Reinvigorating the EU-NATO Partnership
Project description
The EU and NATO exist in a symbiotic relationship: they represent the two side of the coin of European integration, namely economic integration and security cooperation. One would arguably not exist without the other: socio-economic integration requires geopolitical pacification that only the transatlantic link can provide, whereas sufficient European security investment requires economic dynamism than only deep institutional integration can enable. Yet despite much policy rhetoric, practical EU-NATO cooperation has remained limited due to the asymmetry in membership and longstanding policy issues. At the same time, the need for policy complementarity between both organisations in a new era of great power rivalry has markedly increased. Projects could explore these changing circumstances by analysing relevant processes of convergence (such as threat assessments, defence planning processes and defence-industrial consolidation) and/or comparing different instruments of influencing and stabilising the wider European neighbourhood (including countering hybrid interference and geo- economic statecraft).
About the research Group
Institute for European Studies
The Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is an academic Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and a policy think tank that focuses on the European Union in an international setting. The Institute advances academic education and research in various disciplines, and provides services to policy-makers, scholars, stakeholders and the general public.
The IES specifically explores EU institutions, policies and law within the context of globalization and global governance, including a focus on the EU in international affairs and institutions. The disciplines applied at the IES include law, social/political sciences, economics and communication sciences, and the Institute’s activities focus on the various ways in which institutions, law and politics intersect with each other in the EU, its member states and at the international level.
Academic work at the IES is organised in clusters, but is also pursued through horizontal activities cutting across them. Currently, there are the following five clusters:
- International Security
- Environment and sustainable development
- Migration, diversity and justice
- European economic governance
- Educational Development