The Eurozone crisis is likely to leave behind an altered strategic landscape. While publics debate the economic and governance consequences of the crisis, the foreign policy consequences of these developments are largely un-discussed. There is a strong and unmet demand by governments and think tanks, as well as major private sector players to identify trends as well as to prepare for and shape an uncertain European future. This desire, to a large degree, reflects the attempt to ensure that the foundations of affluence in Europe do not erode and half a century of sovereignty sharing is not replaced by disintegration and renationalization.

GMF and the Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO) have invited a group of foreign policy experts and economists from several European countries as well as the United States to discuss and strategize about these changes in Europe. The group meets twice a year for a day, on the margins of the annual Riga Conference and on the margins of GMF’s Brussels Forum. It is called Riga Process in recognition of GMF’s Latvian partnerships.

As part of the Riga Process, GMF is organizing a scenario exercise on the future of European foreign policy. The Riga group is exploring what type of foreign policy actor Europe might be in 2030 based on four different assumptions about the consequences of the eurozone crisis (“complete integration”, “partial integration”, “partial disintegration”, “complete disintegration”). Depending on the level of European integration that the crisis will produce, Europe’s role in the world as well as its institutional Foreign Policy might be dramatically different. In late spring of 2013, a document describing possible pathways for European Foreign Policy will be published and disseminated.