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European cohesion through the pandemic: One year into covid-19
The covid-19 crisis has put European cohesion to the test. In Spring 2020, EU member states went their own ways by closing borders, keeping their medical equipment for themselves and not coordinating enough with their European counterparts. Since then, there has been significant progress, most notably on the economic recovery, but also in terms of healthcare coordination. However, Europeans actually entered the crisis and pandemic well prepared to stick together as part of the EU, with robust economic and political ties between member states and a lot of trust among the citizens. In fact, European cohesion was stronger in 2019 than in 2007, the year before the global financial crisis. With 12 years…
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The geopolitics of the European Green Deal
The European Green Deal will not only profoundly transform the economy but will also have deep geopolitical repercussions. It will affect geopolitics through its impact on the EU energy balance and global markets; on oil and gas-producing countries in the EU neighbourhood; on European energy security; and on global trade patterns, notably via the carbon border adjustment mechanism. The EU should prepare to help manage the geopolitical aspects of the European Green Deal. Relationships with important neighbourhood countries such as Russia and Algeria, and with global players including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, are central to this effort. In 2019, the European Commission introduced the European Green Deal, an ambitious policy package intended…
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Bosnia to war, to Dayton, and to its slow peace
The international community was unprepared for the conflicts that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In particular, it neglected Bosnia. Europe was not enough to bring peace, the US was slow but eventually decisive, and Russia was a constructive actor. The war in Bosnia lasted years longer than it should have more because of the divisions between outside powers than those within the country and the region itself. The fundamentals of the Dayton Agreement in 1995 were similar to what had been discussed, but not pursued, prior to the outbreak of the war. After the war, many political leaders in Bosnia saw peace as the continuation of the war by other means, which has seriously hampered economic and social progress. …
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Power surge: How the European Green Deal can succeed in Morocco and Tunisia
. North African countries such as Morocco and Tunisia can help Europe meet its carbon emissions targets and strengthen its position in the face of fierce competition from China for economic and political influence. By encouraging European investment in renewable energy, the European Green Deal can increase local workforce opportunities, promote development, and help stabilise migration, enhancing stability in the region. The EU should promote green hydrogen projects in Morocco and Tunisia. These would contribute to its climate neutrality goals and develop both European industrial leadership and local economies. The EU should also promote new electrical interconnections across the Mediterranean, to foster an integrated electricity market. Morocco and Tunisia should become official “Green…
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New Publication Artificial divide: How Europe and America could clash over AI
Artificial intelligence is a rapidly advancing field that policymakers everywhere are struggling to keep up with. Calls for international, and particularly transatlantic cooperation are growing. In Europe, interest in strengthening “ethical” AI policy is particularly strong – including as a way of making Europe more attractive than other jurisdictions around the world. Close cooperation between Europe and the US is not a given: Europe sees the US as its main competitor in AI; the US wants to join forces against China on AI, but European interest in such a front is weak. The non-combat military realm may be a good area for transatlantic AI cooperation. There is growing interest among policymakers…
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How Europe can help prevent the spread of Ethiopia’s war – expert available for comment and interview
A month-long war in Ethiopia has killed thousands of people, sent refugees into Sudan, and stirred rivalries among Ethiopia’s ethnic groups. The proximate cause of the conflict is a tit-for-tat escalatory cycle between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which erupted into armed conflict on 4 November. Three weeks later Abiy Ahmed declared victory. But this is premature. The war has set in motion a far broader process of destabilisation. Three dynamics account for this: Firstly, the conflict has heightened ethnic tensions, leaving Tigrayans feeling threatened by their neighbours and alienated from the federal government – a sentiment that is sure to play to the…
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A 6-point plan for a transatlantic bargain
Today the European Council on Foreign Relations published a statement signed by 30 of its Council members, among them former prime ministers, calling on European governments to offer an action plan for a transatlantic bargain to the US and its incoming administration. As leaders meet at the European Council this week, they urgently need to seize the opportunity of transforming – rather than restoring – the transatlantic alliance. Offering President-elect Biden a new transatlantic bargain that appeals to both European and US interests will set this in motion. The signatories call on EU leaders to adopt six key agenda points as part of the EU-US summit in the first half…
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The end of Oslo: A new European strategy on Israel-Palestine
A one-state reality of open-ended occupation and unequal rights continues to take hold in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This deteriorating trajectory is storing up deeper conflict on the ground, posing ever greater challenges to the EU’s vision for its near neighbourhood and relations with Israel, and storing up future instability. Amidst an accelerating negative trajectory on the ground, and an exhausted Oslo peace process, a viable two-state outcome is slipping out of reach. In the absence of two states, Israel will have to ensure equal rights for Palestinians in one democratic state. The latest report from ECFR’s policy fellow Hugh Lovatt — The end of Oslo: A new European strategy on Israel-Palestine – looks to counter this negative trend and calls on a new ‘post-Oslo’ paradigm reset that puts deoccupation and equal rights front and centre of European strategy. Main findings: …
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Viral vulnerability: How the pandemic is making democracy sick in the Western Balkans
By October 2020, countries in the Western Balkans had some of Europe’s highest levels of covid-19 cases per capita. Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were among the 15 most-affected states on the continent. The crisis has accentuated the countries’ existing vulnerabilities related to the rule of law and democratic governance. It has strengthened governments, weakened parliaments’ legislative and oversight functions, limited media freedom, and led to an increase in breaches of personal data protection. In the ECFR’s latest policy brief “Viral vulnerability: How the pandemic is making democracy sick in the Western Balkans”, authors Beáta Huszka and Tania Lessenska analyse the impact of the crisis on democratic governance and respect for human rights, particularly in relation to the use…
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New report: Europeans must take bold action to defend their sovereignty and protect their interests and values in a new age of geopolitical competition
A new report, authored by Mark Leonard and Jeremy Shapiro, calls on EU leaders to strengthen Europe’s resilience in the face of increasing geo-political competition. A variety of states including Russia, China, and even at times the United States are instrumentalizing the connections of a globalised world for geopolitical and economic gain. The report identifies five key areas where Europeans could develop consolidated responses – including healthcare; security; digital issues; international economic policy; and climate change. The report, Sovereign Europe, hostile world: Five agendas to protect Europe’s capacity to act, published today by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), is authored by Mark Leonard and Jeremy Shapiro. One year…
