The Arctic is at a geopolitical crossroads. Russia's war on Ukraine has paralysed the Arctic Council, Trump's ambitions over Greenland are fracturing transatlantic trust, and the climate crisis risks being pushed off the political agenda. As the region's governance vacuum deepens, the EU faces a pivotal choice: seize the moment or be sidelined. This policy paper sets out how the EU can build a credible, legitimate role in a rapidly shifting Arctic.
Europe is more present in the Indo-Pacific than most people realise, and far less coordinated than it needs to be. A new dataset of 1,077 cooperation entries, spanning EU institutions and all 27 Member States, reveals that European security engagement in the region has accelerated sharply since 2021. But activity across defence industry, military deployments, and institutional frameworks remains fragmented, duplicated, and largely invisible at EU level. In this Böll EU Brief, Jacob Mardell maps the coordination deficit, and sets out six concrete steps to close it.
It is near consensual among Europeans that they need to strengthen the ‘European pillar in NATO’. This study traces the evolution of the concept of the European pillar, delineates potential meaning, and spells out what it would take to operationalize it.
At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 – including 1.5% for resilience and security-related investment. Yet what counts towards this 1.5% remains unclear. As European governments face mounting fiscal pressure, funds must be spent wisely. Strategic investment in infrastructure, rail, clean energy, resilient supply chains and nature restoration could reinforce deterrence, strengthen economic competitiveness and address climate and biodiversity risks in tandem.
As the relationship with the U.S. government is fundamentally shifting, Germany faces a critical choice between deepening transatlantic defense procurement or seizing the moment to build out Europe's defense-tech ecosystem.
This policy brief explores the long-standing divergences in Europe and India’s approach to multilateral governance—rooted in historical experience and interest-based considerations—to better understand the current moment and identify arenas of promise
