Reflecting on your 15 years as an elected Member of the European Parliament, what were some of the most significant challenges and achievements in shaping EU external policies and defence issues?

The first major challenge was undoubtedly institutional since I started my first term in 2009, right at the moment when the Treaty of Lisbon was entering into force, with a lot of new prerogatives for the European Parliament and a new dimension for the whole external policy of the European Union (creation of the 4000 personal strong External Action Service, new powers for the High-Representative for the Common Security and Foreign Policy…). Setting this new architecture into motion was daily work, even if not publicly very visible.

Then, of course, we had to deal with major geopolitical crises affecting Europe’s stability and security. I would name three significant events that have shaped our geopolitical environment: the Arab Spring and all its consequences, from political transitions in Egypt or Tunisia to chaotic revolutionary processes and the terrible conflicts in Libya, Syria or Yemen. The war in Ukraine, which started already in the spring of 2014 before the full-scale invasion of 2022. And the instability of the African continent from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa.

All these issues combined, security, political, and humanitarian dimensions, were of such a scale that the whole set of European policies had to be mobilised. As I have been chairing the Security and Defense parliamentary subcommittee, these were my daily concerns, and I had the opportunity to travel extensively to all the “hotspots” and modestly contribute to framing a European answer to them.
 

Given your extensive experience in various crisis areas around the world, how do you perceive the evolving nature of global conflicts and the role of intelligence and diplomatic missions in addressing them?

Indeed, since I had the chance to work on both the national executive and then European parliamentary sides of the diplomatic and intelligence efforts, the main transformation for the last two decades lies probably in the globalisation and interconnection of all the geopolitical crises erupting around the world. There are almost no more “local conflicts” that can be isolated from more global dynamics. Traditionally, it was possible to try to handle a crisis without linking it automatically to other conflicts or multiple ingérences. Nowadays, everything is more closely linked. Almost the same actors are interacting from Middle-East to Africa, from Eastern Europe to East Asia, and global agendas, even from regional powers, are interfering in every crisis.

Connectivity and simultaneity have become basic features of the geopolitical landscape.

This makes diplomatic and intelligence work more accurate and demanding, helping to better understand and manage these interconnections. However, it is also more frustrating since the use of force seems to have become an ordinary pattern, where it used to be a very sensitive and last-resort act. This disinhibition of the use of force is a major evolution.
 

As a guest speaker at the Diplomacy, Negotiation, and Policy executive programme, what key messages do you plan to impart to the participants, especially in the context of current global diplomatic challenges?

This great opportunity to share with skilled audiences about the current geopolitical challenges should precisely allow us to point out these developments with many concrete examples and experiences. To combine practitioner and academic dimensions to better understand how sometimes invisible trends are shaping a new international system, which is more volatile, more complex and totally different from the one we used to work in. New actors, ambitions, and behaviours are shaping a different landscape. Adapting to it requires first to try to understand it better. If my modest experience can contribute, it would be a thrilling moment.