Saturday
8th May 2021
Will this weekend's EU-India summit help translate the recently approved Council conclusions on the Indo-Pacific strategy into more pragmatic set of actions able to elevate Europe in the Asia-Pacific region?
Sexism may have played a role, but the deeper meaning of Ursula von der Leyen's humiliation in the palace of Turkish president Erdoğan is political and geopolitical.
The truth is brutally simple: the G7 is a relic of the past. It deserves an emotional and respectful adieu but should be taken off life support.
In spite of all the denials, it seems clear the non-paper "Western Balkans – a way forward" – which explicitly proposes the redrawing of borders in the region according to ethno-national/territorial groupings – exists, though its origins remain in doubt.
The Conference on the Future of Europe must concretely involve our local communities, regions, cities and villages. This is key to avoid a top-down exercise that would only feed the demagogic and anti-European false narrative of populists and eurosceptics.
With the Biden administration and EU leaders both pressing the reset button on relations with Turkey, could press freedom begin to be restored? Ankara is currently one of the world's biggest jailers of journalists.
The UAE's international reputation is steadily being shredded by its own leadership, in moves so blatant that no amount of sporting spin can hide them. Like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, China will also discover that sportswashing never works.
A second referendum would only be called by the SNP when there is a visible and consistent majority in favour among the Scottish electorate. And such a majority does not exist at the present.
While the rationale is allegedly "consumer protection", this amendment to the Farm to Fork strategy clearly has the dairy industry's fingerprints all over it.
The further the vaccination campaign progresses, the more people will ask: what about the rest of the world? The EU should answer the question loud and clear now before it is drowned out by a rising chorus of criticism.
With the prospect of rolling non-lethal pandemics, and border-checks based primarily on vaccination status, the assertion in the EU's 'green certificate' memorandum that the proposal "cannot be interpreted as establishing an obligation or right to be vaccinated" seems disingenuous.
The new EU ambassador, Luc Véron, is going to have his work cut out for him, as his team has the daunting task of projecting a more assertive values-based foreign policy in a country that openly championed disregarding human rights.
The US, German, and French governments should stop pushing Kosovo's new leaders into a dangerous, Bosnia-type deal with Serbia.
The EU has the chance to lead the international community out of the biggest crisis of the century. We need to support the request for a waiver to lift patents on Covid-19 vaccines.
The global dominance of European football is a cultural asset contributing to Europe's 'soft power' by cultivating an international fanbase for top clubs. But European values of free speech get lost in pursuit of pleasing autocratic regimes gatekeeping their markets.
Together with several other central and eastern European (CEE) countries, we do not support the introduction of a single EU carbon price for all sectors - because this could significantly increase the overhead costs for CEE households.
Afghans in 2020 constituted the second-largest group of asylum seekers arriving in Europe - outlining the necessity to accelerate the reform of the EU migration regime to avoid another crisis.
In the eyes of the Russian elite, most of Europe is just a bunch of spoiled, decadent, pipeline addicts that takes its illusions for reality, and can be easily played with.
Between June 2020 and February 2021, 22 consecutive opinion polls indicated majorities in favour of Scottish independence. That kind of sustained support for statehood is unprecedented in modern Scottish history.
This week the EU announces new regulations on artificial intelligence. It needs to set clear limits on the most harmful uses of AI, including predictive policing, biometric mass surveillance, and applications that exacerbate historic patterns of racist policing.
After spending an estimated €200m and countless months in meetings, the conference will likely release a grand statement along the lines of 'making the EU more inclusive, more competitive, sustainable, green',
As Russian troops gather near Ukraine's eastern border, the international community has pondered an important question. Will Russia launch a new offensive into Ukraine?
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, tempted by the allure of a 'deliverable', the EU, US, and UK are supporting a political process that would enhance the power of ethno-nationalist leaders, cement ethnic partition, and quite possibly lead to violence.
Of the €30bn allocated to Romania under the EU recovery fund, just four percent is slated to go to renewable energy and energy-efficiency. Despite the pressing need to decarbonise Romania's heat and power sectors, this is not an investment priority.
Happy Ramadan? The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief warned the Human Rights Council last month that institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to "epidemic proportions" worldwide.
Several industry EU lobby groups are about to be entrusted again with the privilege of co-deciding how €9.6bn of public EU research funding should be used - in research areas as essential as healthcare, transportation, energy and IT infrastructures.
The pandemic has swung the pendulum of political consensus away from the populists, eroding their approval ratings ahead of key parliamentary elections in 2021 and 2022.
Beatings, forced sterilisation, police violence and fire bombings by right-wing extremists against Romani communities are still a reality in Europe. The corona pandemic only worsened this situation.
Since 2018, when the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries started negotiations on the deal that would replace the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, calls for "de-colonising aid" and a strong role for local actors in development have grown.
As a German national, I see German history as a constant warning to defend the rule of law - and to be vigilant to detect even the slightest beginnings of its erosion.
Iceland's international reputation masks two blunt realities that face the country's women - the disproportionate levels of gender-based violence that they experience, and a justice system that is frequently suspicious and hostile towards victims of this violence.
At any one time, there are over 100,000 people in prison waiting for a trial - one-in-five of the total EU prison population. These numbers have consistently grown over the past few years and are fuelling Europe's prison overcrowding crisis.
European leaders always fail to mention the Turkish military intervention that led to the end of Khalifa Haftar's infamous military operation initiated in April 2019, and the end of the warlord's ambition to become Libya's 'new Gadaffi'.
