European Foreign Policy Scorecard 2014

ECFR’s European Foreign Policy Scorecard is an innovative research project that provides a systematic annual assessment of Europe’s performance in dealing with the rest of the world.

The fourth annual edition of ECFR’s ‘European Foreign Policy Scorecard’ examined 66 individual aspects of European foreign policy in six key areas: relations with the US, China, Russia, Wider Europe, Middle East/North Africa and Europe's performance in multilateral institutions and in crisis management. The authors also award grades for overall performance and label individual countries 'Leaders' or 'Slackers' depending on whether they lead or hinder Europe’s ability to achieve its interests on particular goals.

In 2014 the Scoreboard says that foreign policy was back on Europe's agenda. Two high-profile foreign policy successes - on Kosovo and Iran - were a powerful illustration of how Europe could achieve remarkable results when member states and EU institutions worked hand in hand. Both of those achievements were the result of a long process that began years ago.

The 2014 edition of ECFR's Scorecard also showed- apart from those successes – that Europe struggled to stabilise its own neighbourhood: The crisis in Syria worsened, the EU's neighbourhood policy remained ineffective in countries such as Egypt, and Europe found itself increasingly at odds with Russia.