The future of the Constitutional Treaty is now very much in doubt. The blows received from the French and Dutch referenda in such rapid succession have made it difficult to imagine that the Treaty, at least in its current form, will ever enter into force. Inter alia, the Constitution promised to consolidate and extend the flagship of the Amsterdam Treaty – the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. This paper examines what the failure of the Constitutional Treaty would mean for this critical area explores what can be done to mitigate the negative effects?

This report assesses ways in which the Action Plan process that has been launched under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) could become a more effective driver of political and economic change in the Mashreq region (covering Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories), compared with the modest results from the Barcelona process to date. The development of the ENP has already provided a valuable systemic/institutional advance in Euro-Med relations and has been an important confidence-building measure in an increasingly uncertain political environment.

This paper examines the relationship between the institutional set-up of the EU policy-making process and the international actorness of the EU in two cases: the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the implementation details of the Kyoto Protocol.

In its discourse, the EU places democracy and the rule of law as number one. This paper examines the extent to which the EU is a coherent actor in pursuing this goal in practice, especially in its wider neighbourhood. Case studies are presented, covering much of the neighbourhood: Balkans, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, Maghreb and Israel-Palestine.

This paper makes the case for regionalism as a possible conceptual framework and policy instrument to address the challenges posed by Europe’s new, diverse neighbourhood. It explains why, where and how regionalism can emerge as a political practice and policy instrument that contributes to tackling the correlation between security and integration in the wider European space. A set of recommendations to develop regionalism is then proposed and applied to the emerging case of the Black Sea Region.

At a time when the development of a common EU immigration policy remains far from a reality, the integration of migrants has been placed at the very top of the EU agenda. In this report we critically assess what integration may involve at the EU and national levels. Although the Council has agreed on a set of common basic principles underlying a coherent European framework on integration, the bulk of directives so far adopted on regular migration have not followed the two-way approach, where both the state and the migrant have a role in successful integration.

Much of the EU’s foreign policy is in practice conducted through its bilateral contractual relations with third parties. These have taken different forms, ranging from the accession process to looser forms of association. Contractual ties are characterised by the delivery of specific benefits governed by mutual obligations, which can thus potentially transform the incentive structure underpinning conflicts within or between non-member states.

Over the decades, the EU’s declaratory diplomacy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict crystallised in its support for a two-state solution and the respect for human rights and international law. Yet a closer look at the EU’s relations with Israel and the Palestinian Authority highlights an increasing divergence between rhetorical goals and conduct in practice. This working paper shows how in the Middle East, the nature of the EU’s credibility problem stems neither from its inadequate instruments nor from its internal divisions.

Since the adoption of the current Consumer Credit Directive 87/102/EC in 1986, the EU consumer credit market has changed significantly in terms of size and structure. Although amendments were introduced in 1990 and 1999, the Directive no longer addresses the needs of the market. Cross-border lending in the EU has been estimated to be only 2 to 5% of total EU lending, partly owing to variations in the applicable legislation across member states.

The EU now faces an existential dilemma in the apparent choice to be made between over-extending the enlargement process to the point of destroying its own governability, versus denying one of its founding values to be open to all European democracies and possibly generating negative effects from the exclusion of countries in its neighbourhood. The newly emerging European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) seeks a way out of the dilemma.

Over the last few years, the EU’s discourse concerning border controls has presented a paradox – on the one hand, the EU promotes good neighbourly relations, while on the other hand it emphasises the need to strictly implement the Schengen acquis on border controls and visa regimes. The main underlying obstacle to a good and open partnership between the EU and the candidate states, and in turn between the enlarged EU and its neighbours, is a lack of trust towards the EU’s neighbours.

The pace of development of the justice and home affairs (JHA) acquis has been quite impressive, especially since the Amsterdam Treaty (and the new Title IV), which has offered a new legal basis and possibilities for progress in this area. After the entry into force of the Single European Act, the balance has been moving increasingly from national towards European Union solutions in JHA. At first the process was steady, but slow.

The purpose of this report is to assess the main challenges to the principle of free movement of persons in theory and practice in an enlarged European Union. The right to move freely represents one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market as well as an essential political element of the package of rights linked to the very status of EU citizenship.

Economic growth rates in the Gulf region have languished in recent years and need to be raised to accommodate the rapidly growing populations and social aspirations of the region. Using a simple model of world trade, this report investigates the economic impacts of the new customs union of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the GCC and European Union.