Once a week, NEU offers a selection of relevant news on issues related to EU External Relations.

Europol’s Reform Under Way to Face New Terrorist Attacks
By NEU – Newsletter for the European Union

The Director of the European Police Office (Europol), Rob Wainwright said on Wednesday that new major terrorist attacks are likely to happen in Europe. In the meantime, a reform of Europol was approved by the Parliament on Thursday. Read more here.

The EU as a terrorist target: why, where, and how
By Roderick Parkes of EUISS – European Union Institute for Security Studies

As an international actor, the EU can expect to win enemies as well as admirers. Two recent terrorist attacks in close succession – the first targeting an EU military mission in Bamako, the second in the ‘EU quarter’ in Brussels – seemingly confirm this. They also lend weight to the argument that if member states want the EU to be a robust international actor, they must give it the counter-terrorist powers to protect itself. But is the EU facing a classic terrorist logic of action-and-reprisal and, if not, what exactly is the EU’s risk profile? Read more here.

Ukraine’s Indispensable Economic Reforms
By Pierre Vimont of Carnegie Europe

Economic reform is central for today’s Ukraine. The capacity of the Ukrainian nation—leadership and population together—to deliver a modern and efficient economy, if achieved, would constitute the winning asset in the West’s current struggle with Russia in Eastern Europe. Success on the economy would represent the most convincing argument Ukraine could offer to all those who doubt the country’s ability to stand as a modern and efficient state. Producing tangible economic results is the best way to dispel these doubts.
Read more here.

Cracks appear in EU-ACP unity at Cotonou meeting in Dakar
By Matthew Tempest of Euractiv.com

Dissent was heard at the high-level meeting in Dakar last week of the EU and the 79-member states of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group. At stake during the five days of meetings outside the Senegalese capital was a successor agreement to the Cotonou agreement, which expires in 2020.
Read more here.