Lessons from the Great War: Failure of leadership. CEPS Commentary, 1 July 2014

In his reflections on the intervening century since the start of the First World War, Erwan Fouéré acknowledges that the EU has brought enormous benefits to its citizens by extending the frontiers of peace and security to include 28 member countries. At the same time, however, he warns that the voices of populism are trying to destroy its very foundations and calls upon the European Union to work much harder at showing that the integration project is both vital and necessary for continued peace and prosperity in Europe.

How to keep a competitive edge in the talent game: Lessons for the EU from China and the US. CEPS Task Force Report, 13 June 2014

This report is based on discussions within the CEPS Task Force on “The Quantity and Quality of Human Capital in Higher Education: Comparing the EU, the US and China", chaired by Jan-Eric Sundgren, Senior Adviser to the CEO of Volvo, and former President of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. It aims to draw salient lessons from the successes and failures in higher education practices in the EU, the US and China by comparing key education indicators and policy trends. Against the background of the profound tectonic shifts affecting the talent distribution around the world, which is fundamentally changing the global ‘brain game’, the authors argue that it is important that the EU as a whole creates ‘virtuous circles’ of talent and innovation to sustain prosperity and growth, as well as to secure the long-term well-being and quality of life in Europe.

State-building in Iraq since 2003: the Challenges and Lessons. Jean Monnet Occasional Paper No. 12/2014

Introduction. In 2003, Iraq was invaded by the US coalition forces that ousted Saddam Hussein’s regime from power before occupying the whole country. The intension, declared by the then American George W. Bush, was to ‘build a decent and democratic society at the centre of the Middle East’ that ‘will become a place of progress and peace.’1 In 2014, three years after the withdrawal of the last American soldier, however, it is difficult to overestimate or exaggerate what is at stake. National unity and territorial integrity have never been so seriously threatened since the country is experiencing the internal fighting in its modern history. Many parts of Iraq, including the northern oil city of Kirkuk, long claimed as an integral part of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, are out of the control of the central government. Large areas in the north including the strategic city of Mosul were seized by the fighters of the Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda offshoot, formerly known as ISIS, who threatened to invade the Kurdistan region before being attacked by airstrikes by the US. They proclaimed a caliphate on both sides of the border with Syria, where they also control vast territory.

Norway and the Bear. Norwegian defence policy- lessons for the Baltic Sea region. OSW Point of View Number 38, January 2014

Norway is currently the only Western European state and ‘old’ NATO member that strongly relies on the traditional dimension of NATO's collective defence. It is also the only ally in Western Europe which perceives Russia as a threat to its military security, in the so-called High North. In order to successfully deal with the potential challenges and threats in the region, Norway has been pursuing a defence policy based on cooperation and deterrence. Cooperation means improving collaboration with Russia in cross-border relations, in the petroleum sector and in the military sphere. The deterrent measures include maintaining NATO’s credibility as a collective defence alliance; increasing military cooperation with the United States; building up Norway’s own military capabilities; and developing military cooperation across Northern Europe. The primary objective of Oslo’s defence policy is to minimise the likelihood of crises and conflicts emerging in the High North which could prove too ‘big’ for Norway but too ‘small’ for NATO.

Struggling with an Opportunity: The first 10 years with the EU for Central Europe and the Baltics - A few lessons. CEPS Essay No. 12, 2 May 2014

In 2004, ten new members joined the European Union, radically reshaping its geography and governance characteristics. Earlier expectations predicted a more gradual process of accession – like a more gradual earlier evolution had been expected for the new European currency that had been adopted in 1999 by no less than 11 members. But these were the times of euro-enthusiasm. In their new CEPS Essay, Kálmán Mizsei and Ádám Kullmann offer some interesting and instructive insights from the experience in the newest member states following their accession 10 years ago for improving the effectiveness with which the EU structural and cohesion funds are spent.

The Political Logic of Disintegration: Seven Lessons from the Soviet Collapse. CEPS Essay (No. 1), September 2012

In short, the European Union, as we know it, no longer exists. The very foundations on which it was built are eroding. Shared memories of the Second World War have faded away – half the 15- and 16-year-olds in German high schools do not know that Hitler was a dictator, while a third believe that he protected human rights. The collapse of the Soviet Union has stripped away the geopolitical rationale for European unity. The democratic welfare state that was at the heart of the post-war political consensus is under siege by, among other things, sheer demographics. And the prosperity that bolstered the European project’s political legitimacy is vanishing. More than six out of ten Europeans believe that the lives of today’s children will be more difficult than those of people from their own generation. Against this background, how unthinkable is the EU’s disintegration? Should Europeans make the mistake of taking the Union for granted? Should they assume that the Union would not collapse because it should not collapse? Here, Europe’s capacity to learn from the Soviet precedent could play a crucial part. For the very survival of the EU may depend on its leaders’ ability to manage a similar mix of political, economic and psychological factors that were in play in the process of the Soviet collapse. The game of disintegration is primarily a political one driven much more by the perceptions and misperceptions of the political actors than simply by the constellation of the structural factors – institutional and economic.

Exporting the Internal Market – Panacea or Nemesis for the European Neighbourhood Policy? Lessons from the Energy Community. EU Diplomacy Paper No. 2, 2014

Over the last decades, a constant feature of the relations between the European Union (EU) and the countries in its neighbourhood has been the export of European law. Achieved through bilateral or multilateral agreements, the export of law has led to the ‘juridification’ of external policy. The energy sector is in the vanguard of this development. European energy law has been made applicable to third countries through the European Economic Area (EEA) and, most important for the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the Energy Community. Bilateral agreements of relevance for energy include the (draft) Association Agreement with Ukraine which was rejected in November 2013 and came on the agenda again following a revolution in the country. Geopolitics has played and continues to play an eminent role in this respect. What does that mean for the export of European law to neighbouring countries? This paper argues that the export of European (energy) law does not only remain possible but is preferable to purely diplomatic relations between the EU and its neighbours if certain conditions are fulfilled. Based on the experience in the EEA and the Energy Community, multilateral integration agreements can be successful if they offer a well-designed institutional and procedural architecture based on mutual commitments, extend the benefits of the internal market to the participating third countries and create ‘win-win’ situations in satisfying also the participating third countries' vital interests in return for undergoing the hardship of economic reforms.