The European Union considers conflict resolution as a cardinal objective of its foreign policy. It makes use of a number of policy instruments to promote conflict transformation through ‘constructive engagement’, which cover a range of sectors affecting conditions and incentives at the micro...

The paper describes and analyses the role of civil society in five conflict cases – Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Western Sahara and Israel/ Palestine. It evaluates the relative effectiveness of civil society organisations (CSOs) and assesses the potential and limits of CSO...

The conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, opposing Armenia and Azerbaijan, is the longest conflict in the OSCE area and a fundamental security threat to the South Caucasus and surrounding regions, preventing full and inclusive economic development and constraining regional relations. This chapter...

The protracted Western Sahara dispute, which has for over three decades pitted Morocco against the Sahrawi independentistas of the Polisario Front, epitomises the impotence of state-led conflict resolution efforts. The European Union (EU) has voluntarily remained withdrawn from the processes of...

With the formulation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2003-2004 and the signature of the EU-Moldova Action Plan in 2005, the EU became a more active player in Moldova, including on solving the Transnistrian conflict. This report sets out to analyze the EU’s engagement with local civil...

This paper deals with the role of the EU in supporting civil society in the case of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. It analyses the patterns of development of civil society actors that played a direct or indirect role in the development of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. In the case of Georgia the...

As is well known, the amount of aid given by international donors both to Israel and to the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt) is unparalleled in the world, but the fact that people can turn violent against their own CSOs trying to promote reconciliation speaks abundantly about the...

Within its own borders, the European Union (EU) is certainly a peace project. However, its external security and stability imperative does not make it a peacebuilding project in the neighbourhood and beyond by default. The official EU institutions have political and conceptual limitations that...