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This paper examines the visit of the EU Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE), to Taiwan in 2021. It focuses on analysing the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and the EU by structuralizing the visit, especially investigating whether this first-ever official visit of the EU to Taiwan marks any notable change in the diplomatic practice between these two parties. This paper first introduces the puzzling outcome of this diplomatic visit, in which Taiwanese governmental officials welcomed the INGE delegates not only by sharing their best practices against disinformation but also their willingness to sign a bilateral investment agreement (BIA) with the EU and to invite the EU to join their global cooperation and training framework (GCTF). To investigate the dynamic behind the visit, this paper first identifies the shortcomings of classical international relations (IR) theories, then proposes an integrated analytical framework. The aforementioned dynamic is analysed through two theoretical frameworks: track diplomacy and issue linkage theory. Based on this analysis, it appears that the concerns of realism, liberalism’s thought processes and the constructivist idea of identity recognition are all intertwined in the discussion of INGE’s meeting with Taiwanese officials: National interest and the shared commitment to preserving democracy and freedom facilitated diplomatic dialogues. By using these two analytical tools, this paper also found that Taiwan and the EU are approaching each other through ‘track-one-and-a-half’ diplomacy. Taiwan appears to be attempting to use the issue linkage strategy to remind the EU of the importance of economic and diplomatic engagement and to be anchoring the soundness of institutions as a prerequisite for the healthiness of a democratic regime and its ability to defend itself against foreign interventions and disinformation. Consequently, this research also argues that INGE’s visit does forward the relationship between Taiwan and the EU. Track diplomacy and issue linkage theory also appear to be valuable frameworks for analysing the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and the EU.

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The EU has become a key international environmental player via different means, strategies and mechanisms including due diligence mechanisms. The one thing these have in common is that they target the private sector to achieve sustainability. Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) have developed into an important private governance instrument. The EU is initiating many legislations for increasing due diligence and these rely in part on VSS to guarantee compliance with due diligence obligations. This master’s thesis therefore examines how Public Interest Entities (PIEs) in the EU implement VSS to carry out due diligence, and whether the implementation of VSS has increased in recent years. The scope of this research is limited to forest-based industries. Since PIEs in the EU are obliged to yearly publish a non-financial report which contains all relevant information, annual sustainability reports can be analysed. Thus a longitudinal text analysis of the non-financial reports of Mondi Group, UPM and Stora Enso was conducted. The text analysis includes a quantitative keyword analysis and a qualitative content analysis. Seven different functions of VSS could be distinguished: they promote sustainable management, improve transparency, reinforce reputation, help consumers, create competitive advantage, improve environmental performance and operationalize due diligence. It is important that PIEs focus on these different functions to maximise the benefits of implementing VSS. It can also be concluded that the number of VSS in forest management for all analysed PIEs increased until 2018. During the period from 2018 to 2021, however, the number of VSS decreased for two PIEs and remained constant for the other PIE. In addition, this master’s thesis highlights that there is an urgent need to increase the availability of certified products.

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This thesis poses the question why Serbia, a historically coal dependent country, is experiencing major policy change regarding the intake of renewable energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Namely, since the introduction of the electric grid in Belgrade in the late 19th century, coal remains to be viewed as the absolute necessity for the country’s electricity stability. This can be shown by the fact that, even today, coal is used for producing over 70% of the total electricity production, which has immense economic and health related consequences. Since Serbian powerplants produce more SO2 than all of the EU’s, and since the consequential air pollution knows no border, the health and economic problems caused by it are easily visible both in Serbia and in the EU member states. With all this in mind, it is indeed puzzling why Serbia has experienced a swift policy change towards renewable energy in recent years. In particular, two new policies and action plans are regarded as recent major policy change. In 2021, the “Law on the Use of Renewable Energy Sources” was brought up, representing the very first law on renewable energy in Serbia. In 2022, the “Energy Security Action Plan” was created, representing an official plan on phasing out coal by the year 2050. It is, indeed, very interesting to see why these policies were made, and why now. The reasons behind this policy change is exactly what the thesis analyses. In order to do so, the Advocacy Coalition Framework is used and employed as the overarching framework of the research. Within this framework, most relevant actors which are able to exert influence over the policy-makers form opposing coalitions, based on the similarities of their beliefs regarding the analysed policy subsystem. Thus, in this case, two coalitions are discovered – pro-coal and pro-transition. However, within the thesis, one more factor is added – the forceful external factor, which comes in the shape of EU conditionality. Namely, as Serbia is an EU candidate country, it is obliged to harmonise many of its laws and regulations with those of the European Union. This, alongside the actions of domestic actors and coalitions, can massively affect the policy process. As a means of conducting diligent research within the selected temporal scope (2018-2022) and properly operationalise the Advocacy Coalition framework, a process tracing analysis is used. Three aspects are in the focus: events which may have served to shift the public support towards the transition, possible change in beliefs of relevant actors, and lastly the effect the EU has on the policy process. Therefore, all relevant events are presented and analysed, a qualitative content analysis is employed to find the beliefs of actors and potential changes in them, and lastly a set of conditions is set in order to prove that EU conditionality is a dominant factor. Following the analysis, it is shown that only one of the domestic actors experienced something of a change in beliefs, and that it is indeed the conditionality of the European Union which has exerted a massive amount of influence and is largely the reason of the policy change.

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The purpose of this research is to contribute to the understanding of cooperation between EU member states – through EUNIC - in the field of culture in the MENA region. EUNIC is the European Union National Institutes for Culture, a network of European national institutions of culture and national bodies engaged in culture, that has emerged as a key player in the EU’s International Cultural Relations (ICR) strategy. The highly institutionalised and established cooperation between EUNIC members in Tunisia from 2016 through the Tfanen-Creative Tunisie project is compared to the lesser-documented case of Lebanon, to understand how and why cooperation among the EUNIC members present differs in these two cases. The paper adopts a practice approach which prioritises the views of the cultural practitioners involved in EUNIC clusters in these two countries, acquired through semi-structured interviews. This research highlights factors for cooperation, and at times competition, among EU national cultural institutes and cultural representatives. The findings indicate that the individuals who work within EU cultural institutes have a more substantial impact on how EU cultural institutes and embassies collaborate than the current literature accounts for. Moreover, the research reveals the importance of dialogue among cluster members in order to be trust, particularly noticeable in Lebanon where the mandates of the heads of cultural institutes in Lebanon are short and there has been no formal cluster presidency since 2019. Finally, this research suggests that the EU Delegation in Tunisia was able to move Tfanen from cultural diplomacy collaboration to strategic cooperation within a cultural relations and culture in development paradigm. While some elements of cooperation present in Tunisia could be replicated elsewhere, including in Lebanon, it is suggested that the Tfanen experience of EUNIC cooperation is not a pre-set model. Rather, the dynamics of strong intergovernmental cooperation in the Tfanen cultural relations project appear to be the result of the right ecosystem of actors.

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The fight against terrorism is a common threat that affects all EU Member States. However, cooperation between them is limited due to several reasons. EU Member States decide to fight against terrorism very widely, depending on the history, national interests, and goals of each country. Particularly, France, Germany, and the Netherlands follow diverse counterterrorism measures to fight against the threat. For these reasons, the lack of cooperation has been common within the EU. In this context, the EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy has served as a guideline for EU Member States to align their national strategies, but not as a real provider of common security in the fight against terrorism. This thesis aims to analyse the patterns and reasoning behind the lack of cooperation between EU Member States, concretely, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Content analysis was the methodological instrument used to analyze the counterterrorism strategy of each country. The interpretation of these documents has showed that the limited cooperation between France, Germany, and the Netherlands is directly linked to the national interest and history of each country, and the fact that security is still dependent on national sovereignty. Consequently, EU Member States are not willing to transfer their power regarding national security to the EU. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the UE is merely a means for cooperation, and that France, Germany, and the Netherlands consider that their approaches would not be better fostered at a Union level. Key words: Terrorism, Common threat, Limited cooperation, National security, National sovereignty, Union level.