Multilateralism & the EU in the Contemporary Global Order

MERCURY is a consortium of academic partners formed to examine critically the European Union's contribution to multilateralism. It explores multilateralism as a concept, an aspiration, and a form of international order. MERCURY is funded through the EU's Framework 7 programme, with a total budget of €1.963 million. It includes nine institutional partners in Europe and beyond and will run for three years from February 2009.

For more information on MERCURY, visit the consortium home page www.mercury-fp7.net

To read MERCURY's mission statement click here.
MERCURY project structure here.

MERCURY Output

MERCURY findings will be published as articles in peer-reviewed journals, as e-papers and as policy briefs. Click here or see www.mercury-fp7.net for the list of papers.

Glossary of important terms related to multilateralism (see website)

MERCURY Newsletter is published twice yearly.

• Read MERCURY Newsletter Issue 1, July 2009, here.

• Read MERCURY Newsletter Issue 2, December 2009, here.

• Read MERCURY Newsletter Issue 3, June 2010, here.

To receive the newsletter, please contact Theresa Höghammar at hoghammar@sipri.org

MERCURY events include stakeholder conferences and MERCURY lectures.

MERCURY's project partners are:

University of Edinburgh (UK), University of Cologne (Germany), Charles University (Czech Republic), Istituto Affari Internazionali -IAI- (Italy), Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (France), University of Pretoria (South Africa), Fudan University (China), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sweden), University of Cambridge (UK).

SIPRI Staff Involved

Dr. Gunilla Herolf is MERCURY project manager at SIPRI. Within the network, she leads Work Package V, Dissemination, and contributes to Work Package II, Towards a New Architecture of EU External Relations?

Contact: herolf@sipri.org Tel. +46 8 655 97 62

Rebecka Salim Shirazi is MERCURY research assistant. She is responsible for the distribution of the MERCURY Newsletter.

Contact: shirazi@sipri.org Tel. +46 8 519 59 811

Regional and Global Security

EU-27 Watch, No. 9 is released!: The EU-27 Watch, No. 9 gives an overview on current national debates on European policy in the 27 EU member states and the four candidate countries. Topics discussed are implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, enlargement and the European Neighbourhood Policy, the financial crisis and economic policy, and climate and energy policy. See also www.eu-27Watch.org.

New MERCURY publications

In January 2011, MERCURY issued a revised version of E-paper no. 1, “Conceptualising Multilateralism: Can We All Just Get Along?" Authors are Caroline Bouchard and John Peterson. To read the paper, please click here.

In December 2010, MERCURY issued E-paper no. 8, “The EU-China Partnership on Climate Change: Bilateralism Begetting Multilateralism in Promoting a Climate Change Regime?" Author is Giulia Romano. To read the paper, please click here.

In December 2010, MERCURY issued E-paper no. 7, “Cooperation in the North – Multilateralism or Mess?” Author is Gunilla Herolf. To read the paper, please click here.

In December 2010, MERCURY has issued its second Policy Brief. The two-page Policy Brief summarises main findings regarding the conceptual and institutional basis of EU multilateralism. To read more, please click here.

Commission President Barroso meets MERCURY: On 19 June 2010 Commission President Barroso participated in a seminar at EUI in Florence on "What Should the EU Agenda for Global Governance Be?". MERCURY was represented by Prof. Christopher Hill and Prof. Wolfgang Wessels. For more information, please see here.