European Union external relations

This Book of Abstracts presents contributions from the EM-HERI 2025 International Scientific Conference, focused on Higher Education Systems in the Mediterranean: Comparative Analysis and Development Opportunities. The collection explores key themes including higher education leadership, academic mobility, internationalization, innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability in curricula, research collaboration, strategic foresight, and institutional development across the Euro-Mediterranean region. Authors from diverse countries examine challenges such as brain circulation, governance, university–industry cooperation, leadership capacity building, and equitable access to research infrastructure, while proposing practical solutions to strengthen regional cooperation, innovation, and sustainable development. Collectively, the abstracts highlight the vital role of higher education and research in fostering mobility, knowledge exchange, social inclusion, and long-term resilience throughout the Mediterranean region.

Letos, kdy uplynulo právě deset let od sjednání Pařížské klimatické dohody, jsme získali zásadní interpretační impuls pro výklad klimatického práva v podobě posudků Mezinárodního soudního dvora, Meziamerického soudu pro lidská práva a Mezinárodního soudu pro mořské právo. Pařížská dohoda, která tvoří hlavní mezinárodněprávní nástroj řešení klimatické změny, byla ve své době vnímána jako maximální možný kompromis, dosažitelný napříč státy světa s odlišující se situací, kapacitami a zájmy. Klimatická změna však podle vědců postupuje oproti predikcím rychleji a odvrácení jejích negativních dopadů vyžaduje silnější odpovědi, než nabízí dosavadní implementace klimatických úmluv. Ty jsou často hodnoceny jako slabé konstrukcí svých závazků i absencí vymáhacích mechanismů. Trojice posudků vykládá povinnosti států ve vztahu k řešení klimatické změny a poskytuje na ně v mnoha směrech nový pohled. Článek se zaměřuje na rozbor těch obsahových prvků posudků, které přinášejí největší posun oproti dosavadní interpretaci. Zdůrazňuje chápání klimatických úmluv jako organické součásti korpusu mezinárodního práva a vysvětluje pohled mezinárodních tribunálů na stanovení klimatických cílů, koncept due diligence v této oblasti, lidskoprávní povinnosti států při řešení změny klimatu a odpovědnost států za porušení klimatických závazků.

Transparency is a key concern in global governance scholarship, yet its contribution to good governance remains deeply ambivalent.
Scholars are increasingly questioning the idea of transparency as a silver bullet, emphasizing the need to better understand
its potential, pitfalls, and regulatory challenges. This article focuses on the field of business and human rights (BHR), and recent
regulatory advancements in human rights due diligence (HRDD) in the European Union specifically, to examine the conditions
under which transparency supports business responsibilities for human rights. Drawing on expert and policymaker interviews
from the negotiations of the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, complemented by document analysis of
related laws, policies, and research, the study identifies four interrelated dimensions that condition transparency as a regulatory
pivot in HRDD: the design and audience of disclosure, the operationalization of reporting standards, the balance of accountability
mechanisms, and the role of stakeholders and their modes of engagement. The analysis demonstrates that transparency
operates within complex tensions—between capacity-building
and control, politics and law, and cooperation and contestation.
By tracing how these tensions are addressed in EU-level
policymaking, the article advances understanding of how integrated
communicative practices, clear and fair standard-setting,
accountability governance, and a culture of plural and deliberative
stakeholder engagement can shape transparency as a means of good governance rather than an impediment to it. The findings
extend beyond BHR to broader global governance debates on information disclosure, effectiveness, accountability, and democratization,
while underscoring the need to recognize businesses as global governance actors.

This study focuses on Albania and North Macedonia during the 2020-2024 period, offering a comparative analysis of their EU accession paths and examining how the European Union's conditionality mechanism functions. With the introduction of the new negotiation methodology, which places the "fundamentals" namely the rule of law, judicial independence, and fundamental rights at the core, the research evaluates both countries' progress dynamics through indicators such as crossing the IBAR threshold and alignment with the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Albania, through judicial reform and full compliance with the CFSP, succeeded in opening the "Fundamentals" cluster in 2024. North Macedonia, however, did not fulfill the constitutional amendment condition, causing its accession process to come to a standstill. The study argues that EU conditionality produces meaningful results only when accompanied by internal political agreement and institutional strength. Freedom House democracy scores reveal that stable normative convergence depends on solid domestic reform rather than external pressure alone. Building on this insight, the study develops a hybrid explanation of EU enlargement based on the interaction of threshold effects, signal alignment, and institutional agency. The findings show that conditionality in the Western Balkans operates unevenly, with reform sustainability tied closely to institutional capacity.

This book aims to identify different forms, levels, and mechanisms of contestation by putting an analytical focus on who (actors engaging in contestation) contests what (the substance of contestation) and how (modes of contestation) in the Western Balkans.

Amidst growing geopolitical confrontation, the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies, a staggering liberal order and a protracted European integration process, the Western Balkan countries are adapting to the contestation in their region. The Global Strategy of the European Union (2016) locates the EU in an ever more connected, contested, and complex world, characterised by a “more fragmented distribution of power” and “growing uncertainty and rivalry”. The Strategic Compass for Security and Defence (2022) locates the EU in an environment of wars, threats, and security challenges. This rivalry, competition for influence, and need for security are particularly discernible in the Western Balkan countries. While there is ample literature on the “actorness” of the European Union in the region, on the workings of conditionality or new approaches to enlargement (sectoral or staged accession), little is known about how the Western Balkan states adapt to contestation, how this affects their approach towards European integration and how this contestation promotes or constrains their path towards EU membership.

This chapter explores the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue as a catalyst of contestation in Kosovo’s relations with the European Union (EU). While the literature on EU contestation has largely focused on external challengers, this chapter shifts attention to domestic dynamics within a (potential) EU candidate country that, despite stalled accession prospects and partial non-recognition, remains strongly pro-European. Drawing on an original dataset of nearly 1,000 headlines, an interpretative qualitative analysis combined with process tracing of media coverage between 2020 and 2024, the study examines how contestation is constructed and communicated across political and media arenas. The findings reveal a shift from predominantly discursive contestation in the early stages of the dialogue to more pronounced behavioural forms, particularly under the Vetëvendosje government. Contestation is primarily articulated through moral claims, emphasising perceived unfairness, double standards, and asymmetrical EU pressure on Kosovo compared to Serbia. The analysis also highlights the growing involvement of additional actors, such as the United States, EU member states, and regional players like Albania, which further complicate the dialogue and reshape its dynamics. It argues that the EU’s facilitation role, while central to the normalisation process, has also contributed to generating and amplifying contestation, raising broader questions about the limits of EU conditionality and its transformative capacity in the Western Balkans.

This paper analyzes the current process of the European Union’s Eastern Enlargement, considering NATO’s involvement and Russia’s trajectory since the Cold War, with a focus on the case study of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine’s accession. To this end, the research draws on contributions from the Neorealist School and the Copenhagen School, whose theoretical approaches, although distinct in their assumptions, converge in demonstrating that European security results from the interaction between material and symbolic factors: power and narrative, strength and identity. In addition to the theoretical approach, the study also makes use of sources such as NATO reports, political statements from the actors involved, and official European Union documents, which allude to the construction of narratives by both the EU and Russia. These narratives contribute to a perception of insecurity across the European continent and highlight the pursuit of power and security within an anarchic international system. This paper interprets the enlargement of the bloc as a strategic movement aimed at containing Russian influence and strengthening Europe’s position in the global arena. It begins with an analysis of the two theoretical approaches that support the argument regarding Eastern Enlargement; it then explores the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia’s trajectory in the post–Cold War context, examining their interactions and influence throughout this process. Finally, it assesses the benefits, challenges, and implications of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, reflecting on the possible consequences for the European continent while also considering the reactions of external actors, particularly NATO and Russia.
Keywords: Enlargement; Regional Integration; International Relations; International Security; European Union; European Foreign Policy; NATO; Russia; Geopolitics; Conditionality; Multilateral Cooperation; Ukraine; Moldova; Georgia; Sovereignty; Eastern Partnership.

Since the EU Security Strategy of 2003 (entitled "A Secure Europe in a Better World") to the EU Global Strategy of 2016 (entitled "Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe"), the European Union has overused and sometimes misused bold foreign and security policy statements to booster its relatively modest role in global politics. One can recall previous commitments, such as the Headline Goals (2003, 2010) that illustrate this. The EU has provided interesting pieces of rhetoric, but was it able to close the gap between ideals and reality? Now, literally under fire, the European External Action Service has produced another document that promises a lot. This article is assessing the validity of the 'Strategic Compass' under the current European geopolitical realities stemming from the Ukraine war that seem to confirm a tendency toward the return to power politics.

Viime vuosina rajojen vahvistamisesta on muodostunut keskeinen turvallisuuspoliittinen instrumentti. Fyysisten esteiden rakentaminen, valvontateknologioiden laajentaminen ja rajalainsäädännön kiristäminen ovat palauttaneet rajat poliittisen mielikuvituksen keskiöön aikana, jolloin globalisaation oletettiin hämärtävän niiden merkitystä. Rajatoimet tarjoavat konkreettisia ja helposti viestittäviä ratkaisuja ilmiöihin, jotka koetaan abstrakteiksi ja vaikeasti hallittaviksi, ja niiden vaikuttavuus perustuu usein enemmän symboliseen kuin materiaaliseen ulottuvuuteen. Turvallisuus on kuitenkin poliittisesti ja sosiaalisesti tuotettu kategoria, jonka kautta epävarmuutta jäsennetään ja tehdään hallittavaksi. Turvallistamisen prosessissa uhkia ei ainoastaan tunnisteta, vaan ne nimetään ja kehystetään tavalla, joka oikeuttaa poikkeuksellisetkin toimet osaksi institutionaalista normaalia.

Tämä katsaus tarkastelee rajojen vahvistamisen logiikkaa osana myöhäismodernin turvallisuuspolitiikan muutosta ja osoittaa, kuinka rajatoimista on tullut väline valtiollisen toimijuuden ja kontrollikyvyn performoimisessa tilanteissa, joissa niiden käytännöllinen perusta on yhä hauraampi. Rajatoimet viestivät päättäväisyydestä ja hallinnan palauttamisesta, mutta samalla ne tuottavat ja uusintavat hierarkioita ja eriarvoisuuksia, jotka määrittävät, ketkä nähdään uhkana ja kenellä on oikeus liikkua. Rajojen korostaminen siirtää huomiota pois turvattomuuden rakenteellisista lähteistä, joita fyysiset esteet eivät kykene ratkaisemaan. Näin rajojen vahvistaminen näyttäytyy poliittisena tekona, joka tuottaa turvallisuuden tunnetta ja hallinnan vaikutelmaa, mutta kaventaa ymmärrystä turvallisuuden pitkäjänteisistä ja rakenteellisista edellytyksistä. Artikkeli kannustaa kohti rehellisyyden politiikkaa suuntautuvaa turvallisuusajattelua, joka tunnustaa rajatoimien symbolisen luonteen ja painottaa kestävää, rakenteellista turvallisuuden rakentamista tilanteissa, joissa näkyvät toimet tarjoavat vain illuusion hallinnasta.

Presentation for GCSP Staff and Fellows on 09 July 2025 briefly outlining key developments in Russia´s War in Ukraine, including the state of international support for Ukraine, domestic and political challenges in Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine´s developing deeper strike capability, and Russia´s advances along the eastern frontline.

For Europe’s strongest middle powers, the summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump is a structural marker of the international system’s consolidation into bipolarity. The symbolism of two leaders negotiating trade, technology controls, crisis management, and geopolitical red lines underscores a reality that European policymakers have been slow to internalize. The gravitational center of global politics lies in Washington and Beijing. Europe’s agency and strategic autonomy is consequential but conditional.

This working paper examines the strategic role of the automotive industry in regional integration processes in Latin America from a critical international political economy perspective. It proposes the concept of automotive regionalism to account for a specific form of regional integration shaped by the strategies of transnational capital and mediated by state structures in peripheral economies. Rather than approaching the automotive industry as a sectoral case within broader integration processes, the paper conceptualizes it as a vector through which regional integration is materially organized, politically stabilised, and ideologically legitimised. Historically associated with import-substitution industrialisation and national development strategies, the automotive industry has been rearticulated under conditions of neoliberal globalization as a relevant axis of regional articulation. However, rather than generating trajectories of autonomous development, this reconfiguration has reinforced forms of structural dependency. Through a comparative analysis of Mercosur and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the paper argues that these schemes do not constitute alternative stages of a linear integration trajectory, but rather differentiated configurations of automotive regionalism, shaped by specific state-capital relations and transnational corporate strategies, which converge in the reproduction of dependent forms of regional integration.

Понятие «социальное право» включает право социального обеспечения и социальную помощь. Социальное право существует во всех европейских государствах уже десятилетия. Социальным обеспечением охватываются следующие социальные риски: болезнь, материнство, старость, инвалидность, профессиональные заболевания и несчастные случаи на производстве, безработица, семейные выплаты независимо от того, финансируются они из бюджета или страховых взносов и управляются частными или публично-правовыми учреждениями. Социальное право отражает социальную модель Европейского союза, которая закрепилась с осени 1989 г., -свободный рынок, основанный на конкуренции с развитым социальным обеспечением и социальной профилактикой. За десятилетия эта социальная модель подверглась основательной трансформации -экономической, публичной и правовой. Понятие «Европа» многозначно. Оно может употребляться для целого континента или для отдельных организационных единиц европейской интеграции. В первом смысле Европа -географическое понятие, в последнем -объединение правовое, культурное, ценностное, социальное, экономическое 1 . Европейская интеграция выражена в двух организациях -Совете Европы и Европейском союзе. Они признают основой европейской интеграции права и свободы человека. Совет Европы гарантирует их в Социальной хартии прав человека, Европейский союз -в Договорах о Союзе и Европейском сообществе (далее -ЕС), и обосновывает свободами передвижения товаров, услуг, капитала и лиц. Обе организации защищают права человека различным образом. В рамках Совета Европы гарантиями свободы являются охрана личности от превышения власти национальными государствами. В рамках Европейского союза гарантируется экономическая торговля без границ. Это так называемое транснациональное расширение и распространение рыночных свобод. Целью Европейского союза является создание транснационального экономического и социального порядка. Данные организации принимают нормы, которые влияют на правовое регулирование социального обеспечения государств-членов. Эти нормы имеют различную эффективность и юридическую силу. Совет Европы основывает свое влияние на международном праве. Следовательно, Совет не может непосредственно устанавливать нормы для государствчленов. Его нормы требуют имплементации в национальное право, а это уже полномочия национальных законодательных органов. Европейский союз, напротив, может путем издания постановлений (регламентов) и директив непосредственно влиять на национальное право. Вопрос о содержании европейского социального права нуждается в пояснении о том, как организации по европейской интеграции влияют на национальное социальное право государств-членов.

L'Europe est diagnostiquée par Draghi et Letta comme une puissance commerciale et juridique qui a décroché techniquement, sans réponse opérationnelle à l'écart d'investissement IA face au duopole américano-chinois. Le rapport Draghi caractérise l'Afrique comme un continent dont proviennent de nombreux produits de base essentiels pour l'économie mondiale et appelle, dans le même mouvement, à des partenariats industriels structurels avec les pays riches en ressources ; la traduction explicite de cette grammaire en stratégie de desserrement vis-à-vis du duopole sino-américain a été formulée publiquement par Pierre Jaillet à la conférence d'Orléans le 21 mai 2026. Or l'Afrique possède précisément ce qui manque à l'Europe : minerais critiques, gisement solaire, dorsale numérique sous-marine, démographie jeune, multilinguisme structuré, écosystèmes NLP opérationnels (Masakhane, Lelapa AI) et, c'est le point décisif, une production conceptuelle naissante sur la souveraineté cognitive.

Ce working paper, suite directe de « Au-delà des données et des modèles » (Zenodo, 13 mai 2026, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20153880), ajoute à ce bilan matériel une dimension historique et épistémique : l'Afrique n'est pas seulement détentrice de ressources, elle est productrice de formes d'organisation cognitive, d'innovation sous contraintes et de gouvernance distribuée qui anticipent, structurellement, certains défis du monde IA. La thèse défendue est qu'un partenariat Afrique-Europe à somme positive en matière d'IA n'est possible que si la souveraineté cognitive africaine en est le cadre opérationnel, pas l'habillage. Le texte esquisse quatre chantiers concrets (co-production de benchmarks multilingues UE-Afrique, extension conditionnelle de la cinquième liberté Letta, corridors électriques bas-carbone, convergence AI Act / REST-AI) et propose un critère opérationnel de qualification : « qui tient la plume sur les définitions ».

This is a master plan that fuses geopolitical diagnosis, institutional economics, and great-power strategic design into a single, coherent blueprint for Europe’s next fifteen years. Its central judgment is as cold as it is clear: American hegemony is entering a 15-to-20-year structural collapse—encompassing economic foundations, social cohesion, and military overextension—and if Europe continues to serve as a “blood bag” for the transatlantic system, it will become a pawn on the great-power chessboard by the 2040s, not a player.

The book weaves “strategic autonomy” and “mutually beneficial symbiosis” into a unified strategic logic. The author does not indulge in the fantasy of incremental reform within Brussels’ bureaucratic machinery. Instead, it designs an immediately executable “Franco-German dual-track architecture”: the full EU-27 provides institutional legitimacy and funding scale, while the E6 core group (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands) serves as the real strategic engine, leveraging Article 20 of the Treaty on Lisbon—“enhanced cooperation”—to bypass the unanimity trap that has paralyzed European action at every critical juncture.

What truly distinguishes this work from conventional EU studies is its complete strategic engineering across three continents.

The Russia dimension rejects the moralized prolongation of confrontation. It offers a rigorously phased, ten-year rapprochement roadmap: from political ice-breaking and high-level secret channels, to comprehensive agreement signing and staged sanctions relief, to deep institutional alignment between the EAEU and the EU Single Market, the reconstruction of the OSCE into a pan-European security body, and the construction of a euro-denominated energy settlement system. The ultimate objective is not appeasement, but a new security architecture “from the Atlantic to the Urals” that restores European energy security and strategic breathing room.

The Africa dimension abandons the charity logic of development aid in favor of industrial symbiosis and resource complementarity. Using the five North African countries as forward pivots, it maps the EU-Africa Industrial Corridor—European design and management, African production, European markets—across three implementation phases. It details the African Green Hydrogen Corridor as Europe’s future energy lifeline, and embeds human-capital bonds through European Partnership Universities and technical colleges that create a trans-Mediterranean professional network whose loyalty is structural, not sentimental.