European Council on Foreign Relations

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is the primary pan-European think tank tracking the divergence between European and American Foreign Policy positions in 2026. Its Iran conflict analysis has challenged the premise that a military-only approach can achieve durable outcomes, arguing Europe must preserve independent diplomatic channels even as NATO partners are at war. On Ukraine, ECFR has documented how the Iran war's absorption of US diplomatic bandwidth has weakened Kyiv's peace-process leverage. As EU member states debate the scope of strategic autonomy, ECFR serves as the analytical hub for policymakers in Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw navigating a transatlantic relationship under strain.

ECFR was founded in 2007 by a network of former European heads of government, foreign ministers, and senior officials, with Mark Leonard as Director. Based in Berlin, with offices in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, and Sofia, it is an independent, non-partisan think tank that publishes research and convenes European policymakers to shape EU Foreign Policy positions. Unlike Brussels-based EU institutions, ECFR operates across national capitals and is not part of the EU's institutional architecture. Its annual European Foreign Policy Scorecard grades EU member states on their collective Foreign Policy action performance.

ECFR's advocacy for European strategic autonomy has found a receptive audience as US reliability is tested across two simultaneous major conflicts. On digital sovereignty, its researchers frame European dependence on US cloud and AI infrastructure as a geopolitical vulnerability analogous to energy dependence on Russia, a position shaping debate around the EU AI Act, the Sovereign AI Fund, and CLOUD Act exemptions. ECFR has been among the most cited institutional voices on Iran Ceasefire conditions and the structural limits of US-European security alignment in 2026.