The EU has awarded a large Horizon 2020 grant of €3 million to a consortium of 14 research institutions including Maastricht University with the aim of understanding and strengthening EU foreign and security policy in a complex and contested world.
Assem Dandashly, Hylke Dijkstra and Gergana Noutcheva will lead the work-package on the context of EU foreign and security policy.
Challenges to EU foreign and security policy have been mounting in recent years. Systemic shifts such as the dwindling global engagement of the United States 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 and governance in the EU’s neighbourhood and beyond create interconnected challenges extending into policy areas outside the traditional remit of foreign and security policy. Meanwhile, the emergence of nationalist forces often espousing Eurosceptic views complicates efforts to reach intra-EU consensus on international security matters.
Against this backdrop, JOINT, an interdisciplinary research project, combining research with public opinion analysis, innovative policymaker engagement and proactive public outreach, addresses the question: How to make EU foreign and security policy governance structures more joined-up and sustainable in a rapidly changing and contested international environment?
JOINT is coordinated by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome and includes a total of 14 partners from 12 different countries. In addition to Maastricht University, partners include universities such as the Free University in Berlin, think tanks such as the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels and the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI), and non-EU partners in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Maastricht researchers Assem Dandashly, Hylke Dijkstra and Gergana Noutcheva will lead the work-package on the context of EU foreign and security policy. By specifically focusing on internal EU contestation, the fragmentation of conflict, and multipolar competition, the purpose is to get a better sense of the external factors shaping opportunities for the EU to leave a mark in foreign and security policy. Research will be informed by extensive interviewing with key officials in Brussels, the member states, and conflict countries.
This new project, which will start in 2021, builds on extensive previous research done at Maastricht University including on the governance of EU foreign and security policy, the EU capabilities for crisis management, EU policies for neighbourhood countries, and the EU’s support for a rules-based global order.
