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US analyst: â€œIn Europe, â€œunfinished businessâ€ remains in the Balkans, Caucasus, and former Soviet states, and the United States will continue to cooperate closely with Europe on these issuesâ€

01 September 2011 09:05 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. Isabel Levine â€“ APA. â€œMost immediately, the EU should take necessary actions to address a considerable list of global challenges and security threats, including regional conflicts, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, state failure, organized crime, disease, and destabilizing povertyâ€, said Derek Mix, US analyst in European Affairs in the US Congressional Research Serviceâ€™s last report on â€œThe European Union: Foreign and Security Policyâ€ issue, APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondent has learned.

The report was prepared for the Members and Committees of the Congress.

â€œOver the longer-term, the EU should seek the construction of a rules-based, multilateral world order in which international law, peace, and security are ensured by strong regional and global institutionsâ€, Mix noted.

The analyst reminds that, in 2004, the EU launched the European Neighborhood Policy to develop deeper political and economic ties with neighboring countries not (or not yet) considered potential members.

â€œThe evolution of EU external policies and capabilities ties into a related discussion about the changing structure and dynamics of transatlantic relations. In Europe, â€œunfinished businessâ€ remains in the Balkans, Caucasus, and former Soviet states, and the United States will continue to cooperate closely with Europe on these issuesâ€, he noted.

However, Mix says, many analysts have observed that the focus of US foreign policy has been gravitating increasingly to the Middle East and Asia over the past decade. This trend, some argue, has made Europe in and of itself less of a US foreign policy priority.

â€œInstead, the political and security aspects of the transatlantic relationship are now mostly about what Europe and the US can do together to address global challenges of joint interest and concern. Many of these challenges pertain to new types of threats that have emerged since the end of the Cold War, threats that require new capabilities to address. At the same time, some analysts perceive an increasingly multi-polar world order in which countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Russia are moving alongside the US and Europe as centers of powerâ€, he mentioned.