Section: European Voice (EU)
Ukraine looms large on summit agenda
Donald Tusk will next week (18-19 December) preside over his first European Council. Although he wants to keep the focus on economic issues, particularly a €315 billion investment plan announced by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, the situation in Ukraine will feature prominently in the discussions. Ukraine’s...
Budget and tar sands dominate the year’s last plenary session
MEPs will devote their final plenary session of 2014 in Strasbourg next week to debating the European Union’s budget for 2015, the EU economy and whether to reject a European Commission proposal easing the way for oil from Canadian tar sands to enter the EU. This will be the sixth plenary session of the term, and the new MEPs have largely...
The splintering of Visegrád
Any statement beginning with ‘we’ is a lie, declared the French philosopher Simone Weil. At the Chateau Béla meeting last weekend – organised by an Atlanticist think-tank in the Hungarian-speaking south of Slovakia – the ‘we’ was pretty clear. ‘We’ were a bunch of hardened security wonks from central Europe, Germany, Britain and...
Why did Putin turn?
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy toward his country’s “near abroad” and the West has been badly misunderstood. Instead of focusing on broader geopolitical patterns – in particular, the effect of the 2007-08 financial crisis on global politics – commentators have been turning Kremlin policy into a psychodrama that can be...
Russia kills off South Stream
Russia has abandoned controversial plans to lay a pipeline from southern Russia to Austria, citing opposition to the South Stream project from the European Commission and a lack of interest in Europe. “If Europe does not want to carry it out, then it will not be carried out,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said on Monday (1 December)....
A harsh winter ahead for Ukraine
Introduction Sharp words will reverberate around a conference hall in Basel today (4 December) and tomorrow (5 December) when foreign ministers gather in Switzerland for the big annual gathering of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE has become the forum of most sustained and intense diplomatic activity...
Pro-EU parties ahead in Moldova
Pro-European parties in Moldova have emerged with a narrow parliamentary majority from national elections that international observers said were characterised by a battle over the country’s geopolitics. With 94% of votes counted, the strongest party in the parliament is the Socialist Party (PSRM), whose leadership Russia has been courting....
Humour and humility as Tusk unleashes charm offensive
There was no shortage of self-deprecation in Donald Tusk’s first public outing as president of what is arguably the European Union’s most powerful institution. After struggling through a paragraph in French, the former Polish prime minister added: “That was in French – I hope you noticed.” The gag was not lost on the assembled Council...
EU adds to eastern Ukraine blacklist
The European Union has barred leading figures in separatist groups active in eastern Ukraine from entering the EU, in the latest round of sanctions prompted by the crisis in Ukraine. The 13 people added to the EU’s blacklist on Saturday (29 November) include a range of self-styled ministers in breakaway areas of the regions of Donetsk and...
Getting to Yes with Putin
In the showdown with Russia over Ukraine, the weaknesses and divisions in European policy have been as encouraging for Russian President Vladimir Putin as the United States’ hesitant approach to Syria was. If Europe is to act responsibly, three key concepts should define its policy toward Russia: firmness, clarity, and a willingness to find...
