakeholders and elaborate on how the EU can devise and ultimately achieve certain key goals in light of the current international and domestic context.

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

Work towards the objectives is as follows:
Objective 1: We have analysed key dynamics and trends that will shape international relations and security in the decades ahead, as well as their possible impact on the EU’s security and external action, and also mapped scenarios of how the international context will evolve in the short, medium and long term. We have completed mapping and analysing the foreign policies of EU Member States (MS) and key areas of global governance. The project has also explored the extent to which the EU’s capacity to act in the world is affected by the (un)acceptability of EU external action to MS. We have provided empirical analysis focusing on national and European parliamentary perceptions as well as national policymaking elites, and using big data-based analysis to understand citizens’ perceptions related to the EU’s external action. The research indicates more acceptability than usually thought for EU CSDP operations among national parliamentarians, and support by citizens as well. A study of national policymaking elites shows support for more rapid and flexible decision-making, and for activating unused/underused legal bases in EU treaties.
Objective 2: Working papers have focused on assessing the legal base and governance structures of CSDP, CFSP and External Action Plus. They have provided ground rules to address the boundaries of enhancing the functioning of these areas and revealed legal possibilities for enhancing decision-making procedures, including by identifying unused/underused possibilities in the existing legal framework. We have devised a framework to enable consistent and high-quality evaluation of defence cooperation in the EU and among EU MS and assessment criteria for security and intelligence cooperation in the EU; and a series of case studies assessing the effectiveness, coherence and sustainability of current governance structures and policy processes of the CSDP and the CFSP has also begun. We have also developed an analytical framework to explore the internal and external factors that facilitate or obstruct linkages among external action plus policies and applying it to the areas of trade, development, and humanitarian aid, which is now being used to analyse a series of case studies on EU external action ‘plus’ policies – namely, competition, climate change and health.
Objective 3: Our research has examined the ways in which the EU can more effectively achieve a set of key goals. We focus on the EU’s engagement with strategic partners, and have put forward a theoretical and conceptual definition of strategic partnership and assessed the EU’s engagement with strategic partners. This is supported by case studies on EU and MS engagement with third countries and with strategic international organisations. We also look at the EU’s engagement with its neighbourhood and has analysed strategic framings of “neighbours” and “neighbourhood” through an investigation of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Finally, we tackle issues on conflict resolution, prevention and mediation, starting by producing an analytical framework to study the EU’s engagement in these areas.
Objective 4: Translating research into practitioner-oriented insights is our aim here. A first set of recommendations focuses on the acceptability of EU efforts in defence and security in the national parliaments of MS and among the public. A second set of takeaways is related to structural changes in the EU’s external environment, while a third set zooms in on the legal bases and decision-making mechanisms of the EU’s external action. A fourth set covers various tools, policies and strategies of the EU’s external action.
Objective 5: ENGAGE practitioner-oriented briefs have contributed to this objective by translating the results of the research into actionable insights of interest to policymakers and key stakeholders. To increase policy impact, we have also begun building up networks of contacts across the EU institutions and in the foreign ministries of the MS, and participating in various academic and practitioner-oriented events to promote ENGAGE research and preliminary ideas for the White Paper. High-level lectures, webinars, and blogs have reached a wide audience of national and EU stakeholders.

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)

ENGAGE aims to achieve the following long-term impacts:
1. To deepen understanding of the legal base, governance structures and policy interactions in the EU’s external action, integrating all dimensions in a comprehensive approach;
2. To deepen understanding of the perceptions and political acceptability of a more joined-up and coherent EU external action;
3. To further the mainstreaming of gender in research on the EU’s foreign and security policy;
4. To provide policymakers with a comprehensive toolbox to improve the capacities and capabilities of the EU’s external action;
5. To contribute to the advancement of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy;
6. To contribute to increased coherence between the EU foreign policy and Member States’ foreign policies;
7. To demonstrate the scale of opportunity for active citizenship and participation, particularly with regard to burgeoning peripheral and sectoral diplomacies in traditionally internal policy areas.
By the end of the project, ENGAGE will produce a comprehensive White Paper on Joined-up, Coherent, Sustainable, and Effective EU External Action, which will be an intelligible, feasible and yet ambitious document aiming to steer debate within EU institutions, within MS, and among elites, decision-makers and citizens alike and offer end-users practical suggestions and tools for a more joined-up security, defence and foreign policy across the EU.

Work Package structure

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