This article applies a Nietzsche-inspired geophilosophy to re-examine some persistent dilemmas of European Union (EU) – Mediterranean relations. Moving beyond institutionalist and security-driven accounts, it considers the Mediterranean as a generative cultural-philosophical force whose vitality, plurality, and volatility often resist EU-drive initiatives for governance. Inspired by Nietzsche’s writings on the region, this article extracts two propositions: (1) volatility is constitutive, not pathological; (2) universalizing moral claims mask power asymmetries. These are operationalized to reinterpret the trajectory of EU policy for the region, from the Barcelona Process through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), the 2021 Agenda for the Mediterranean and the recently endorsed Pact for the Mediterranean (2025). For each policy step, the article identifies the ‘Nietzschean’ tension at work, shows how it influenced design or failure, and derives an alternative reading of outcomes. The analytical payoff is twofold: it reframes recurrent ‘implementation failures’ as the predictable result of imposing order on a space defined by flux, and it demonstrates the added explanatory power of integrating cultural-philosophical imaginaries into EU foreign policy analysis. This methodological provocation broadens the theoretical toolkit for European studies, offering a framework capable of explaining enduring dissonances between declared aims and lived realities in the Euro-Mediterranean context.
This article examines the collapse of multilateral migration governance in Niger following the 2023 military coup and the broader implications for European Union (EU) external migration policy in the Sahel. Once a linchpin in EU strategies to externalize border control, Niger was the focus of extensive development aid, legal reforms, and security cooperation aimed at deterring irregular migration to Europe. These efforts, however, largely failed to achieve their objectives and generated local resistance, culminating in the annulment of key legislation and the breakdown of EU–Niger cooperation. Drawing on interviews with international officials, as well as policy documents, the article traces the evolution of EU interventions in Niger – from the deployment of the EU Capacity Building Mission to the use of the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa as a tool for ‘containment development’. It argues that in place of structured, multilateral frameworks, a fragmented system of ad hoc governance is emerging, led by international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating outside traditional state partnerships. This shift reflects a broader global trend toward informal, network-based governance and raises urgent questions about the accountability, sustainability, and legitimacy of EU migration policy in a multipolar world.
Given the increasing importance of foreign policy in the European Union (EU), it is surprising that the genuinely European foreign policy elites – the ‘Eurodiplomats’ leading the European External Action Service (EEAS) and EU Delegations abroad – have remained largely understudied. To address this gap, this article conducts a prosopography – or ‘collective biography’ – of eighty-five lead Eurodiplomats. The resulting cartography offers a first comprehensive insight into these EU-level foreign policy elites’ key sociographic, geographical, educational and professional career-related data at the end of High Representative Borrell’s terms in office. It reveals the co-existence of four sub-groups within the corps of Eurodiplomats, whose main distinguishing features are their professional parcours and – to some extent – gender, age and educational backgrounds. Compared to other lead figures on the broader ‘field of Eurocracy’, top Eurodiplomats are even more generalist regarding their educational and professional parcours, with about half of them being newcomers to the EU upon joining the EEAS. Academically, these findings lay the foundations for a theory-informed research agenda on the Eurodiplomats and their propensity for developing an esprit de corps. Normatively, the insights bring into focus the body’s recruitment practices and whether they yield the type of staff that appropriately represents EU diversity.
Cyber Capacity Building (CCB) has become a key instrument in the external dimension of the European Union (EU) cybersecurity policies. This paper examines how the EU operationalizes its strategic and geopolitical interests through cyber cooperation with three key neighbouring regions: the Southern Neighbourhood (SN), the Eastern Neighbourhood (EN), and the Western Balkans (WB). Drawing on a comparative analysis of CCB projects funded by the EU and its Member States, the study identifies three differentiated scripts in cyber cooperation: law enforcement, governance, and resilience. The paper argues that the EU’s approach to CCB is strategically instrumentalized and differentiated to reflect broader geopolitical, security, and integration objectives, ranging from stabilizing border regions and managing external threats to extending its regulatory influence. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the EU’s evolving ambition to act as a geopolitical and normative actor in global cybersecurity governance, and they underscore how differentiated regional engagement reflects the EU’s strategic priorities in the digital age.
More than a decade after the EU launched the Belgrade–Pristina dialogue, Kosovo–Serbia relations remain unresolved despite the ICJ’s 2010 advisory opinion. The 2023 Brussels Agreement and its Ohrid Annex – presented as a Balkan analogue to the 1972 interGerman Basic Treaty and framed as a breakthrough grounded in indirect recognition, following a 2022 diplomatic initiative by the United States, France, Germany, and the EU that explicitly invoked the Basic Treaty as a model – were neither signed nor implemented, thereby exposing the structural fragility of an externally imposed, status-neutral framework. While hailed as a possible Zeitenwende for Balkan diplomacy, the Ohrid Agreement (2023), inspired by this framework, was neither signed nor implemented, as Serbia framed it as a political declaration rather than a binding treaty. This paper argues that applying the ‘Two Germanys model’ to Kosovo and Serbia is conceptually flawed: unlike the inter-German settlement, the Brussels– Ohrid framework lacks reciprocal political will, enforcement mechanisms, and a credible institutional end-state. A comparative analysis shows how the Ohrid Annex entrenches asymmetric obligations on Kosovo while allowing Serbia to preserve ambiguity and obstruct Kosovo’s international integration..
As the European Union (EU) cannot become a member of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), its external competences relating to the IMO’s work in the shipping sector can only be exercised by the Member States, acting jointly in the interest of the EU. This article explores in what capacity the Member States act in the IMO and argues that, in line with the Court’s recent judgment in Case C-161/20 (IMO II), the Member States act in their own name in the IMO, as trustees of the EU interest. Proposals or other submissions to IMO bodies cannot, therefore, be submitted ‘on behalf of the EU’ anymore. Still, despite its indirect influence on IMO affairs, the EU institutions can give the necessary instructions for Member State action in order to align it with the common position coordinated at EU level, the Member States being obliged to follow the Union instructions as a consequence of the duty of sincere cooperation (Article 4(3) TEU).
The article analyses how, and with what effects, the EU has mobilized control and protean power in support of democratization in Eastern Neighbourhood countries. We show that EU approaches to democracy promotion have predominantly relied on control power, drawing on predictable instruments and incentives. Protean power has emerged only belatedly and has been used sporadically to counter hybrid threats in an increasingly uncertain and volatile regional environment. Drawing on the examples of Moldova and Georgia, we argue that the EU’s reliance on control tools has yielded contrasted outcomes due to the role of domestic (f)actors in shaping these outcomes. In Moldova, we mostly observe control outcomes, namely effects aligned with EU strategic objectives, whereas protean outcomes prevail in Georgia, as evidenced by the country’s identity shift away from the EU. The article highlights the interplay between control and protean power, as control instruments do not necessarily yield control outcomes, and protean effects can emerge even in the absence of protean tools. We demonstrate that the effects of EU power crucially hinge on the environment in which it is embedded. Ultimately, EU action is not defined solely by instruments, but also by how those instruments interact with local contexts and produce (un)intended effects.
This article provides a survey of the military instruments that third state actors might use against the nine EU candidate countries (CCs) of the Western Balkans (WB) and Eastern Neighbourhood (EN) in ways that could delay or derail their integration into the European Union. It proposes indicators that might be used to assess their resilience against these instruments and applies this framework to determine a composite military-security resilience index (low–medium–high) for each CC-threat combination. Additionally, it assesses the EU’s support for military-security resilience-building in the two regions through the application of its own foreign and security policy tools. Finally, in the context of the dramatic turn in Europe’s security situation driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine, it examines how aspects of both the response of the CC and the changes in the EU’s support to them in this domain might be interpreted through control and protean power theory. It concludes that while these responses can largely be understood as manifestations of control power, they have, at least in the cases of Ukraine and the EU, demonstrated some protean power which has produced substantial rewards. This might serve as inspiration for a much stronger commitment by the EU to military-security resilience building in the WB and EN.
This article argues that the recent reactivation of enlargement policy represents a strategic attempt to navigate heightened security-induced uncertainty that is destabilizing the Europe. Against this backdrop, the central question is: to what extent has the EU’s post-2022 enlargement strategy been repurposed through the incorporation of protean policy instruments, and how has this affected the EU’s traditional conditionality-based control mechanisms in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood? The paper argues that, in the post-2022 security context, the EU has shifted from conceiving security as the end point of integration to instrumentalizing security within the enlargement process itself. Moreover, it maintains that, during 2004–2021, the EU primarily relied on controlbased power mechanisms, with only rare protean interventions. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequent EU engagement with enlargement as a security instrument, the EU’s external governance strategy has come to reflect a strategic blend of protean and control power
This paper explores the discursive role of the European Parliament (EP) in steering the European Union’s (EU’s) economic positioning vis-à-vis China. More in particular, it aims to addressing to what extent the EP has acted as a discursive reservoir in shaping the European Commission’s (EC’s) framing of Chinese infrastructure investments, particularly within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Focusing on the period from 2014 to 2024, this work conducts a qualitative discourse analysis of EP resolutions and policy briefs, alongside EC documents, to examine how key frames, such as connectivity, reciprocity, and patriotic inducement of Chinese investors, emerged and evolved across institutions. The study argues that, despite the limitations of its formal powers in the EU policy making at the crossroads of trade and foreign policy, the EP leveraged its discursive role to articulate concerns and narratives that were later taken up by the EC, especially under shifting geopolitical conditions. By tracing patterns of discursive alignment over time, the paper contributes to understanding the role of parliamentary discourse in shaping the European long-term agenda-setting.
The semiconductor industry lies at the heart of the global economy and geopolitics, shaping innovation, security, and economic power. Governed by Moore’s Law, this sector remains impenetrable to new players due to its high technical barriers and a deeply fragmented value chain spanning continents. What began as an economic efficiency-driven trade ecosystem has evolved into a geopolitical battlefield, with nations adopting protectionist measures and engaging in subsidy races to secure strategic advantages. The EU, despite its limited competencies in industrial policy, plays a vital role in key segments such as advanced lithography. However, it faces challenges in navigating subsidy competition among Member States and setting realistic objectives. This article argues that no jurisdiction can fully dominate the semiconductor value chain without incurring significant costs and inefficiencies. It also argues the EU must focus on leveraging its strengths, fostering collaboration among Member States, and adopting policies that ensure resilience rather than unattainable self-sufficiency.
This article contributes to the growing body of research on the contestation of international organizations in the context of escalating great power rivalries. While the phenomenon of power competition is generally accepted in the literature, the specific ways in which it manifests itself within international organizations remain underexplored. This study examines the evolving dynamics of multilateral security cooperation, with a particular focus on the UN Security Council (UNSC) and its two European permanent members. It presents a typology of responses to increasing geopolitical competition. Adopting a European perspective, the article addresses the question of how the UK and France navigate such an institutional environment. Empirically the article concentrates on Sudan and Mali for which the UK and France are penholders in the UN Security Council and which underwent major geopolitical transformation over the last years.
As multilateralism erodes and global governance becomes increasingly fragmented, the European Union (EU) has embraced like-mindedness as a guiding principle in its external legal and diplomatic engagement. While widely invoked in EU discourse, the concept lacks analytical precision. This article develops a realist-constructivist framework to conceptualize like-mindedness as both a normative identity marker and a strategic filter for cooperation. Focusing on sectoral agreements with advanced middle powers – such as digital partnerships, climate compacts, and collaboration on critical raw materials (CRMs) – the article demonstrates how the EU operationalizes like-mindedness through modular legal frameworks that balance values with interests. These flexible arrangements promote regulatory alignment, supply chain security, and geopolitical resilience without requiring full multilateral consensus. Case studies from East Asia, South America, and the Indo-Pacific illustrate how legal diplomacy enables differentiated integration with strategic partners amid normative divergence and institutional ambiguity. The article argues that, when grounded in defined principles and linked to strategic objectives, likemindedness can sustain the EU’s external action and legal influence in a multipolar world.
Soft law has become an increasingly prevalent regulatory framework for the external dimension of various areas of European Union (EU) Law, particularly in areas with geopolitical sensitivity and policy urgency, such as migration. This article explains whether the external dimension of migration constitutes an isolated area in which soft law has become increasingly popular. Accordingly, the article advances two claims. Empirically drawing on a comprehensive survey of instruments from 1974 to 2019, this article compares three areas, such as migration, trade, and enlargement, in which soft law has been especially used. Normatively, it examines the risks that the use of soft law regulatory frameworks poses to institutional and procedural safeguards.
The European Union (EU) has formally integrated human rights into its external policies, yet tensions continue to exist between these commitments and other objectives within the filed of export controls. The main export control regimes in the EU – the Dual-Use Goods Regulation and the EU Common Position on Arms Exports – both integrate human rights commitments but differ in terms of their legal bases, substantive rules and procedural mechanisms. This article examines whether these instruments ensure coherence, understood not merely as the absence of contradictions but as the mutual reinforcement of human rights considerations. Through legal analysis, this research finds that the fragmentation between the two frameworks, in combination with the wide Member State discretion, undermines a coherent EU approach. Divergences in denial obligations, the lack of common definitions and the absence of EU-level risk assessments show how institutional and procedural disparities can weaken human rights protection in practice. Ultimately, the article provides recommendations for strengthening the coherence between the two frameworks, situating these within the broader challenge of reconciling economic, security and human rights priorities within EU external action.
Regulation 2019/1896 allows the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) to adopt working arrangements with Common Security and Defence Policy missions (CSDP missions) on operational issues. Two such arrangements are in force: one with EUNAVFOR MED Irini and another with European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform Ukraine (EUAM Ukraine). These collaborations are expected to intensify, allowing for the exchange of information with third countries and joint training of the latter’s officers. However, there is a risk that this interaction may lead to violations of fundamental rights in multi-actor scenarios – with violations having already been documented in the framework of these CSDP missions and in FRONTEX joint operations at large. Against this background, this article takes as a starting point the action for damages under Article 340(2) TFEU as a tool to establish (shared) responsibility in these situations. It then analyses the likelihood of success of such actions brought against FRONTEX and these CSDP missions. Emphasis is placed on the attribution of harmful conduct to the defendants and the causal link that is required between their behaviour and the damage caused. The difficulty in determining causation is tackled by resorting to theories and principles found in the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR)’ case-law and in European soft-law texts. Moreover, the right to an effective remedy in such concerted actions causing indivisible damage favours an interpretation that allows for joint and several responsibility. All this supports the need for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to apply a tailor-made approach when assessing these claims, considering the particularities of multi-actor scenarios where violations of EU fundamental rights are at stake.
This article focuses on the inability of the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) to directly fund local partners in the field. Considering the growing international funding gap, the EU acknowledges the importance of collaborating with the latter. The ‘localization’ of the aid, understood as empowering local partners in affected countries to lead and deliver humanitarian aid, is depicted by the humanitarian sector as an answer to inefficient aid, offering a comprehensive response to increasingly complex crises. However, and mainly due to the difficulty to adopt such an approach, the EU fails to reform its incompatible legislative framework: the EU Council Regulation 1257/96 of 1996. Supported by an eclectic analytical framework, the article answers the following question: what explains the constraints the EU is facing in changing the latter? The analysis of fourteen semi-structured interviews explores the reasons behind the continuity in the EU’s decision-making process since 2016, although it committed otherwise. Two main explanations may be found: firstly, the EU, particularly the Commission, is reluctant to changes that would be detrimental for its DGs; secondly, tensions with international implementing partners hinders incentives for change. Additionally, the article discusses future considerations, should the EU launch legislative reforms. The article found that the current administrative burden is heavy, preventing small partners to collaborate with the EU, favouring important International Organizations (IOs) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs).
