The European Union needs a strategic capacity to carry out effective foresight across key long-term trends shaping society. This has led to the creation of the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS), a unique inter-institutional project aimed at strengthening the EU's efforts in the crucial area of forward planning. ESPAS brings together the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Secretariat General of the Council of the European Union and the European External Action Service to strengthen the Union's collective administrative capacity to identify and analyse the key trends and challenges, and the resulting policy choices, which are likely to confront Europe and the wider world in the decades ahead.