Whether Bulgaria's Rumiana Jeleva is the right person for the EU's humanitarian job or not, Haiti's catastrophic earthquake shows just how badly Europe needs someone to coordinate humanitarian assistance.

European leaders should beware exiting Afghanistan. They have already staked their credibility there, and the balance of power in Asia is very uncertain.

The EU has a disturbing ?lack of capacity? when it comes to state building and crisis missions. The EU and its member states need to stand up to help prevent fragile states turning into failed states.

As European power at the UN declines, human rights standards drop and lives are put at risk.

The Afghan experience will leave Europe?s armed forces drained and in search of a new purpose. Insufficient political will and empty state coffers will hamper rejuvenation

The EU should cooperate more with the UN in peacekeeping missions if it wants to show its ?effective multilateralism? is backed up by muscle.

Europe's military is beating the retreat just as the world's emerging powers are expanding their presence ? an early sign perhaps of a new international order.

Last year's Congo crisis brought home the EU's limitations as a global power. Will it accept them or try to overcome them? Richard Gowan discusses.

The Congo crisis demonstrated the UN's limitations, but its longest-lasting effect may be to mark the end of European military interventions in Africa.

The "crisis" created by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty is pretty tame - the EU faces far greater dangers in East Africa. But Lisbon could help solve them.

The EU should pay attention to who is appointed as the next chief of the UN's peacekeeping department.

The EU is increasingly detached from efforts to stabilise Iraq. But EU governments cannot afford to ignore the situation there, and should use the year ahead to identify strategies to assist Iraq alongside the next US administration.

There?s a real risk that, in the weeks between now and Christmas, the EU will face violence in either Kosovo, where 15,000 European troops underwrite security, or Lebanon where 8,000 Europeans have made up the backbone of the UN peace force.