Search on Ifri.org

Frequent searches

Suggestions

Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters

External Publications
|
Date de publication
|
Image de couverture de la publication
couv_simon_pertusot_making_sense_europe_southern_neighbourhood.png
Accroche

Europe’s southern neighbourhood is a diverse but interlinked geopolitical ensemble, whose specificities need to be carefully assessed before Europeans devise dedicated security strategies, divide responsibilities and make policy decisions.

Corps analyses

This exercise in geopolitical scoping seeks to make sense of the main security challenges present in Europe’s broader European neighbourhood, a space encompassing areas as diverse as the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahel, North Africa, the Levant and the Persian Gulf. It identifies (some of) the main sub-regions that make up the ‘South’, offers an overview of the threat environment in each of them and identifies relevant differences as well as common themes. In doing so we aim to provide a conceptual referent for further policy research on the security of Europe’s ‘South’, and to help inform future strategic and policy discussions within the EU, NATO and their Member States.

Published in partnership with the Elcano Royal Institute.

 

 

 

Decoration

Available in:

Share

Download the full analysis

This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.

Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters

Decoration
Author(s)
Photo
vivien_couleur.jpg

Vivien PERTUSOT

Image principale
 A soldier watching a sunset on an armored infantry fighting vehicle
Security Studies Center
Accroche centre

Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.

Image principale

The Hunt for Economic Security: The Role of Navies in Deterring Threats to the Maritime Economy

Date de publication
10 June 2025
Accroche

The maritime domain is currently faced with a wide variety of threats, such as climate change, economic warfare, shadow fleet operations, protection of critical infrastructures, and illicit activities ranging from illegal fishing to piracy. Navies suffer from inherent limitations when deterring threats to the global maritime economy: their global presence and permanence limits their credibility in terms of deterrence, their focus usually set on immediate deterrence, implementing deterrence by punishment in and from the naval domain is difficult and costly.

Olivier SCHMITT Louise TUMCHEWICS
Image principale

A Fragile Consensus? The Pressure on the Norm Against Nuclear Testing

Date de publication
22 April 2025
Accroche

Apart from North Korea, no state has conducted explosive nuclear tests in the 21st century, reflecting the emergence of a strong international norm against such testing.

Doreen HORSCHIG
Image principale

The Franco-German Brigade and the Revival of European Defense

Date de publication
08 April 2025
Accroche

One thing has been clear since Donald Trump's return to the White House: the very existence of the European unification project is threatened. Unless it develops a sovereign defense policy to counter the war in Ukraine and the weakening of American security guarantees, the European Union will continue to see its internal cohesion and external attractiveness wane.

Jacob ROSS Nicolas TÉTERCHEN
Image principale

Taking the Pulse: Can Europeans Build Their Independent Extended Nuclear Deterrent?

Date de publication
03 April 2025
Accroche

Confronted with a U.S. disengagement and the Russian threat, Europeans are reconsidering their stance on nuclear deterrence. Given the capabilities of the French and British arsenals, can Europe develop an independent nuclear deterrent?

How can this study be cited?

Image de couverture de la publication
couv_simon_pertusot_making_sense_europe_southern_neighbourhood.png
Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters, from Ifri by
Copy
Image de couverture de la publication
couv_simon_pertusot_making_sense_europe_southern_neighbourhood.png

Making Sense of Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood: Main Geopolitical and Security Parameters