The civil war in Syria shows that to prevent and manage conflicts, the EU needs a more proactive approach with greater regional focus

Since its beginning the European Union has struggled to play a meaningful role in Syria’s civil war, illustrating that there is now a clear need for the EU to pursue a faster, more proactive approach in preventing violent conflicts. Tanja Tamminen writes that the Lisbon Treaty has created structures for a more coherent foreign policy and that the EU should use this to build more comprehensive regional strategies to take advantage of the local knowledge of EU delegations on the ground.