Niels Schattevoet is a Dutch undergraduate student currently enrolled at the University of Groningen, in ‘International Relations and International Organization’ and ‘Middle Eastern Studies’. He is mostly focused on the Middle Eastern Levant – comprising Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine – and the European Union and its member states, in particular the multifaceted relationship between Europe and Levantine states in all its forms – cultural, economic, political and military – and the mutual (mis)understandings between them, both in academic theory and practice. Specific topics of interest include, to name but a few, development, refugee flows, the Syrian civil war and the Islamic State, the influence and presence of Iran in the Levant and the so-called Middle Eastern ‘cold war’ between Iran and Saudi Arabia more in general.