Ahtisaari Co-chairs European Council on Foreign Relations

Reuters

Image: YLE A new pan-European think-tank modelled on the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations launched on Tuesday aiming to stimulate European Union foreign policy integration with a mixture of ideas and advocacy. In a joint declaration, the 50 founders of the European Council on Foreign Relations called on the EU to "punch its weight in the world", advocating a series of policies to increase European influence. Among their proposals are closer EU cooperation at the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, as well as a firm commitment to future membership for Turkey and the Western Balkans. The ECFR's board will be co-chaired by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who has mediated in the Balkans, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, and Mabel van Oranje, a human rights activist at the Open Society Institute. Among the first policy areas the council will tackle is the EU's relationship with Russia, seeking to force the 27 EU states to pool efforts to influence Moscow instead of conducting bilateral ties in a way that undermines common EU interests.