Professor Tobias SCHUMACHER, Chairholder of the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe, just published a chapter entitled "Nahost- und Mittelmeerpolitik" in: Werner WEIDENFELD, Wolfgang WESSELS (eds.), Jahrbuch der Europäischen Integration 2014, Baden-Baden, NOMOS, 2014, pp. 321-329.
The chapter offers a critical overview of the EU’s engagement in its southern neighbourhood during 2013-14, in particular as far as electoral processes, political transition, state-building, and conflict resolution are concerned.
It argues that, in spite of the fact that the Lisbon Treaty has equipped the EU with considerable competences and foreign policy instruments which, once applied in a consequent and united fashion, do have the potential to influence processes of transition, it has during 2013-14 failed once more to translate its discursive power into result-oriented, coherent and sustainable foreign policy action.