Resource alert: A New Ambition for Europe – Carnegie Europe

Think tank Carnegie Europe had four international relations experts assess the most pressing issues awaiting incoming EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and propose a number of concrete and less-concrete recommendations for “turning Europe into a more effective global actor.”

Recommendations from the four authors, Daniel Keohane, Stefan Lehne, Ulrich Speck, and Jan Techau, include the notion that Mogherini should play a similar role to the U.S. national security adviser, and that she should start developing the EEAS into the main source for European strategic analysis.

The paper, which you can read here and upon which you can comment on the twitter discussion here, starts off by warning that Europeans should not be satisfied with merely defending the global status quo, “expecting to decline gracefully inside an imaginary EU fortress.” Great global change will come regardless, and it’s important to get prepared for this, the memo states. As the world simultaneously – and paradoxically – becomes more integrated and more fragmented, “interdependence is racing far ahead of national and global governance, often causing nationalist backlashes.”

Europe needs to become more unified, more attractive, and more powerful; it will need to build stronger alliances both regionally and globally; and it will need to invest in effective international institutions, according to the authors. These steps include efforts to keep the US engaged in global politics, and looking beyond the European neighbourhood countries, many of which are unlikely to become highly relevant in the near future. Most countries in the neighbourhood, in fact, are “weak, failing, or failed,” according to the paper.

The paper goes on to give specific advice to the new High Representative. She, as a participant in European Council summits, should provide EU leaders with expertise and strategic advice, based on EEAS analysis. The relationship between the HR/VP and the president of the European Council will be enormously important.

This Carnegie paper is not the first Think Tank publication to give advice to new HR Federica Mogherini. You can find papers that have featured in our TTR in the past here.