The European Union Global Strategy: What Role for Germany?
The crisis in Ukraine, international terrorism, the war in Syria and the migration crisis are all challenging the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy and shaping the definition of the new European Security Strategy which will shortly set the new parameters for the EU to act as a global actor. Each of these international crises has also forced Germany as the EU’s politically most relevant Member State to respond in a fashion atypical of its foreign policy identity since unification, showing leadership in place of previous reluctance, and a more active role in the international politics of the Euro-Atlantic order. What implications can this changed German role play vis-à-vis the new European Union Global Strategy? Will Berlin’s new role empower the EUGS or will Germany play a more decisive role in parallel to a reinforced European Security Strategy? How will this affect transatlantic relations and other partnerships the EU needs to forge to respond effectively to the growing foreign and security problems it encounters? The paper addresses this EU-Germany nexus and how Germany is adapting to a changed role when it comes to its contribution to European Foreign and Security Policy.
Patricia Daehnhardt . pvdaehnhardt@gmail.com
Portuguese Institute of International Relations – IPRI-UNL
Patricia Daehnhardt is a researcher at IPRI-UNL and Assistant Professor in International Relations at Lusíada University. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the author of “Russian foreign policy in the Euro-Atlantic area” (with M.R. Freire) (IUC, 2014) and ‘Germany, the EU and a transforming domestic political arena’, in C. Bretherton and M. Mannin, eds. Contemporary European Politics: Transition and Europeanization (Palgrave, 2013).