Development

This Chaillot Paper analyses the EU’s relations with five North African countries – Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. In particular it focuses on how the fallout of the war in Ukraine as well as the ongoing migration crisis have affected relations. The volume addresses some of the perceived shortfalls in the current EU strategy towards these countries and identifies future areas of both tension and cooperation.
The five country-specific chapters examine the EU approach to each individual country and provide a range of policy recommendations for the EU’s foreign policy in North Africa. One aspect on which the authors agree is the need for the EU to pay more attention to its southern neighbourhood as its influence has diminished considerably in the region.
The different chapters and perspectives presented in this Chaillot Paper provide EU decision-makers with insights and recommendations for designing a better approach to the bloc’s southern neighbourhood, one that will enable Europe to regain its influence in this critical region.

This report studies the position, aspirations, expectations and fears of Europe’s middle classes concerning some of the key challenges that the EU is facing. It is based on an extensive online survey carried out in all 27 EU member states. It reveals an acute economic insecurity and fear of falling behind among EU citizens, especially in the lower social strata. It also shows that this crisis of citizens’ expectations and prospects is a threat to political stability, as it feeds into a dangerous crisis of legitimacy and trust in public institutions and political parties. Concerns may be most strongly expressed in the economic field, but also extend to the possible consequences of the war in Ukraine and the broader geopolitical realignments it entails. In particular, the combination of middle-class insecurity and relatively high levels of trust in Russia in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe should be highlighted. However, citizens also think that most challenges can be tackled and reversed through adequate political and policy action. In particular, the centre–right’s approaches to security, immigration and the economy retain great appeal among the European middle classes; there is a need to better connect with the lower middle classes though. Citizens also have a high estimation of the problem-solving capacity of civil-society actors and a relatively high level of trust in the EU. An inclusive narrative addressing European challenges on the basis of safety, stability, justice, freedom and cooperation could help to reassure Europe’s middle classes. Centre–right forces have a fundamental role to 1 play in this process.

In this report, WRI researchers explore how rising demand for food, wood and shelter is squeezing land that’s needed for storing carbon and protecting biodiversity. This research uses new modeling to give a true global picture of the carbon opportunity costs for land use and proposes a four-pronged approach–produce, protect, reduce, restore–for sustainably managing the world’s finite land.
Competition for land is heating up as a growing global population increases demand for food, wood and shelter – putting a squeeze on land that is needed to store carbon and provide habitats for biodiversity.
By 2050, this research projects that land twice the size of India will be converted for agriculture, and land the size of the continental United States will be needed to meet the increasing demand for wood.

Rapid urbanisation in several EU Member States and the ensuing population shift from rural areas towards urban centres are generally treated in economic literature as a necessity for generating growth and wellbeing. In the last two decades, however, the overly positive assessment of this trend has shifted.

Globalisation has put increasing pressure on agriculture, food processing industries and other local cottage and SME enterprises. This has led to accelerating changes in the balance between rural and urban areas and has deeply impacted the overall socio-economic fabric of regions.
At the same time, declining rural populations make many rural communities unsustainable. Once inhabitants decide to leave areas due to falling living standards, the remaining population suffers from the further deprivation of goods and services, driving even more people to leave. Several studies have been assessing the costs associated with these changes, in particular their impact on the viability of rural communities. However, they generally fall short of the holistic assessment required, as the decline and shift of populations also create further negative spillovers on the rest of the economy, for example on urban areas that are usually at the receiving end of the influx of rural populations.
This report aims to contribute to the debate on EU rural development policy by presenting a methodology to understand the net costs and benefits of investing in rural areas to society as a whole. By doing so, it asks whether rural depopulation is just a rural problem or whether the consequences have a bearing on the whole of society, and in particular urban areas.