The Compagnia di San Paolo is one of the largest independent foundations in Europe and one of the main private funders of research in the fields of EU affairs and international relations. Over the past few years, the Compagnia has progressively consolidated its profile in these fields, signing strategic partnership agreements with institutions such as the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Istituto Affari Internazionali. Our overall goal is to foster a truly European debate on the main issues the EU faces and to encourage the emergence of a European political space.

In these fields, the Compagnia is also a founding member of an initiative of regional cooperation, the European Fund for the Balkans, set up with three other European foundations – the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the King Baudouin Foundation, and the ERSTE Stiftung – with the aim of contributing to the improvement of the administration of the countries of the Western Balkans, with a view to their integration in the EU.

It is against this background, and as part of the Compagnia’s commitment to support research on the European integration process, that we continued the cooperation with the European Council on Foreign Relations on the third edition of the European Foreign Policy Scorecard. We highly appreciate this cooperation with ECFR and we sincerely hope that this project will intensify the dialogue among various European stakeholders – both institutional and from civil society – with the goal of strengthening our understanding of Europe’s role as a global player.

Piero Gastaldo

Secretary General

Compagnia di San Paolo