After the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's indirect responsibility for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, what will it take before the EU can effectively confront a conflict on its borders and prove to both its own citizens and third countries that it has a...

More than ten years of international negotiations have brought no resolution to the nuclear dispute with Iran. In January 2012 the EU and US autonomously adopted an unprecedented sanctions package, mainly directed at the Iranian oil industry. Eighteen months later, figures show that the Iranian...

The summer of 2014 saw an explosion of violence in the Middle East. Geopolitically, the advance of the Islamic State and the emergence of a de facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan are the most important recent developments. Any way out of the quagmire will now require a grand bargain – one that...

The first in a series for a CEPS-EPIN project entitled “The British Question and the Search for a Fresh European Narrative” this paper is pegged on an ambitious ongoing exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union. The intention is that this should...

The High Representative of the European External Action Service (EEAS) is held to provide a review of the organisation and functioning of the EEAS by mid-2013. This short and user-friendly legal commentary on the 2010 Council Decision establishing the organisation and functioning of the EEAS is...

Ahead of the 2019 institutional reconfiguration of the EU is a fitting moment to take stock of the European integration process and decide which priorities should define the strategic agenda of the next generation of incumbents.While acknowledging that the entire EU collective is concerned –...

On January 20th, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran had been implementing its commitments as part of the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) agreed with the so-called 'E3 3' in Geneva (also known as P5 1) on 24 November 2013. The forging of this interim deal, the successful start...

In the absence of unforeseen major shocks, the EU institutions should now be less engaged in crisis management and more able to pursue a long-term strategic agenda. The President-elect of the European Commission has also set out her overall programme, which is highly ambitious in many respects,...

The European Union's security and defence policy (ESDP) was invented 10 years ago and has been operational for more than five years. During this period the EU has launched over 20 ESDP missions allowing the organization to be engaged in international crisis management in various ways. The coming...