The Middle East in the shadow of the Islamic State. OSW Point of View Number 52, August 2015

Since June 2014, Islamic State (IS) has been regarded as the principal security threat in the Middle East and one of the most important problems for European and global security. Islamic State, which for many years was just one of many terror organisations with links to al-Qaeda, has succeeded in achieving much more than other similar organisations: it has taken over control of large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq by military means, created its own para-state structures in that area, and become the greatest civilisational challenge for the region in a century as it established a self-proclaimed caliphate and credibly pledged to expand further on a global scale. Those successes have been accompanied by widely publicised acts of systemic brutality which meets the definition of crimes against humanity. One outcome of these developments is the emergence of an exotic informal alliance to combatthe Islamic State, which has brought together all the states from the Middle East and many from beyond the region. However, contrary to what could have been predicted, after almost a year of the declared war against IS, the Caliphate still holds most of the ground it gained in 2014.

The ‘Lisbonisation’ of the European Parliament: Assessing progress, shortcomings and challenges for democratic accountability in the area of freedom, security and justice. CEPS Paper on Liberty and Security in Europe No. 58, September 2013

This paper examines the performance of the European Parliament in EU AFSJ law and policy-making from the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty until the end of the first half of 2013. The paper situates the EP in the new post-Lisbon institutional setting, documenting its transition to ‘AFSJ decision-maker’, and its new powers to shape and make policy covering the EU’s internal and external security agenda. While the paper finds that the EP has become an active co-owner of the EU AFSJ post-Lisbon, with the Parliament demonstrating a dynamic adjustment to its new post-Lisbon role and powers, the authors identify a set of new developments and challenges that have arisen in the conduct of democratic accountability by the EP in the AFSJ since 2009, which call for critical reflection ahead of the new parliamentary term 2014-2019 and the post-2014 phase of the EU’s AFSJ.