Luigi Scazzieri is an intern at CEPS. Steven Blockmans is CEPS Senior Research Fellow and Head of the EU Foreign Policy unit. This commentary will also be published as an editorial in the March 2014 issue of European Neighbourhood Watch. CEPS Commentaries offer concise, policy-oriented insights into topical issues in European affairs. The views expressed are attributable only to the authors in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which they are associated. Available for free downloading from the CEPS website (www.ceps.eu)  © CEPS 2014 Centre for European Policy Studies ▪ Place du Congrès 1 ▪ B-1000 Brussels ▪ Tel: (32.2) 229.39.11 ▪ www.ceps.eu Shaping the emerging consensus on Syria Luigi Scazzieri and Steven Blockmans 26 February 2014 s the second round of the Geneva II talks concluded in failure on February 15 th , the end of the Syrian conflict still seemed a distant goal. Yet, the adoption on February 22 nd of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2139 shows there is growing international consensus behind the need for a negotiated solution, driven by a global exasperation with the bloody stalemate in Syria. The unanimously adopted resolution strongly condemns human rights violations in the country, particularly those committed by the Syrian regime, while also condemning terrorism. It demands “all parties [to] work towards the comprehensive implementation of the Geneva Communiqué of 30 June 2012 leading to a genuine political transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future”. The international community must now work towards the setting up of a ceasefire as a precondition to a comprehensive and meaningful intra-Syrian dialogue and final agreement premised on constitutional reform. The hopes of the European Union and the rest of the international community for a diplomatic resolution of the Syrian conflict lie in the negotiations between the Syrian Government and the Syrian National Coalition (SNC). The framework of diplomacy remains the unanimously adopted UNSC Resolution 2118 of September 2013, which combines an endorsement of the 2012 Geneva Communiqué calling for “the establishment of a transitional governing body exercising full executive powers, which (...) shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent’ in tandem with the laying down of a binding framework for the destruction of chemical weapons. As Andrew Tabler, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently argued at an event held at CEPS, it is this dual conditionality in the Russia-US sponsored resolution that provides the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ for the international community to push for a resolution of the conflict. Despite agreeing to a limited truce in Homs to enable evacuations of areas besieged for almost two years, fighting continued elsewhere in Syria during the second round A