Currently, the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a joint initiative involving Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom to develop and produce next-generation fighter jets by 2035, represents one of the most significant collaborative projects in the defence industry involving both Japan and European states.

Fundamentally, GCAP constitutes a trilateral government-to-government (G2G) framework. However, the European Commission (EC) has encouraged a gradual shift from G2G arrangements toward open, competitive public procurement procedures to promote market competition in the defence and security sector. In parallel, the EU has sought to strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB), both through deeper intra-EU cooperation and by extending collaboration beyond its borders to like-minded partners such as Japan, Korea, and Australia.

Member States long avoided the application of EU competition law to the defence industry by excessively relying on Article 346 TFEU. The underlying assumption was that, by invoking this provision, the production of -and trade in- arms and war materiel were automatically excluded from the scope of EU law (Randazzo, 2014). However, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has progressively narrowed the circumstances in which this derogation may be applied through a series of rulings, including the Spanish Weapons case, the Agusta Helicopters case, and the Finnish Turntable case. These judgments reinforce that derogations are permitted only when vital national security cannot be protected by less restrictive measures (Randazzo, 2014; Sundstrand, 2023).

Finally, Directive 2009/81/EC entered into force to provide procurement rules “tailor-made for defence and security markets” and to confine the application of Article 346 TFEU to an exceptional role (Masson & Martin, 2015). Nevertheless, the Directive (Article 13(f)) contains a loophole allowing recourse to government-to-government (G2G) agreements to avoid organizing public procurement procedures. However, the EC, by issuing guidance (2016/C 450/01), has imposed strict conditions on their use in the defence and security field. Offset or return-on-investment frameworks in defence industry cooperation may also impede the free movement of goods and services and are subject to strict scrutiny by the EC (Strikwerda, 2018). In Ellinika Nafpigeia AE, the ECJ examined the interaction between Article 346 TFEU and the State aid rules under Article 107 TFEU (De Cock et al., 2023).

Therefore, this study investigates the nuanced legal circumstances surrounding the two approaches, namely concluding G2G agreements and participating in public procurement procedures in the EU defence and security market. The analysis is also contextualized within EU-Japan defence cooperation.

Recent controversies surrounding nuclear energy have turned large infrastructure projects into focal points of broader debates about how Europe is constructed, contested, and reimagined. This paper examines two landmark disputes, Hinkley Point C and Paks II, as moments in which national energy narratives, market principles, and political concerns intersect in shaping Europe’s integration trajectory.

Both cases were initiated by Austria, reflecting a long-standing scepticism towards nuclear energy and the strategic use of European arenas to challenge national choices. Yet the two disputes unfolded in markedly different political contexts. Hinkley Point C emerged as one of the last major nuclear cases shaped by the pre-Brexit landscape, when the United Kingdom was still fully embedded in EU governance debates. The case framed nuclear energy as a legitimate national choice compatible with European integration, provided that market-based conditions were respected. At the same time, it introduced a subtle greening effect: environmental compliance became a visible threshold in the assessment of large energy investments, signalling that sustainability considerations were gradually integrated into market-based integration.

Paks II concerns Hungary’s planned nuclear expansion with Russian involvement and unfolded in a more fragmented and politicised environment. Domestically framed as an expression of energy sovereignty, the project was recast at the European level as a test of openness, transparency, and procedural discipline. This reframing gained additional salience given Hungary’s reliance on Russian financing and technology, and the altered geopolitical context following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rather than foregrounding environmental arguments, the dispute redirected attention to the market foundations of European integration (competitive conditions, verifiable reasoning, and the integrity of decision-making processes). The Court’s intervention returned the case to the Commission not as a rejection of nuclear energy, but as a reminder that strategically sensitive projects must be reassessed against these core principles. While the judgment does not explicitly address geopolitics, its emphasis on openness and transparency indirectly responds to concerns about external dependence.

The two cases illustrate how nuclear energy functions as a boundary object in debates on European integration. Hinkley Point C reflects a phase in which sustainability was gradually layered onto market reasoning, while Paks II signals a recalibration towards procedural and market discipline under heightened political and strategic uncertainty. The paper argues that Europe is not simply applying fixed rules to energy projects, but continuously redefining itself through such controversies - negotiating the balance among sovereignty, markets, and shared norms in a changing geopolitical landscape.

The current EU program documents and declarations by EU representatives as well as the discussions surrounding them reveal an inherent tension between the requirements and objectives of competition protection and the EU's current industrial policy. While the former seeks open markets, independent decision-making by companies, and control over their size, the latter calls for European champions, technology clusters, and their protection from foreign influence. If competition protection in the EU is not to give way to its new industrial policy and become its compliant tool, it is necessary to find a modus vivendi for both policies that preserves the independence of competition protection but makes it more open to the priorities of industrial policy. This contribution seeks to find such a functional interface between the two policies within the new content of the concept of market failure, which is common to both policies. It attempts to define and specify this market failure using the concept of uncertainty.

It is precisely the concept of uncertainty, combined with a firm framework for its assessment and enforcement, that could be the link between achieving scale and cooperation between companies on the one hand, while maintaining competitive pressures on the other. This paper attempts to explain this concept both at the doctrinal level and through practical testing using examples of the behaviour of dominant companies, cooperation within clusters, and mergers and acquisitions. Its aim is to contribute to the discussion on how to adapt market interventions carried out by the EU and its member states to current requirements, which are now technological sophistication, resilience, and strategic autonomy of the EU, without losing sight of traditional ones, including a functioning internal market with open and fair competition. The main sources of research are primarily EU program documents and statements by its representatives, as well as expert discussions on the relationship between competition and industrial policy and doctrinal-theoretical proposals of complexity economics and complexity-based antitrust.

How do societies respond to authoritarian shifts in the EU’s neighbourhood? This question gained salience in light of democratic backsliding and autocratisation processes unfolding in the EU’s neighbourhood over the past few years. And yet, still little is known about how societies act in backsliding contexts. This is especially surprising given the rapid authoritarian turn in some countries recognised as EU candidates, such as Georgia.

One reason for this research gap is that relations between the EU and neighbouring countries have been mostly analysed through top-down lenses, with scholars focusing on how EU institutions and partner governments interact via conditionality, normative diffusion or administrative networks.

A different image emerges if we place ‘local civil society’ at the centre of analysis. Based on semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participant observation conducted in Georgia in 2024-2025, we ask how civic actors have responded to the Georgian elites’ shift away from democratisation and EU integration. Such a bottom-up perspective reveals that while EU institutions have treated Georgian ‘civil society’ as a functional, depoliticised, and essentially marginal partner, civic actors have massively mobilised to advance European integration in the face of increasing repression. We seek to explain this conundrum by unpacking the concept of ‘civil society‘ within the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Distancing ourselves from the understanding of ‘civil society’ as a normative category, we highlight the diversity of actors and dissonant tones in the choir mobilised in support of Georgia’s integration with the EU.