Is the EU Foreign Policy Still Relevant?

Since the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU managed to have visible accomplishments in virtually all policy areas of the EU foreign policy. From the setting up of the EEAS, to the 2013 landmark deal between Belgrade and Pristina in the EU-facilitated dialogue, the contribution to the JCPOA, the conclusions of the 2014 new generation Association Agreements with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, the 2016 EU Global Strategy, PESCO, the CETA Agreement with Canada, the 2020 new Africa Strategy, the 2020 Strategic Partnership with ANSEAN,  not to mention that the EU Justice and Home Affairs increased role in counter-terrorism and in migration policies. However, whether that translated in a recognized role in world affairs is a different question. The EU is also tarnished by contradictions, for instance on human rights and democracy, holding them as founding principles, while its member states often forget them in their bilateral relations. If the EU gives up on its soft power, not having a true military power, it can only see its credibility and influence vane.

About the Speaker: Prof. Federiga Bindi is Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and at the University of Wyoming. She also teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a Ph.D. for the European University Institute and has published among others, three editions of The Foreign Policy of the European Union: Assessing Europe’s Role in the World (2022, 2012 and 2010);  Europe and America: The End of Transatlantic Relations? (2019) The Frontiers of Europe: A Transatlantic Problem? (2011); Italy and the EU (2011), and Analyzing European Union Politics (2012). Prof. Bindi has worked at several leading research institutions including the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins University, the Women’s Institute for Policy Research in Washington DC, Sciences Po in Paris, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, the University of Lisbon, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Dr. Bindi held several policy appointments in government, including serving Senior Advisor to Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, and Fellow in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Sen. John Kerry’s chairmanship. She also advised several international organizations including the European Commission, the Council of Europe, UNIDO and OAS and is currently advising the Nobel Prize Laureate AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) on European affairs. Prof. Bindi also headed the international affairs department at the Italian National School of Administration and served as director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels.

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