EU Should Stop Overstretching, Focus on Issues at Hand – UK Parliament

The European Union should stop overstretching itself and instead focus on its immediate neighborhood to become more effective, a UK House of Lords Committee report said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The EU foreign policy and security chief, Federica Mogherini, is to outline a new strategy for the bloc later this year.

"A new strategy for the EU must undertake a forthright process of prioritization… We recommend strongly that a new strategy should focus on formulating a foreign and security policy for the wider neighbourhood," the Committee said, adding the bloc is not a "global security provider."

To that end, the 28-nation union should focus on its relations with key countries in its immediate surroundings – Turkey and Russia, the 86-page report said.

The bloc must reinvigorate its ties with Ankara and assure it of EU membership possibilities if it wants to keep Turkey as a "buffer state" between itself and Daesh insurgency, as well as migrant inflows.

"We urge the UK, as a supporter of Turkish accession to the EU, to initiate a review process at the EU level," the Committee said, adding Germany and France have been firmly against.

At the same time, the Committee urged Brussels to pursue a "dual-track policy" toward Russia, deterring Russia’s alleged aggression while maintaining a dialogue on areas of shared interest.

High Representative Federica Mogherini is due to prepare the EU Global Strategy for foreign and security policy by June 2016. Last June, the EU foreign policy chief said that the bloc did not have the "luxury to turn inwards" if it wanted to stay an influential global player in future.