Strengthening the EU's External Action: The Need for an EU Food Diplomacy?

Over the last decades, food security has come to the fore as a relevant issue both for scholars and for policy-makers. The so-called “Arab Spring” revealed the strong linkage between food security, political instability and migration. The European Union’s food security policy has set up solid building blocks to deal with the challenge both in terms of development and of humanitarian policies. However, such an approach has proved to be too sectoral, lacking a clear strategic framework where food is embedded into broader security dynamics. An EU food diplomacy under the aegis of the European External Action Service could help to integrate the two souls – development and humanitarian assistance – of the EU’s food security policy, in line with the EU Global Strategy and the international commitments made on climate change and sustainable development.