Isabelle Ioannides

The post-Cold War period has come to an end. Many of the certainties that most people in the West took for granted are questioned or even undermined. A new era of great power competition is unfolding between the US, Europe, China, and Russia, accompanied by a leadership vacuum in what has become known as the liberal international order. Fears of the spillover of violent extremism coming from outside Europe coupled with the perceived massive arrival of migrants and refugees and the mismanagement of these flows, have compromised multilateralism. This project focuses on EU efforts to build peace in the Western Balkans, where the EU has particular vested interests both due to the geography of the region and to the ambition of the EU project there (i.e., enlargement).