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Tag: Europe

Baltic voices – from the fringes to the fore

The Baltics’ painful historical relationship with Russia and their memory of occupations, along with first-hand experience of Moscow’s interference and aggressive tactics, have increasingly emerged as a precious resource for NATO and the European Union in understanding Putin’s strategies and countering them effectively. The Baltics have moved from being on the margins to the foreground in the collective policy-shaping and decision-making process.

Voices of small states often go generally unnoticed in times of trouble, when grand geopolitics prevails over diplomacy. When the temperature heats up, both observers and decision-makers tend to focus on power dynamics and the imperium of the strong. In the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have proven that their small size does not automatically equal irrelevance.

July 4, 2023 - Stefano Braghiroli

From workers to refugees to workers again. What’s next for Ukrainians in the EU?

Europe’s active response to the millions of Ukrainian refugees who fled Russia’s invasion has often been viewed as a positive approach to migration policy. Despite this, the future remains uncertain for these new residents. Government decisions across the continent will now play a role in deciding not just the economic future of the EU but Ukraine itself.

Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale war in Ukraine has resulted in millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country via its western border. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of April 2023, 8,174,189 people have been recorded as refugees from Ukraine across Europe. Exactly 5,044,039 of them registered for temporary protection schemes in Europe.

July 4, 2023 - Lesia Dubenko

The EU economy may not be in the best shape, but Ukraine will not be abandoned

Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine has dramatically exacerbated Kyiv’s dependence on the West to keep the economy afloat. Ukraine’s finance ministry estimates that in 2022, 38.6 per cent of the country’s budget came from external donors in grants and credits while Ukraine’s GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, contracted by a third.

As Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s power grid and destroy its infrastructure, the country’s economic projections for 2023 are devoid of optimism. For the country to survive, it needs economic assistance from abroad – and this is where matters get complicated. While Brussels recently gave the green light to the long-awaited macro-aid package worth 18 billion euros, the latest economic forecasts also spell trouble for EU economies, with the eurozone’s GDP growth expected to slow to 0.3 per cent.

February 16, 2023 - Lesia Dubenko

Strategies for the German Baltic Sea Council presidency during the Zeitenwende

Berlin's ongoing presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States could not have come at a more crucial time. Faced with increasing regional uncertainty in light of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Germany must now take decisive action to ensure continued high-level cooperation in the area.

On July 1st, Germany took over the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Cooperation among the states bordering the Baltic Sea has become more important in view of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Currently the CBSS has ten member states plus the European Commission. In March 2022, Russia’s membership, as well as the observer status of Belarus was suspended by the other member states from CBSS activities while in May it decided to withdraw from the council. Ukraine has an observer mandate with increasing strategic importance in the CBSS.

December 7, 2022 - Iris Kempe

Inaction is something we cannot tolerate

An interview with Oksana Bulda and Liza Bezvershenko from “Promote Ukraine”, a Brussels-based media platform for expertise and civil society initiatives in Ukraine and the EU. Interviewer: Agnieszka Widłaszewska

AGNIESZKA WIDŁASZEWSKA: How was Promote Ukraine (PU) established back in 2014 and what kind of activities has it been focusing on since then?

OKSANA BULDA: After the war started in Ukraine in 2014, there was a need to create a Ukrainian hub, so to say, to promote Ukrainian interests and share information about all of the developments related to the situation in Ukraine. At first, it was perceived more as a diaspora organisation but with time, given that Brussels is the heart of Europe, there was a need to launch wider activity. PU went through many transformations.

December 7, 2022 - Agnieszka Widłaszewska Liza Bezvershenko Oksana Bulda

Is today’s Russia a “USSR 2.0”? Putin wants us to think so

The West’s lack of inner cohesion, slow reactions and a preference for dialogue provide the Kremlin with a chance to effectively play its own game. Putin surely discovered a long time ago that bluffing and good brinkmanship are enough for the West to do everything to prevent conflict. There is only one condition: it must believe that Putin's Russia is a “USSR 2.0”.

“I think that’s right,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 9th when asked by CNN if he agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to restore the Soviet Union. “I think that’s one of President Putin’s objectives, and it is to re-exert a sphere of influence over countries that previously were part of the Soviet Union.” This is exactly what the Russian president would like the West to believe. Whilst the head of US diplomacy was making this statement, Russian-American negotiations were about to start in Geneva.

February 15, 2022 - Agnieszka Bryc

Biden’s second trip to Europe tests his promises and hints at an emerging doctrine

Joe Biden was announced as president-elect of the United States just over a year ago. He recently departed for Europe on his second trip to the continent. But what about Biden’s foreign policy towards Europe? What are his priorities and what has this trip revealed about his overall foreign policy vision?

November 16, 2021 - Vladyslav Faraponov

Establishing a continental balance

A review of The Temptation of Homo Europaeus: An Intellectual History of Central and Southeastern Europe. By: Victor Neumann. Publisher: Scala Arts Publishers, London, 2021.

September 12, 2021 - Jacek Hajduk

How should the EU deal with Russia after Navalny’s poisoning?

Steps towards managing the European Union’s relations with Russia need a long-term perspective and a corresponding political dynamic that requires audacity. The once commonly-held vision of co-operative security in Europe, enshrined in the OSCE’s founding documents, may seem unachievable now, but it should not be lost out of sight.

When the Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny released the video “Putin’s palace” in January 2021, upon his return to Russia from Germany after being poisoned with a military-grade substance called Novichok in August 2020, the showdown began. No doubt, Navalny and his political organisation have always been a thorn in the Russian regime’s side. Yet the stakes have risen since investigative journalists revealed the details of the poisoning as being carried out by Russian intelligence agents. Since then the “Berlin patient” seems to have been elevated to public enemy number one by the Russian ruling regime.

June 23, 2021 - Alexandra Dienes

A fortress of human rights

Europe will either be united or not. It cannot be ruled out that an unforeseen event may lead to the disintegration of the EU. But it can also not be ruled out that an unforeseen event will cement it. Paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic, which is currently devastating the global economy, may prove to be such an event.

Prior to the creation of the European Union, Europe did not exist. It did not exist in the political sense, that is. It is true that François Guizot, the 19th century historian and statesman, believed that there is something like a European civilisation because a certain kind of unity permeates European countries despite countless differences dividing them. This unity, however, was manifest only to a select number of Europeans and only through comparisons with the brutally colonised European “Others” across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Americas. Certainly, the thus conceived civilisational unity did not translate itself into political unity. The geographical concept of Europe made political sense only as an unstable system of volatile states linked more frequently, and tightly, by their mutual hostilities than their alliances.

June 23, 2021 - Adam Chmielewski

We are still searching for our strategy with Russia

An interview with Linas Linkevičius, a Lithuanian politician and diplomat and former foreign minister (2012–2020). Interviewers: Adam Reichardt and Maciej Makulski

April 11, 2021 - Adam Reichardt Linas Linkevičius Maciej Makulski

The Baltic states. Three peas in a pod?

The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are often together associated as a bloc, with a similar history, culture and politics. While there are some commonalities among the three countries, there are also some key characteristics that make them quite different from each other.

From the outside, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are usually viewed as one – “the Baltics”. However, their fates have only been intertwined during the last century. Prior to the end of the First World War, Lithuania had been closely connected with Poland, while Estonians and Latvians had been under Baltic German domination for seven centuries, no matter whether the ruling power was Sweden, Poland or Russia. Lithuanian and Latvian are the two surviving Baltic languages, whereas Estonian belongs to a completely different language family, together with Finnish and Hungarian.

April 11, 2021 - Andres Kasekamp

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