By combining bottom–up perspectives with an institutional approach, EUNPACK will increase our understanding of how EU crisis responses function and are received on the ground in crisis areas.
This entails exploring local agencies and perceptions in target countries without losing sight of the EU’s institutions and their expectations and ambitions. It also entails examining the whole cycle of crisis, from pre-crisis, through crisis, and into post-crisis phase.
EUNPACK analyses two gaps in EU crisis response. First, the intentions–implementation gap, which relates to 1) the capacity to make decisions and respond with one voice and to deploy the necessary resources, 2) how these responses are implemented on the ground by various EU institutions and member states, and 3) how other actors – local and international – enhance or undermine the EU’s activities. Second, the project addresses the gap between the implementation of EU policies and approaches, and how these policies and approaches are received and perceived in target countries, what we refer to as the implementation–local reception/perceptions gap.
Our main hypothesis is that the severity of the two gaps is a decisive factor for the EU’s impacts on crisis management and thereby its ability to contribute more effectively to problem-solving on the ground. We analyse these gaps through cases that reflect the variation of EU crisis responses in three concentric areas surrounding the EU: the enlargement area (Kosovo, Serbia), the neighbourhood area (Ukraine, Libya), and the extended neighbourhood (Mali, Iraq, Afghanistan).
The results of our research will enable us to present policy recommendations fine-tuned to make the EU’s crisis response mechanisms more conflict and context sensitive, and thereby more efficient and sustainable.
See more information on the project's home page.
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Researchers within and beyond Europe have been studying the EU's approach to conflict and crises. Here's what they found out.
Conflict sensitivity in focus as the three-year NUPI-led research project on the EU’s crisis response (EUNPACK) organised a final conference in Brussels in March.
Engaging in ongoing conflicts brings with it a set of extraordinary challenges.
Ivan Krastev reflects on the crises that has shaped the EU for the past decades.
That was the topic for the project EUNPACK's contribution to the MERI Forum 2018.
How does the EU respond to crises? This is the key question posed by a group of NUPI researchers who have succeeded in the competition for funding within the world’s largest research programme.
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Manchester University (UK)
FUB (Germany)
CEPS (Belgium)
Comenius (Slovakia)
Sant’Anna (Italy)
DCSP (Serbia)
KCSS (Kosovo)
JMCK (Ukraine)
IRMC (Tunisia)
ARGA (Mali)
MERI (Iraq/Kurdistan)
Ivan Krastev reflects on the future of the EU, and whether the union is ready to handle major challenges such as migration, the spread of right-wing populism, and instability in the east.
A four-year long project is ending, and on 18-19 March the final conference for EUNPACK will take place in Brussels.
Marking the end of the EUNPACK project, experts will discuss whether the EU’s crisis response in the Middle East and Sahel has been helpful or counterproductive.
In recent years, the EU has faced several major challenges. Experts meet in Brussels for a roundtable discussion on what tools the Union has to solve these, and what role it can play in the time to come.