Protracted conflicts, which negatively affect the security environment and foster the emergence of Areas of Limited Statehood (ALS) and Contested Orders (CO), are present both in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods of the European Union (EU). The aim of this policy paper is to examine the EU’s conflict management approach to protracted conflicts in its neighbourhood and analyse how the resilience paradigm can mitigate the effects of ALS/CO in the European neighbourhood. The revision of EU foreign policy in the past decade has resulted in a major turn in the narrative towards resilience. Its Global Strategy refers to building state and societal resilience in its neighbourhood as one of the EU’s key strategic priorities. Can resilience policies address the protracted conflicts in the EU’s surrounding? Obstacles include the policies of other external actors, mainly Russia in the East but also Turkey in the South.
