Recent Publications

Despite the historic U.S.-North Korea summit in June, little progress was made on denuclearizing North Korea due to the clash between the U.S. and North Korea on the formula of denuclearization. Both sides are demanding the other to do its work upfront. Due to the inability to resolve this dilemma, North Korea’s nuclear problem has gotten worse during the last three decades. In order to make a breakthrough, North Korea needs to come to the table as soon as possible recognizing that the political momentum for a negotiated solution in the U.S. may not last long due to President Trump’s domestic problems. The U.S. needs to take a more pragmatic approach. While keeping the pressure with economic sanctions, it needs to take concrete measures of political engagement toward North Korea. This would contribute significantly to raising mutual trust and providing a more favorable political environment for negotiating a solution.

This study seeks to explore the possible developments facing the EU and its role of leadership in a global science diplomacy. Engaging in a foresight analysis, its aim is to provide a reflection on future scenarios and how EU action could influence and operate within them.  The emergence of a clear EU science diplomacy is faced with challenges which are both of a conceptual and material nature. On the one hand, the term remains subject to different interpretations and uses, and its value as a label for science cooperation initiatives is still unclear. On the other hand, unprecedented challenges like climate change require concerted science-based solutions. These seem increasingly harder to achieve in contexts where populist movements discredit scientific evidence as a basis for policy making or where scientific and technological progress is read in a purely competitive way. Within the EU, lack of support for further integration in domains that are not yet communitarised and distance between policy makers and the scientific community risk to nip EU science diplomacy in the bud.

Chantal Lavallée (2018): “The EU’s Dual-Use Exports: A Human Security Approach?”, p. 43-50. in “Guns, engines and turbines”, EU Institute for Security Studies.

Guns, engines and turbines

ABSTRACT

Considering arms trade an integral part of the EU’s foreign policy toolbox, what is the status of security cooperation between Europe and Asia? Who exactly benefits from European military technology and know-how and how does that affect the overall strategic balance in the region? And how might the EU coordinate its policies to best secure its strategic interests in Asia?

This Chaillot Paper sheds light on the new security dynamics in EU-Asia relations from the ‘hard security’ perspective. By looking at the burgeoning arms trade, dual-use technology transfers, and the emerging connections between new defence markets, it challenges the conventional perception of Europe as a ‘soft’ security actor on the global stage and in Asia in particular. It also shows how the debate on European arms sales highlights the discrepancy between a values-based foreign and security policy discourse at the EU level on the one hand and the economic interests and activities of its member states on the other.

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The prevention of violent radicalisation as part of counter-terrorism measures is a top priority of the European Union and national security agendas. In 2015 Belgium introduced promising reforms in countering radicalisation and terrorism that aimed at connecting not only intelligence, security and police services across different policy levels but also the multitude of other stakeholders representing the government and civil society. However, the implementation and further development of the Belgian approach to prevention of radicalisation remain contested in political and public debate. This stands to reason because there is a lack of empirical data and a certain disregard of the voices of first-line practitioners who develop and operate preventive measures on the ground. Taking this into account, this IES policy brief provides a critical overview of the current state of Belgium’s counter-radicalisation policy through the prism of analysis of stakeholders’ vision of the present challenges:  the conceptualisation of radicalisation in theory and practise, inter-agency and multi-stakeholder collaboration, and the evidence-based evaluation of interventions.

The analysis of divergences and imbalances in the EMU suggests that failure to reduce inflation rate differentials in a monetary union may lead to increasing economic and political tensions and has indeed done so. However, it is also true that a top-down coordination of national policies for implementing structural policies in order to pursue that reduction would raise issues of democratic legitimacy. This epitomises the existential challenges that the EU faces nowadays.

Recent years have seen an interesting development in practices and policies of nation branding. Alongside an emphasis in which nation branding programmes seek to activate desires of conspicuous consumption in consumers, or to use branded messages to attract investment, there has also been a growing emphasis placed on policy transfer as a part of nation branding strategies. To date, this shift towards the incorporation of policy transfer within nation branding practices had received only limited analysis. Questions that arise, therefore, include: why are countries increasingly shifting their nation branding programmes in this direction? What do they seek to gain by engaging in such exports? And should we take the ostensibly beneficent nature of such practices at face value? The aim of this working paper is therefore to consider what the shift to policy transfer may tell us about the developing politics of nation branding.

This policy paper aims to contribute practical insights and recommendations to the intense debate on engagement of stakeholders in the European Union’s trade policy. The EU is currently facing increasing demand for a constructive dialogue with stakeholders on trade. In response, several new measures are being implemented or planned at the moment. These ‘policy windows’ allow for certain short-term as well as longer-term policy adjustments.

The strategic partnership between the EU and the ROK is strong and solid. It is yet to reach its full potential though. This is understandable, considering that relations were only upgraded to a fully-fledged strategic partnership in 2010 and that the agreements covering the political and security pillars only entered into force in 2014 and 2016, respectively. In this report we identify, however, nine areas in which cooperation between the ROK and the EU could and, we believe, should be strengthened in the near future to help safeguard both parties’ interests at the global level.​