by Günter Povoden, key expert with the On-Site Assistance (OSA) for the Middle East region of the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative, Vienna The distinguished reader knows that “Arz” is the Arabic word for “cedar”, the national symbol of Lebanon, the country which hosted the ARZ CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) exercise from 6th…
Interview with Bakhtiyor Gulyamov, Head of Regional Secretariat for Central Asia, EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative, Tashkent The European: Mr Gulyamov, you have been the Head of Secretariat of the Central Asia (CA) region within the European Union’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence (EU CBRN CoE) Initiative since 2015. You…
by Dr Antonella Cavallo, rescEU CBRN Lead, DG ECHO, European Commission, Brussels On 19th October in Kyiv, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded a national order of merit to the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič recognising the efforts in assisting Ukraine and people in need. To this day, the European Response Coordination Centre…
Report on the 8th National Focal Points meeting of the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative by Nannette Cazaubon, Paris After a forced three-year break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Union Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence (EU CBRN CoE) Initiative held its 8th annual meeting of National Focal…
Interview with Natalie Pauwels, Head of Unit, European Commission Service for Foreign Policy Instruments, Brussels, and Marian de Bruijn, Programme Coordinator, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Turin After a forced three-year break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 8th annual meeting of the National Focal Points (NFPs) of the European Union…
by Jean-Dominique Giuliani, President of the Robert Schuman Foundation, Paris Europe is fragile. The sum of so many democracies cannot be a smooth river. They are all plagued by regressive, populist, extremist, nationalist and xenophobic currents. And so, it is easier to destabilise and attack them, which is what Vladimir Putin has been systematically doing…
by Dr Philippe Quevauviller, Policy and Research Programming Officer, DG Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission, Brussels* To set the scene, it is important to stress that CBRN research cannot be discussed on a solely scientific ground, i.e. research needs must be placed in a larger policy, industry and civil society context. Actions to secure…
by Professor Hideshi Tokuchi, President of the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS), Tokyo, and East Asia correspondent of this magazine The government of Japan has been engaged in the revision of its National Security Strategy since last autumn. The process is expected to be over in mid-December just before the Japanese budget compilation…
by Michael Singh, Managing Director and Lane-Swig Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington For years, American strategists have warned that the world was changing, but their pleas that US foreign policy must change with it were ignored. More than a decade ago, the Obama administration announced a “pivot to Asia,” even…
by Harald Kujat, General (ret), former German Chief of Defence and former Chairman Military Committee NATO, Lögow The 21st century is marked by the rise of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) as an economic and military world power and by the rivalry between the great powers: the United States of America (US), Russia and China. …