ECFR Alumni · Visiting Fellow
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Turkey
Italian and English (fluent), Arabic (conversational)
Matteo Colombo was a part-time visiting fellow at the Rome office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Colombo is an associate research fellow for ISPI (Italian Institute for International Political Studies), where he works on the political dynamics in the MENA region, with a specific focus on Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Turkey. His main interests lie in jihadism, energy issues, and political relations between regional states. He is also a professional journalist and an infographic designer.
Colombo obtained a PhD in political studies at the University of Milan (NASP Consortium), with a thesis on the Twitter discourse about IS in Arabic. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of Milan, a master’s in international relations from Oxford Brookes, a master’s degree in Middle East Politics from SOAS, University of London, and a master’s degree in journalism at IULM University in Milan.
The EU has the ambition and potential to become a sovereign digital power, but it lacks an all-encompassing strategy for the sector, in which individual governments are still the key players
By facilitating a rapprochement between Cairo and Ankara, European governments could make progress towards their strategic objective of stabilising the Middle East and North Africa
They should look to build on the Turkish government’s reported outreach to its rival behind closed doors in recent weeks
According to Matteo Colombo, ECFR Junior Pan-European Fellow, European States should encourage a rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey in order to ease tensions in the region
Turkish foreign policy seems to overestimate the country’s own economic strength
Matteo Colombo, ECFR Junior Pan-European Fellow, comments on the gap between Turkish foreign policy ambitions and its economic strength