The EUNPACK project unpacks EU crisis response mechanisms, with the aim to increase their conflict sensitivity and efficiency. By combining bottom–up perspectives with an institutional approach, EUNPACK will increase our understanding of how EU crisis responses function and are received on the ground in crisis areas. This entails exploring local agencies and perceptions in target countries without losing sight of the EU’s institutions and their expectations and ambitions. It also entails examining the whole cycle of crisis, from pre-crisis, through crisis, and into post-crisis phase. EUNPACK analyses two gaps in EU crisis response. First, the intentions–implementation gap, which relates to 1) the capacity to make decisions and respond with one voice and to deploy the necessary resources, 2) how these responses are implemented on the ground by various EU institutions and member states, and 3) how other actors – local and international – enhance or undermine the EU’s activities. Second, the project addresses the gap between the implementation of EU policies and approaches, and how these policies and approaches are received and perceived in target countries, what we refer to as the implementation¬–local reception/perceptions gap. Our main hypothesis is that the severity of the two gaps is a decisive factor for the EU’s impacts on crisis management and thereby its ability to contribute more effectively to problem-solving on the ground. We analyse these gaps through cases that reflect the variation of EU crisis responses in three concentric areas surrounding the EU: the enlargement area (Kosovo, Serbia), the neighbourhood area (Ukraine, Libya), and the extended neighbourhood (Mali, Iraq, Afghanistan). The results of our research will enable us to present policy recommendations fine-tuned to making the EU’s crisis response mechanisms more conflict and context sensitive, and thereby more efficient and sustainable.

Despite the EU having revised its counter-terrorism policies several times since 2001, the destructive impact of violent extremism continues to take its toll, generating negative shocks across international borders. The overarching objective of PREVEX is, therefore, to put forward more fine-tuned and effective approaches to preventing violent extremism. Focusing on the broader MENA region and the Balkans, context-sensitive, in-depth case studies of the occurrence and non-occurrence of violent extremism will be carried out and then brought together in a regional comparison. In doing so, PREVEX will seek to improve the understanding of how different drivers of violent extremism operate. Particular emphasis will be placed on how to strengthen resilience through investigating the non-occurrence of violent extremism in ‘enabling environments’. PREVEX employs a bottom-up approach to local–global dynamics combined with an institutionalist analysis of the responses of the EU, member states and Third Countries. The project consists of a carefully assembled team of area and subject experts, representing both EU member states and the regions analysed. PREVEX utilises an inter-disciplinary approach informed by mixed-methods. The project is therefore ideally positioned to ensure mutual learning between and within the EU, the Balkans and the broader MENA region. Hence, PREVEX will contribute to more effective policies that prevents violent extremism through strengthening societal resilience.