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.
