The Lisbon Treaty and the EU’s new leadership team in Brussels should be an opportunity to reinvigorate Europe’s international development efforts. New global challenges are emphasising the need for concerted action and multilateralism. More coherent thinking and collaboration between the EU’s institutions, as well as between the member states, is therefore of major importance.

How can Europe’s policymakers ensure greater commitment to collective action at EU level? What needs to be done to make sure the EU lives up to commitments already made? With the Lisbon Treaty’s new structures and new legal framework, what sort of consistent approach should be adopted? And, in global terms, what kind of partnerships are needed with regions as diverse as the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the rising powers in Asia and South America? Does the European Think-Tanks Group’s February 2010 report “New Challenges, New Beginnings” provide the answers needed?