In March 2020 EU governments unilaterally began closing state borders in an ad hoc reaction to the rapid spreading of SARS-CoV-2. Within a few days, one after the other announced that border crossings would be suspended until further notice. These executive decisions gave us pause: democratic governments are required to communicate and justify their decisions to maintain legitimacy.

In our recent JCMS article, we try to understand the EU’s pivot away from multilateralism and market-making towards OSA. Our starting point is the changing nature of Europe’s global context, and how this created an opening to challenge Europe’s embedded neoliberal compromise.

How can we explain the very uneven economic outcomes in EU member countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially considering that the shock was largely symmetric?

With the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, scholars of EU foreign policy have become increasingly interested in the relationship between populism and foreign policy. Yet, we still know little about what happens to foreign policy institutions when populist parties join governments.

Power politics is back with Russia and China challenging Western primacy in the arenas of international economy and politics, while threatening the Western-based liberal order. At the same time, Russia’s war on Ukraine has proven that countries across the global South are not bound to the West anymore. It became clear that these states reject […]

The Treaty of Rome in 1957 did not mention industrial policy as a designated Community competence but its preambles declared a high degree of competitiveness an overarching goal, which indirectly laid the basis for a supranational intervention. Industrial policy has been a key pillar in the gradual reconfiguration of several national markets into one giant single market at the outset but it vanished in name during the decades of neoliberal restructuring.

On 23 June 2022, the European Union granted Ukraine and Moldova the coveted status of EU Candidate countries. For both countries, the acquisition of an EU Candidate status amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine is of high geopolitical but also symbolic importance. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s and Moldova’s path to EU membership is likely to be thorny, as they have much “homework” to do.