In this year's five themes they have been selected in accordance with the priorities and lines of work of the Institute. They relate to: the challenges of the external action of the EU; the horizon of wars, instability and crisis in the Middle East and North Africa; the multiple challenges of the African continent; the disputed hegemony of the United States at the end of the Obama administration; and trade at the service of geopolitics in the global society of the twenty-first century.