European Foreign Policy Scorecard 2015

The European Foreign Policy Scorecard provides a systematic assessment of Europe’s foreign policy performance, analysing the performance of the 28 member states and the EU institutions on 65 policy areas arranged around six key issue areas: Russia; United States; Wider Europe; Middle East and North Africa; Asia and China; Multilateral issues. See scores below.

The fifth annual edition was published in January 2015. The fifth edition of ECFR's Foreign Policy Scorecard examines EU's response to a year of crisis. Features by Julien Barnes-Dacey, Francisco de Borja Lasheras, Anthony Dworkin, Ellie Geranmayeh , François Godement, Andrew Hammond, Daniel Levy, Angela Stanzel, Andrew Wilson, Kadri Liik and, Mattia Toaldo.

In 2014 crisis came to, and crossed, Europe’s borders. To the east, Russia annexed Crimea and war broke out in eastern Ukraine. To the south, the self- proclaimed Islamic State made major advances across Syria and northern Iraq. Civil war continued in Syria, generating a refugee emergency on a horrifying scale, and began in Libya. The conflicts in the neighbourhood also resulted in an immigration catastrophe in the Mediterranean, as greater numbers tried to cross to its northern shores.

The fifth annual edition of ECFR’s groundbreaking ‘European Foreign Policy Scorecard’ examines the EU’s response to this situation in 2014. It assesses 65 individual aspects of European foreign policy in six key areas: relations with Russia, Wider Europe, Middle East/North Africa, China 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.

+ The end of the affair with Russia. This year, the illusion of partnership and cooperation with Russia came to an end, and power politics was back. The events of 2014 showed that the sceptics about Russia were right, and that the meaningless compromise phrases on which EU policy had been based over the last decade were just that: meaningless.

+ European foreign policy in 2014: Despite traditional divisions in relations with Russia, the EU pulled together around a strong sanctions policy, so we gave higher marks this year, particularly for unity. But everything else was secondary to dealing with the Russian threat in 2014, so, while improved unity brought up scores here and on the Eastern Partnership countries (especially Ukraine), the EU was less focussed in other regions such as MENA and the Western Balkans, and saw lower scores for outcomes. US and Asia and China were given similar scores to last year.

+ Germany is prominent, France moves away from EU centre stage, and the UK is incurably European. Germany dominated foreign policy decision making more than any other member state this year, across all regions. France’s trailblazer style continued in areas of strategic interest, such as CAR and tackling ISIS’ advance, but it did not show the leadership across the board, including on aid, that the UK and Sweden did. Counterintuitively, while talking big on Brexit this year, the UK was engaged as a leader at least once in every chapter except Asia.

EurActiv, 04.02.15: French international influence in decline http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/french-international-influence-decline-311796

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