The road back to European power

The EU needs an honest assessment of its capabilities and to set limited goals behind which member states can show sustainable unity.

'The road back to European power', is published after the European Council’s green-light for stage two of Federica Mogherini’s global strategy review in June 2015, a review that ECFR experts support and have long called for. They assert that the EU can still act effectively in protection of its interests and values - provided that it is severely realistic in its approach.

To this end, it recommends a strict prioritisation of the challenges Mogherini highlights in her report, with Russia and the Ukraine conflict and crises in the Middle East and North Africa as immediate priorities. To deal with the potential weaknesses of Europe’s internal dynamics of sometimes coinciding, sometimes clashing national interests, it recommends the creation of a group of member state representatives, who can act as an ‘intergovernmental convention’to map member state interests over the coming year.

[EU leaders at the European Council in June 2015 called for an EU global strategy on foreign and security policy to be presented to the European Council by June 2016].

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Federica Mogherini’s first seven months in office: a balancing act between supranational and intergovernmental decision-making http://www.europeansources.info/record/federica-mogherinis-first-seven-months-in-office-a-balancing-act-between-supranational-and-intergovernmental-decision-making/

ESO: Background information: A vision for the EU's new foreign policy strategy http://www.europeansources.info/record/a-vision-for-the-eus-new-foreign-policy-strategy/

EU: EEAS: News, 30.06.15: Global Strategy to steer EU external action in an increasingly connected, contested and complex world http://eeas.europa.eu/top_stories/2015/150627_eu_global_strategy_en.htm

EU: EEAS: The European Union in a changing global environment. A more connected, contested and complex world http://eeas.europa.eu/docs/strategic_review/eu-strategic-review_strategic_review_en.pdf

UK: Parliament: Parliamentary Business: Committees: News, 22.07.15: Inquiry launched on review of the EU's foreign and security policy http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/eu-external-affairs-subcommittee/news-parliament-2015/call-for-evidence/

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