Latest posts
Of euro-pessimism and failures
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It is not difficult to be depressed about the EU these days. A recent re-read of the Laeken declaration that set in motion the whole European Convention, the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties exercises just made me think (more) how far is EU’s...
Germany’s new Ostpolitik (again)?
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(with updates)… I have just returned from Germany from a joint ECFR-Bertelsman event on the “Eastern partnership or Partnership with Russia”. Of course, the answer is with both. No need to spend time on this. But I got a certain sen...
Russia’s Chinese neighbourhood
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I recently spoke at the Sino-European forum co-organised by ECFR/Centre Asie and CICIR about the EU-Russia-China triangle. While thinking about the non-existent triangle I ran into the proceedings of another ‘strategic dialogue’ – between Russi...
“Ukraine fatigue” vs “EU fatigue”
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It might seem that EU-Ukraine relations are poised for a new start. The end of EU’s institutional crisis and the entry into force of Lisbon opens the way for the EU to move beyond its institutional reform into a great new era of outward-looking...
Russia’s vs China’s rise
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President Medvedev published his draft proposal for a European Security Treaty. The driving idea behind the proposal is a desire to revise the European security order of post-Cold war Europe, as well as to start solidifying Russia’s long-desire...
A new ENP for the new Commission?
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Behind the flow of depressive commentaries related to the appointments of Catherine Ashton and (less so) Herman van Rompuy, there are more EU foreign policy news coming – the announcement of the new Commission’s line-up. One interesting d...
Moldova’s fragile pluralism
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Moldova has got more than its fair share of coverage on this blog (see the most recent post on Moldova’s fin de regime). No need for a new post. But for those who are interested, I will only point to two of my recent publications. The first is...
EU-Armenia: high-level, but low-profile
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An Armenian acquaintance recently noted that Armenia is apparently the only Eastern Partnership (EaP) country that is really satisfied with the policy – all the other partners want either more, or less from the EU. Of course this highlights Arm...
EU’s failure in Georgia
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In light of the Tagliavini report, it is perhaps worth discussing in greater details EU’s performance in Georgia’s conflicts as well. We all know that both Georgia and Russia (with South Ossetia) are responsible for escalating the game ar...
Moldova’s fin de regime
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Moldova’s transfer of power is in full swing, confirming an earlier claim I made that Moldova is the only post-Soviet state (the Baltics aside) where every single transfer of power since 1991 took place through a tortuous, but still uninterrupt...
Russian and EU power of attraction
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(MORE updates…) Here is an interesting opinion poll (Eurasia Monitor) where post-Soviet publics are asked whether they prefer integration into the EU, union of Russia/Belarus/Ukraine/Kazakhstan or independence without integration with any such...
Russian views on EU’s decline
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(with updates)… I started this blog a few months ago with a post on “Is the EU a mistake of history?” where I argued that many, if not most, EU-watchers and policy makers in Russia think the EU is a temporary phenomenon after which...
Moldova defies post-Soviet traditions
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Revolutions, staged successions and consolidated authoritarianism replaced “elections” in practically all the post-Soviet countries. Against such a background the best news from Moldova’s recent elections is the lack of any other event but the...
Election results in Moldova
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The election results are a bit suprising… I thought the Communists would do better… anyway, after 85% of the ballots were counted – the Communists have 45,2%, the Liberal-Democrats – 16.2%, the Liberals (Chirtoaca) – 13.
The limits of EU’s transformative power
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For almost two decades the driving force of EU foreign policy was the idea of the EU as a transformative power. “Transformation” was achieved by enlarging the union and exporting its acquis, values and prosperity. The EU managed to succes...
The end of “de facto states”
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For years the secessionist entities of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria have been refered to as “de facto states” and the conflicts around them – “frozen conflicts” (see previous posts on South...
A Swedish-led listening tour of the East
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The Swedish EU presidency, which starts on 1 July 2009, is getting a lot of advice on what to do during its presidency. But here is one idea more idea for the Swedish EU presidency (contained in our recent ECFR report on the Eastern neighbourhood). T...
Ikea and the Abkhaz paradox
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As promissed, more impressions from my recent trip to Sukhumi. In Abkhazia, the economic imperative of rebuilding the region and attracting investments (predominantly Russian) clashes with its political project of staying more or less independent. Ab...
On the meanings of “war”
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Wars are defining moments in the life of states and nations. Throughout history wars often gave birth to nations, or caused the disappearance of states. Most nations had fought many wars, but almost every nation has one war to which they refer to as...
The foreign-policy solidarity gap
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Complaints about an imbalance in the levels of EU engagement in the Southern neighbourhood compared to the Eastern neighbourhood are wide-spread. The new EU member states like to point to the fact that EU funding for the Mediterranean neighbours is...
