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Transnational challenges

There is a growing overlap between the EU’s internal and external security problems. Terrorism, organised crime and unregulated migration not only pose a threat to European internal security, but also have a serious impact on the stability of Europe’s immediate neighbourhood. Very often, they find their roots in conflicts and instability further abroad in Africa or Asia.

For some time, the European Union has been active in international debates on the governance of these challenges, and has created new policy instruments of its own. Already in the early 1990s, the EU successfully linked its home-affairs priorities with its Common Foreign and Security Policy. The 2015 migration crisis showed the limits of that approach, and has sparked a new wave of reforms.

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  • 12January 2016
    Climate change and European foreign policy after COP21

    This conference brought together European policy experts to review the COP21 climate conference in Paris, and to discuss the integration of climate change into the EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS).

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    10December 2015
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    20 years on: rethinking Schengen

    Given the radically altered international environment, how can the EU best adapt its border regime? This Brief shows how it will require an innovative response, rather than replicating at an EU level the classical attributes of a national model.

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    10December 2015
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    The climate-energy nexus

    How could the EU help bridge the gap between energy and climate policies? This Alert argues that by doing so there is an opportunity to both improve European energy security in the long term and to make European climate diplomacy more effective.

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    04December 2015
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    The IPCR arrangements: a joined-up approach in crisis response?

    This Brief examines the first use of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) arrangements in response to the refugee crisis in Europe. How do they work? Can this new instrument foster a real joined-up approach to EU crisis response?

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    04December 2015
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    Migration and terrorism: the new frontiers for European solidarity

    Member states have twice come close to activating the EU’s ‘solidarity clause’, and both cases have involved an internal security crisis with roots outside the Union. But will EU member states only properly support each other if they also feel able to eliminate the root causes overseas?

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    27November 2015
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    Climate change as a 'wicked problem'

    Climate change is a 'wicked problem' and efforts to address it have been slow, uneven, and politically divisive. But building on the lessons of past debacles, diplomats and negotiators have begun to apply a series of elements, useful for addressing wicked problems, that have changed climate diplomacy for the better.

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    27November 2015
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    Gender balancing in CSDP

    How successful has the EU been in implementing gender mainstreaming and achieving gender balance in its CSDP missions and operations?

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    27November 2015
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    Climate and power: ending the oil age?

    While necessary for the climate, working through the costs and benefits of going green is an economic challenge with strategic implications. What factors will influence national efforts, and international negotiations, to cut out carbon? This Brief looks into the geopolitics of adjusting to a post-oil age.

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    17November 2015
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    After Paris: why ISIL is (also) a cult

    Following the horrific attacks in Paris, this Alert shows how ISIL is, in fact, a cult: an authoritarian organisation which brainwashes its members to the point where mass murder and self-annihilation become not only logical, but desirable.

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    13November 2015
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    A global climate deal – if not now, then when?

    Two weeks ahead of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, the international community appears to be on the cusp of clinching a global deal on mitigating climate change. This Alert takes a fresh look at the state of play of the negotiations.

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    17June 2015
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    Arctic security matters

    The Arctic region is currently undergoing major and rapid transformation, both environmentally and economically. This report, the outcome of a EUISS Task Force, examines how these changes carry significant political implications, and highlights the new security challenges that are emerging in the region.

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    15June 2015
    Women & Armed Conflicts and the issue of Sexual Violence

    This report derives from a colloquium on the theme of ‘Women & War’ organised jointly by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) which took place on 30 September 2014 in Brussels. The proceedings of this colloquium have been written by the speakers or by the Delegation of the ICRC in Brussels on the basis of audio recordings of the event.

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    05June 2015
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    The threat of state-sponsored industrial espionage

    Industrial espionage – i.e. the theft of trade secrets, intellectual property, and scientific know-how from enterprises and research centres – is on the rise worldwide. This Alert assesses state-sponsored industrial espionage in peacetime, and seeks to highlight the threat it poses to national and economic security.

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    24April 2015
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    The EU and the NPT: drawing lines

    45 years after its inception, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) faces old and new challenges. This Brief surveys recent developments ahead of the 2015 Review Conference of the Treaty. As a microcosm of the regime, the European Union is uniquely positioned to bridge the NPT’s main divides.

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    15April 2015
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    A new climate for peace

    This independent report commissioned by members of the G7, identifies seven compound climate-fragility risks that pose serious threats to the stability of states and societies in the decades ahead. Based on an assessment of existing policies on climate change adaptation, development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding, the report recommends that the G7 take concrete action to tackle climate-fragility risks and increase the resilience of states and societies to them.

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    13March 2015
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    Asia: disasters as opportunities?

    What progress has been made in Asia with regard to Search and Rescue (SAR) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations since the aviation disasters of last year? Can anything positive emerge from the tragedies?

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    13March 2015
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    Arctic matters: in from the cold?

    With the next summit of the Arctic Council expected to deal with the EU’s pending application to become a recognised observer in the organisation, this Alert takes a look at the cooperation efforts – and tensions – in the far north.

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    30January 2015
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    Cyber jihadists and their web

    This Brief explains how the internet has increasingly become a tool for extremists to recruit new members, raise funds, and conduct new types of attacks. What can be done to stop the rise of cyber jihadism?

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    30January 2015
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    State-sponsored hackers: hybrid armies?

    With the virtual and physical worlds becoming ever more blurred, and the links between such hacker collectives and governments still unclear, is it still possible to set rules for governing cyberspace?

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    16January 2015
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    Can ISIL be copied?

    The first EUISS Brief of 2015 explores the possibility of other jihadi groups evolving along the lines of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). What explains the organisation’s spectacular rise? And what elements are required for other groups to replicate ISIL’s achievements?

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