EUFOG application information

Supervised by Prof. Ana E. Juncos and Prof. Roberta Guerrina

Objectives: This project addresses the EU’s ambition for greater strategic autonomy in the context of rising great power conflict. It aims in particular to capture the political processes that resulted in the definition of this core objective, as well as to understand how these processes shaped the result, including any ambiguities in what ‘strategic autonomy’ might entail. The project will entail analyses of the preferences and perspectives held by a selection of actors (EU institutions, states and civil society organizations) of the form of interaction and of the any changes to patterns of cooperation and conflict on the notion of strategic autonomy.

Expected Results: Knowledge of how external power shifts affect internal policy making, focusing in particular on identifying changing alliances, as well as changes to the particular form of interaction. Knowledge of the extent and depth of change/continuity in actors’ perspectives on what should be the EU’s global role, and an understanding of the degree of conflict over what this role should be.

Supervised by Prof. And E. Juncos and Prof. Gabriel Siles-Brügge

Objectives: The EU’s new geoeconomic instruments represent a departure from deep-seated approaches by key EU actors to the issue of globalization, markets, rules and political discretion. This project identifies and accounts for (new) patterns of contestation within the EU (particularly within the European Commission and in the Parliament) over the new measures and instruments in the context of a geopolitical age in which economic cross-border processes are potentially part of great power competition. It also traces the existence and relevance of alliances with external actors; and it draws conclusions on the implications of any such changes for the EU’s international role.

Expected Results: 1) Knowledge of discourse coalitions contesting the EU’s new geoeconomic instruments within the Commission and the European Parliament; 2) Tracing changes over time in such coalitions, in terms of discourse and membership; 3) Mapping of relationships between such internal EU coalitions and external actors.

Supervised by Prof. Gabriel Siles-Brügge and Prof. Roberta Guerrina

Objectives: This project looks at the impact of the EU’s turn to unilateral trade and investment policy instruments on the international order. Is the EU contributing to politics and policies at the international level which are more geoeconomic and geopolitical in orientation? It also assesses the level of consistency between such instruments and a number of objectives the EU has set for itself, from strategic autonomy to sectoral objectives, in other foreign policy areas. Finally, the project evaluates the changing self-understandings of the EU as an international actor that stand behind the geoeconomic turn, and changing the perceptions of the EU amongst third countries and officials of international economic organizations.

Expected Results: 1) Comprehensive mapping of the position and role of trade and investment policy in the broader framework of EU foreign policy; 2) Identification of patterns of convergence and divergence vis-à-vis other international actors; 3) Assessment of the contribution of the EU to the geoeconomic turn in international policies and politics.