After numerous fresh insights and a vibrant debate on the EU’s global standing today at our First Annual ValEUs Conference: The Contestation of European Values From Afar in September, it’s time to pause for a brief retrospective and outlook on the various activities of our research and education network. We prepared a brief communiqué: ValEUs: Looking Back, Moving Forward, summarising our activities in 2024 and introducing what’s to come in 2025 (see below).
About ValEUs
The Jean Monnet Network “ValEUs. Research & Education Network on Contestations to EU Foreign Policy” combines the strong interdisciplinary expertise of twenty partner universities from five continents to scrutinise the European Union’s foreign policy and attacks on its foundational values. The three-year project (2024-26) is led by the European University Viadrina (Germany) and co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. To learn more about the project, click here.
Our Objectives
In recent years, the EU has faced unprecedented challenges in living up to its mission to create a peaceful future based on shared values and their incorporation into instruments of global governance, as these values and the methods by which the EU propagates them have been increasingly contested. Improving our understanding of such contestations and critically reflecting on whether and how the EU safeguards the values it has prescribed for itself and others will be instrumental in deriving a more realistic account of EU foreign policy and developing impactful counterstrategies and policy alternatives.