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EU/Europe

The EU/Europe Division analyses the core challenges of the European Union and Europe. It focuses on policy fields, processes and interests that shape the inward and outward activities of the European Union and its member states.

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The Research Division EU/Europe analyses the core challenges of the European Union and Europe. It focuses on policy fields, processes and interests that shape the inward and outward activities of the European Union and its member states. The research agenda reflects the relevance of the EU as the guiding framework for German politics.

The specific fields of research comprise the following:

The legal and socio-political foundations of the EU

  • Capacities and democratic legitimacy of European institutions, instruments and procedures
  • Necessities and options of reforming EU primary law
  • Differentiation and flexibility inside the EU and the relationship of member states inside and outside the Euro zone
  • Democratic legitimacy and the participation of the European Parliament and national parliaments in the EU
  • Populist, nationalist, and Eurosceptic parties in Europe
  • The EU as guiding framework for German politics

Decision-making, negotiations and implementation in central areas of EU politics

  • Developing the Economic and Monetary Union: Economic Governance and Social Europe
  • European financial constitution and the EU budget
  • European energy, climate and environmental policies
  • Justice and Home Affairs, including migration, asylum and border management policies
  • Trade and external economic policies of the EU, including development policies

EU Foreign and Security Policy

  • The EU as an international actor
  • Developments in CFSP and CSDP
  • Strategic action in civil and military EU missions and operations
  • The EU’s strategic partners
  • EU-US relations
  • European and transatlantic cyber security policies

EU Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy

  • Turkish domestic and foreign policy
  • EU accession negotiations with the Western Balkans and Turkey
  • The Cyprus conflict
  • Freedom media and expression in accession countries
  • The development of the European Neighbourhood Policy
  • Alternatives to EU membership and integration capacity of the EU

EU, domestic and economic policies of selected EU member states

  • France
  • Great Britain
  • Poland, Central Eastern and South-Eastern Europe
  • Northern European countries
  • Southern Europe