Role and potential influence of technologies on the most relevant challenges for long-term care. ENEPRI Research Report No. 113, 26 June 2012

This report considers three case studies (namely diabetes, dementia and obesity) for setting up a framework to assess the systemic influences of technologies in the long-term care milieu, using a problem-driven approach in relation to health care. Such technologies could be an enabling factor or a catalyser of advances taking place in the health and social sectors. They offer opportunities to support and amplify relevant organisational changes in the context of innovative care models, which stem from overall policies and regulations of a national or regional jurisdiction to address the future sustainability of health and social care.

EU Sanctions: A Relevant Foreign Policy Tool? EU Diplomacy Paper No. 3, May 2014

This paper examines an instrument which establishes an explicit link between economic power and foreign policy of the European Union (EU): restrictive measures or sanctions. As the EU is increasingly confronted with situations requiring a firm response, sanctions – arguably the EU’s ‘hardest’ tool – have become somewhat of a standard reaction. To what extent are sanctions a relevant tool for EU external action? By looking at several case studies from a set of 47 autonomous EU sanction cases, this paper acknowledges the many internal and external difficulties the EU faces when using the sanctions tool. However, it also shows that despite those challenges, the ‘hard’ and coercive nature of the sanction instrument nevertheless make it a relevant foreign policy tool which allows the EU to react to external crises.