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NUPI skole

Research Project

Europe in transition – Small states and Europe in an age of global shifts

What is the significance of the EU for small states in Europe today?

Themes

  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • The EU

In this project we investigate how small states in general and Norway in particular balance between autonomy and integration.

We have studied how small states within and outside the EU responds to, adjusts, and adapts to the current European transition.

In the case of Norway, we have investigated how this plays out in both areas that are fully and partly covered by agreements with the EU (Internal market/EEA affairs, energy, foreign, security and defence) and in areas with no agreements with the EU (external trade and investments).

EUNOR is multi-disciplinary: involving economists, legal scholars and political scientists. It is a inter-institutional partnership between strong research milieus in Norway, and it is supported by a a strong international network of experts on small states and European integration.

The research is empirically based and theoretically informed, and it builds upon the research based Europe Review (2012). The project will deliver intellectually innovative research and provide relevant information to the public and well-grounded policy advice to decision makers.

The final conference for the project, titled Brexit and implications for the EU, EEA and Norway, was held on 30 October 2017. Click here for full programme.

See also the project's seminar series Norway meets Europe. Here you'll find earlier and upcoming NUPI events in the seminar series.

Publications from external project participants:

Project Manager

Pernille Rieker
Research Professor

Participants

Ulf Sverdrup
Former Director
Kristin Haugevik
Research Professor
Arne Melchior
Senior Research Fellow
Jakub M. Godzimirski
Research Professor
Nina Græger
Research Professor (part time)
Christophe Hillion
Former employee (part time)
Ole Gunnar Austvik
Former employee

Articles

News
News

NEW BOOK: What does France want with its foreign policy?

Hear the podcast from the book launch of Senior Research Fellow Pernille Rieker's new book.

  • Europe
  • The EU
News
News

New era for French exceptionalism?

France still has a deep desire to play a major international role. Will President Macron succeed? In her new book, Senior Research Fellow Pernille Rieker takes a closer look at French foreign policy.

  • Europe
  • Governance
  • International organizations
  • The EU
Bildet viser Vladimir Putin og Emmanuel Macron i Versailles.
News
News

Norway: Small state in big energy politics

Should energy policies serve the nation, or the European community?

 

  • Trade
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Energy
  • The EU
Bildet viser grafittikunst

New publications

Publications
Publications
Book

New Political Economy of Energy in Europe. Power to Project, Power to Adapt

This edited collection details and analyses the dramatic changes that the international political economy of energy has undergone in the past decade. This change began with the increasing assertiveness of Russia when the oil price rose above the $100 mark in 2008. This, combined with the rise of shale oil and gas, made the USA all but self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels. The collapse of the oil price in 2014-15, Saudi Arabia’s new strategy of defending its market share and the increasingly tense and controversial relationship between the West and Russia all worked to further strengthen the geopolitical dimension of energy in Europe. The global result is a world in which geopolitics play a bigger part than ever before; the central question the authors of this volume grapple with is how the EU – and European small states – can deal with this.

  • International economics
  • Trade
  • Europe
  • Energy
  • The EU
  • International economics
  • Trade
  • Europe
  • Energy
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Autonomy or integration? Small-state responses to a changing European security landscape

Is there a pattern in how small European states, inside and outside of the EU, adapt and adjust to EU foreign and security policy? This article introduces a Forum in Global Affairs, discussing how small states are responding to a changing European security landscape. We assess selected European small states’ room for manoeuvre within various fields under the EU external action, and within EU institutional structures more broadly – as part of everyday diplomatic interactions in Brussels and in the context of the rotating EU presidency. As the European integration process enters a new phase, possibly marked by a trend of more differentiated integration and flexibility of individual attachments, small states will continue to face the choice between formal autonomy and integration, and between de facto hesitance and adaptability. With Brexit, the remaining large member states may become more influential, but small states will collectively have a majority of the votes and total population. Perhaps the coming era of European integration will become the era of small states?

  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • International organizations
  • The EU
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • International organizations
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Diplomacy through the back door: Norway and the bilateral route to EU decision-making

This article examines how Norway, a veteran EU outsider by choice, works on a day-to-day basis to compensate for its lack of formal voice in EU institutions. After Norwegian voters' second rejection of EU membership in a national referendum in 1994, Prime Minister Brundtland observed that Norway now must be prepared to use “the back door” to reach EU policy-makers. I suggest that for Norway, a key alternative route to the EU decision-making table has gone through bilateral partnerships. I identify two chief variants of this bilateral trajectory, what I term long-term and rotating bilateralism. Firstly, Norway has pursued long-term ties with selected bilateral partners within the EU system. Secondly, it has systematically strengthened its diplomatic presence in the member state holding or about to take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council. I conclude with some reflections on the relevance of Norway's “bilateral experience” for Britain, as a future EU outsider.

  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • The EU
  • Diplomacy
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Book

French Foreign Policy in a Changing World. Practising Grandeur

This book investigates how modern French foreign policy is practiced. France finds its traditional power status challenged by internal as well as external developments. Internally, it faces societal challenges related to unemployment, integration, social exclusion, Islamist terrorism and the rise of populism. Externally, its status is challenged by global and regional developments – including the financial crises, competition from emerging states, EU enlargement and a more powerful Germany. While the French recognise that they no longer have great-power economic or military power capacities, the conviction of the universal value of French civilization and culture remains strong. As this book argues, for France to be able to punch above its weight in international politics, it must effectively promote the value of ‘French universalism’ and culture. This study investigates how this is reflected in modern French foreign policy by examining foreign policy practices towards selected regions/countries and in relation to external and internal security. Written by a senior researcher specializing in French and EU foreign and security policy, this book will be an invaluable resource for practitioners of foreign policy and students of French politics, international relations and European studies.

  • Europe
  • The EU
  • Europe
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Report

The UK withdrawal from the EU - Legal implications for Norway as party to the EEA Agreement

By leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom withdraws from all EU international commitments. The disentanglement of the UK from the EU, Brexit, will thus affect third states and organisations with which the EU entertains relations. Norway will be no exception, particularly in view of the many agreements the country has concluded with the EU, covering a wide range of areas and entailing a high degree of integration with the Union’s legal order, the EEA being the most important of these agreements.

  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • The EU
  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Report

Surviving Brexit: twelve lessons from Norway

One year after the referendum, after losing its majority in the general election, the UK government is revising what Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson famously labelled the ‘Cake-and-Eat-It’ approach to Brexit. In this context, it might be worth asking if there is anything the UK can learn from Norway’s quarter of a century experience as a ‘quasimember’ of the European Union.

  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • International organizations
  • The EU
  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • International organizations
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Book

External Governance as Security Community Building. The Limits and Potential of the European Neighbourhood Policy / Pernille Rieker, redaktør

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was initially intended to create ‘a ring of friends surrounding the Union, from Morocco to Russia and the Black Sea’ (Prodi, 2002). Today, however, the ever-worsening security situation in the region clearly shows that the aim has not been achieved. With wars in Ukraine, Syria and Libya, the Union’s neighbourhood can therefore better be described as ‘a ring of fire’. Does this means that the policy has failed and that an alternative policy towards the EU’s neighbours is needed? Or should these developments be seen as temporary setbacks caused by external factors beyond EU control? By comparing the EU’s approach to its eastern and southern neighbours, this volume seeks to answer such overarching questions. The authors find that the EU still has a potential role to play in providing regional security, but that this role also risks being increasingly undermined if it does not increasingly take into account the broader geostrategic realities in both regions.

Publications
Publications
Report

Nord Stream 2: policy dilemmas and the future of EU gas market

The Nord Stream 2 (NS2) gas pipeline project is one of the most controversial issues in EU gas-related debates today. Its proponents hold that the project is driven by purely commercial considerations, while opponents label it as political and contradictory to EU goals and rules. The project has also contributed to raising several questions concerning the role of commercial actors in the shaping and realization of the EU energy policy as well as the impact on EU internal cohesion and relations with Ukraine and Russia. Realization of NS2 may boost the role of Russian gas in the European energy mix, especially in northwestern Europe; however, it could also undermine the credibility of the common EU energy policy, which aims, at least formally, at diversification of supply routes and suppliers as a joint and coordinated response to the energy-security challenges faced by the EU as a whole and by its member states. This Policy Brief sheds light on the current state of the debate on this project and examines the possible short-, mid- and long-term implications.

  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • Energy
  • The EU
  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • Energy
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Report

New Momentum for European Defence Cooperation

For better or for worse, the politics of Brexit, in combination with the implementation of the new EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy, have generated renewed momentum for European defence cooperation. EU member states have tabled a range of proposals. Some consolidation will be necessary, especially if effective defence integration is the aim – and that is the way to overcome current fragmentation. National forces can cooperate and be made interoperable with other forces in various formats simultaneously, but they can be integrated only once. Two levels of defence cooperation and integration must be addressed. At the level of the EU as such, and using EU incentives such as Commission funding for R&T, largescale projects for the development and acquisition of strategic enablers can be mounted, with the European Defence Agency acting as manager. At the level of state clusters, large deployable multinational formations can be created (such as army corps and air wings), with fully integrated maintenance, logistics and other structures in support of the national manoeuvre units that each participant can contribute. By pooling all-too-limited national military sovereignty in this way, defence cooperation and integration can revive sovereignty, understood as the capacity for action, at a higher level.

  • Security policy
  • Europe
  • Security policy
  • Europe
Publications
Publications
Report

European Integration Reset: Lessons from Brexit, Norway, and Eastern Europe

Given the severity and length of the Great Recession, whether or not Europe needs more or less integration is a much less consequential discussion than that Europe needs better and more effective integration. In this policy brief, we argue that taking stock of the integration experience may be the key to support the search for novel and more effective policy initiatives, resume growth and leave the current crisis behind. The brief presents three historical examples that illustrate the power deep integration has had in propelling the European project. The first demonstrates how deep integration contributed significantly to stop the relative economic decline of the United Kingdom (UK) vis-à-vis the EU founding members. We suggest EU membership played a greater role in this respect than Thatcher’s reforms. The second example displays how deep integration drove increases in labor productivity in Sweden, Austria and Finland (which gained unrestricted access to the Single Market by joining the European Economic Area, EEA, in 1994 and later the EU in 1995) compared to similar developments in Norway (which joined only the EEA in 1994). The third example draws from the experience of the Central European new member members to illustrate that a crucial (yet less appreciated than trade openness, foreign investment and migration) mechanism to these advancements has been the ability of deep integration to increase State capacity and hence to shore up positive institutional change.

  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • The EU
  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Energy in the neighborhood: Russian and EU perspectives and policies

Project: Mapping Polish and Norwegian perspective on regional integration in Eastern Europe

Publications
  • Europe
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

The EEA and Norway Grants: A Source of Soft Power?

  • International economics
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • International organizations
  • The EU
  • International economics
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • International organizations
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Chapter

The Expert-Executive Nexus in the European Administrative System: Expert Groups and the European Commission

Drawing on research from the administrative sciences and using organizational, institutional and decision-making theories, this volume examines the emerging bureaucratic framework of the EU and highlights that analyzing the patterns and dynamics of the EU's administrative capacities is essential to understand how it shapes European public policy.

  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • The EU
  • Regional integration
  • Europe
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Chapter

EU som handelspolitisk aktør

  • Trade
  • The EU
  • Trade
  • The EU
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Ledestjernen som forsvant: Storbritannia i norsk utenrikspolitikk

  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Diplomati på europeisk

  • Diplomacy
  • Europe
  • Diplomacy
  • Europe
Publications
Publications
Scientific article

Internasjonale handelsavtaler 2015 : trender og utfordringer

  • International economics
  • Trade
  • International economics
  • Trade
Publications
  • International economics
Publications
  • Energy
Publications
Publications
Report

Iceland’s Relations with its Regional Powers: Alignment with the EU-US sanctions

The paper examines the Icelandic government’s consideration to withdraw its support for the sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2015. The consideration came as a surprise to many since Iceland in the past has habitually aligned itself closely with the United States and the European Union in such matters. The Icelandic fishing industry lobbied hard for the sanctions to be lifted to avoid Russian counter-sanctions on Iceland. After considerable internal debate, the government decided to uphold the sanctions, but settled on a policy of not taking part in EU´s foreign policy declarations about the sanctions. This move is interesting given Iceland’s traditional positioning between two gravitational centres in world politics: the EU and the US. The paper discusses what this case tells us about Icelandic policymakers’ room for maneuvering in the formulation and enactment of its foreign policy, and about Iceland’s foreign policy bonds to the US and the EU.

  • Security policy
  • Regional integration
  • Russia and Eurasia
  • The EU
  • Security policy
  • Regional integration
  • Russia and Eurasia
  • The EU

Themes

  • Regional integration
  • Foreign policy
  • Europe
  • The EU

Project Manager

Pernille Rieker
Research Professor

Participants

Ulf Sverdrup
Former Director
Kristin Haugevik
Research Professor
Arne Melchior
Senior Research Fellow
Jakub M. Godzimirski
Research Professor
Nina Græger
Research Professor (part time)
Christophe Hillion
Former employee (part time)
Ole Gunnar Austvik
Former employee