This is the fifth edition of the European Foreign Policy Scorecard, a flagship publication for ECFR that evaluates the European Union’s foreign policy performance over the past year. This is the final year of the first post-Lisbon set-up, and our scores track progress over the whole period. As in previous years, we have adjusted some components to reflect the changing situation; continuity is maintained by retaining the same sub-issues in each chapter.
We continue to assess the performance of EU actors as a collective. Rather than giving an exhaustive list of all EU policies, we have focused our attention on policies on which there were specific decision points in 2015. European policies for each component are assigned scores for “unity” and “resources” (out of five) and “outcome” (out of ten). The sum of these scores translates into a letter grade for each of the 65 components.
Our now-familiar system of identifying member states as “leaders”, “supporters”, or “slackers” has again produced interesting results. There is an unavoidable subjective element in these judgments but we have explained our reasoning in each case in the relevant components.
A full description of the methodology of the Scorecard can be found here.
Five years’ experience is a good basis on which to assess our own performance and to consider whether we can do better. We plan, therefore, to review our work on the Scorecard in the first half of 2015. Your views on the Scorecard – whether this year’s or over the whole period – would be welcome and useful to us.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Robert Cooper
January 2015
