The League of Arab States, a grouping of 22 Arab states established in 1945, has the potential to become the most important regional organisation in the greater Middle East. The changes triggered by the Arab Spring have led to the reorientation of the League's traditionally conservative policies...

This briefing analyses the reasons for the review of the European Commission’s Country Strategy Paper 2007-13 (CSP) and the National Indicative Programme (NIP) for Ukraine and the substance and impact of changes. The changes are evaluated against the background of the political, economic and...

With the “Agreement of Geneva” the dispute about the banana imports over 15 years seems to come to an end. The liberalisation caused by this agreement will have a substantial impact on the international banana market. In order to estimate the possible effects and measures to be implemented...

Health policy has traditionally been an area governed principally by the law of individual member states. There is a general consensus among the member states and also the European Union (EU) institutions that this should not fundamentally change in the future. Despite a general acceptance of...

The ad hoc briefing paper Preventing violent radicalisation and terrorist recruitment in the EU - The threat to Europe by radical Islamic terrorist groups provides an original analysis and evaluation of the different strategies that are meant to deal with such phenomena, as well as their...

This briefing paper will focus in particular upon: the concept and architecture of the Entry/Exit system and how it could be embedded in the current EU framework; what would be if any the synergies with the other databases, especially VIS; and the similarities and differences with the US-VISIT...

On 13 February 2008, the European Commission tabled a border package, consisting of three communications 1. dealing with the issue of EU external border management. Two of these documents, namely the communication on the evaluation and future development of Frontex 2. and the communication on...

The deployment of EU Election Observation Missions (EOMs) has become a standard intervention of EU foreign policy over the last eight years. Since 2000, more than 50 EU EOMs have been deployed to Africa, the Middle East, Latin-America and Asia. The methodology of EU EOMs is being consolidated in...