“Global warming is a security threat”, former UN Secretary General Kofi suggested. Data indicate that over 40% of intrastate conflicts in the last 60 years have been partially driven by competition over natural resources. Consequently, 7 out of the 10 countries most impacted by climate change already host or had hosted international peacekeeping missions. […]
Europeanization has transformed from an aspiration to an obligation and this in term has created a need for sacrificing internal democracy in terms of EU integration. Subsequently, in most cases, this results in not only a lack of implementation but more importantly a lack of ability to implement legislation. The difference being that lack of implementation may come due to lack of political will, whilst lack of ability to implement comes from the weak absorption of transformative power that the EU intends to achieve. […]
As is well reported on by now, Belarusian authorities ordered a Ryanair flight traveling from Athens to Vilnius to make an emergency landing in Minsk just a few days ago. The flight was accompanied by a MiG-29. Their aim was to arrest dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich, which they brazenly did, and trotted him out to do a coerced speech where he was clearly shaken and physically assaulted. What was even more bizarre was the fact that the Belarusian government blamed Hamas for putting a bomb on the grounded Ryanair flight. Of course, Hamas denied any responsibility. […]
Back in November, the pro-EU candidate Maia Sandu won the Moldovan race for Prime Minister against pro-Russian incumbent Igor Dodon by a margin of 57.75% of the vote to 42.25%. While not a major event even in European politics, this election could be a bigger sign of a major shift in Moldova from a traditionally stalwart Russian ally to a country with budding EU aspirations, or even possibly reuniting with their Romanian siblings to the West. […]
The automation of the production and circulation of disinformation has never before been so easy and cheap. We now have automated social bots that can rapidly disseminate a post containing disinformation on average more than fifty times a day. However, their role is not limited solely to that; they are also used to rapidly generate ad revenue by directing traffic. We have only recently started to awaken to the consequences of this technology for our societies and democracies. […]
Last November, in the Ethiopian region of the Tigray, an ethnic-based political crisis broke out and quickly transformed into a military conflict. The war escalated and several thousands of civilians were killed and many more became displaced. The fighting is likely to significantly impact the unstable political situation present in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Sudan, as well several ethnic-based conflicts in the region. What could be the role of the EU in such a fragile context? […]
Terrorist attacks and weapons of mass destruction: these are just a few of the threats that come to mind when considering international security. As the United Nations warns of a new climate crisis each week, climate change is deemed as the security threat most pertinent. By threatening resource scarcity and growing global unrest with conflict potential, the climate crisis is consistently growing larger in scale and clearer in outline. […]
Many may have missed the news that South Dakota single-handedly stopped the former President Donald Trump from criticising China’s human rights abuses, despite the rest of the country supporting the idea. […]
The EU is an important promoter of peace in Colombia and has successfully taken on a role as a strong supporter of the implementation of the Peace Agreement. This article highlights the EU’s contributions to the Colombian Peace Process, but it also identifies three problems in the EU’s approach to peacebuilding in the region. […]
In the midst of election season in America, the outcome of the election is one of the core issues for European capitals and how it will affect the Transatlantic partnership going forward. Most assume that relations would quickly improve if Joe Biden were to be elected; however, it would still not change many of the challenges that both sides of the Atlantic have to deal with. […]