Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has ended the post-Cold War European security order, creating new realities in countries neighbouring the EU and shattering illusions in several member states about the Kremlin’s true intentions in wider Europe. By granting candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, the EU has rejected a Russian sphere of influence and instead determined where its future borders should lie. But this decision has not yet led to policies tailored to effectively respond to a geopolitical context which also sees China and other state actors competing for influence. REUNIR’s ultimate objective is to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to strengthen the foreign policy arsenal of the EU to support the countries of the Eastern neighbourhood and Western Balkans to withstand malign foreign influencing and stay the course on the European integration track.
REUNIR, a project with 12 partners from across Europe, examines how the EU can strengthen its foreign and security toolboxes to bolster the resilience and transformation of (potential) candidate countries in a new age of international relations. REUNIR’s foresight approach takes the fundamental uncertainty and openness of alternative futures seriously. Adding the effects of ‘protean power’ unleashed in unforeseen circumstances to a multi-disciplinary approach to the research of the EU’s ‘control power’ in relations with strategic rivals, REUNIR empirically assesses foreign threats to the military, socio-economic and democratic resilience of 9 neighbouring countries, determines capability shortfalls, maps local perceptions of the EU’s support and political perspectives inside the EU on neighbourhood relations.
CEPS as coordinator of the project will lead WP1 on Coordination, data management and ethical framework, and WP4 on Political exploitation of socio-economic interdependencies: threats and resilience. CEPS will contribute to all other work packages.
More information here.
