Photo by Giampaolo Squarcina (Creative Commons Licence)

Expert Survey by Atlantic Community

Editorial Team: Terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are growing threats for the EU. 30 international experts interviewed by Atlantic-Community.org nearly unanimously call for a much stronger EU commitments to the stabilization of Pakistan than promised at yesterday’s EU-Pakistan summit. The EU should complement US strategy with a long-term focus on state building.

Scholars from Brookings, Carnegie, the French Institute of International Relations, Bradford University, the Islamabad Policy Research Institute and other leading think tanks and universities, as well as EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove participated in Atlantic-Community.org's expert survey. Ahead of the European Union's first ever summit on Pakistan, the thirty experts from ten countries analyzed how Pakistan's instability impacts European security, what the guiding principles for EU foreign policy should be, and how that policy could complement US activities.

Twenty-nine of the thirty specialists call for much stronger EU initiatives than those promised at the EU-Pakistan summit. The European Union is identified by most survey participants as best poised for a sustainable engagement in promoting robust state institutions and civil society. This would ideally complement the more short-term and security focused US strategy. Some experts identified the US as neither interested nor best prepared for long-term involvement.

The EU has according to a majority of the experts both the capabilities and the goodwill of the Pakistani people for a sustainable engagement, and must step up its efforts in order to respond to the rising risks of terrorism and the proliferation of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. 

The whole survey can be found on the website of the Atlantic Community