Project Overview

GEO-POWER-EU focuses on strengthening the security dimension of EU’s policies by producing evidence based up-to-date research output and policy recommendations. The project departs from the assumption that the enlargement and EaP policies have progressively reached a critical point, accentuated by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, which calls for major revisions in order to produce a well-informed strategy and additional reliable tools for policy making, such as scenarios, that can be used by policy makers. The goal of the project is improvement of the EU neighbourhood policy and accession process, thanks to a clear vision for the political agenda of the EU towards the EaP and the WB, based on a deep and nuanced analytical basis.

Conceptually, GEO-POWER-EU will link both the enlargement and EaP policies, two areas traditionally studied as two distinct political regions falling under different policy radars, in order to reflect the post-Russian invasion in Ukraine EU policy needs. Methodologically, the project will combine traditional quantitative and qualitative methods (desk research, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, case studies and a population survey in the WB and the Associated Trio), together with digital methods (Sentiment Analysis), a foresight exercise and scenario testing with a Serious Game, provisionally named ‘Strategum’. The deliverables also include the creation of three Indices, which will build a continuously updated ‘Interdependence Database’, which will become publicly available. The methods chosen will cover past, present and future policy analysis and impact.