From Shared Vision to Common Action: Implementing the EU Global Strategy

We have lived through an eventful year within and beyond our European Union. Internally, we faced the United Kingdom’s referendum, a succession of key elections in several European countries, the beginning of a sustained economic recovery, and the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaties, which both celebrated our past and projected our hopes into the future. The new US Administration is reshaping America's role in the international arena. Ongoing conflicts and tensions near and far, and the persisting threat of terrorism across all continents, including in the heart of Europe, continue to affect the daily life of ordinary citizens.

All these trends and events have made the EU Global Strategy for the European Union's foreign and security policy (EUGS), presented by High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission (HRVP) Federica Mogherini to the European Council in June 2016, a timely tool to tackle complexity within and beyond the EU’s borders. As the title of the EUGS itself suggests – Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe – the work was not meant to stop with the elaboration of a shared vision, but to trigger a new beginning through common action. This is why EU Heads of State and Government welcomed the presentation of the Strategy and invited the High Representative, the Commission and the Council to take the work forward.