Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
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Visions of Europe (3)
Europe 2034
1 January 2010Fokus Stockholm -
Diplomacy
A song for Europe, but what's the tune?
5 November 20091El País Madrid -
Central and Eastern Europe
Taking charge of our own security
24 September 2009Presseurop -
Democratisation
EU too soft on hardline regimes
14 September 2009PresseuropDer Tagesspiegel -
european parliament
Mr. Johnson goes to Brussels
8 September 20091The Daily Telegraph London -
European Union
European defence in 2020
3 August 2009PresseuropDie Presse -
European Union
Soft power no match for hard reality
27 July 20094El País Madrid -
Foreign policy
The trouble with Javier
15 July 20091Gazeta Wyborcza Warsaw
Swedish essayist Kjell Albin Abrahamsson imagines that in 25 years every European country will be in the EU – except Turkey. Armed with a common energy policy and, at long last, a single voice – the EU will take the helm in international diplomacy. 
The Lisbon Treaty provides for the establishment of a common diplomatic service for the EU 27 presided over by a “High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”. But the EU’s member states and various institutions have yet to figure out who’s to call the tune. 
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe feel betrayed by the Obama administration's decision to scrap plans for a missile defence shield. However, the European press argues that this disappointment should herald a rethink in military strategy. 
Aiming to create a more secure investment framework in the EU, the AIFM directive has raised fears in the City over its future as international financial centre. On a recent trip to Brussels to plead its cause, London’s mayor Boris Johnson discovered a futuristic city where, he argues, the real centre of power lies, much to the detriment of Westminster. 
While defence budgets have continued to rise in China, Russia, the United States and India, military spending in the EU has remained stagnant over the last ten years. For El País, Europe's global influence is now based on soft power, which cannot adequately replace the hard power of a real common defence policy. 
The EU's High Representative for foreign affairs has just announced that he will leave his post this autumn. Forever dependent on member states' goodwill, his record is a mixed one, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.