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In times of 'big choices' to be made (again) in European politics, framed by the manifold challenges– from financial and migration to 'Brexit' and security crises, the policymaker and expert community's attention is drawn 'back to Europe and the EU's neighbourhood'. Tulmets' (2014) richly sourced and thoroughly researched comparative account of East Central European foreign policy identity may well facilitate understanding of CEE countries' past and future choices, particularly with regard to the EU's turbulent neighbourhoods.
The Book's main aim is to study the influence of three selected EU member states on the shape and development of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The underlying research question of the study reads as follows: "How do EU member states within their respective regional concepts and modes of interaction influence European Neighbourhood Policy?" (p.30). In the book, it is supported by a number of empirical sub-questions addressing both policy (content) and politics (process) aspects, "whereas polity – the form aspect – is only taken into consideration as a framework in which national and European policy-making takes place" (p.31).
Russian revisionist geopolitics, backed by a coarse power's action, that brings aggression as a foreign policy means back to the repertoire of state actors, has revived the topicality of European security debates, not least in the national contexts. Once enthusiastically supported on the whole, the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) experiences a comprehensive audit of all the composites once again. Thus, the "Europeanness", "commonness" just as the effectiveness of "security" and "defence" of the EU's most wanted and least warranted policy are undergoing a crucial moment of reevaluation, redefinition, and reorientation. The differences in national pull or push factors vis-à-vis Union's security and defence efforts yet again question the long-suffering "convergence" of their perspectives on highly delicate matters of defence and security. Addressing the matter in question and written nearly five years ago, Laura Chappell's "Germany, Poland and the Common Security and Defence Policy: Converging Security and Defence Perspectives in an Enlarged EU" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) might well become a frequent read today, particularly for those interested not only in the fate of the EU's security and defence policy, but also those looking for answers to recent German and Polish reactions to the Russian regional security challenge.