by Hartmut Bühl, Publisher, Paris The Joint Communication on ”A stronger EU engagement for a peaceful, sustainable and prosperous Arctic” (https://bit.ly/3npDlii ) presented by the EU High Representative and the European Commission on 13th October 2021, cannot hide the fact that the Union has had problems gaining appropriate diplomatic status with the Arctic Council, as…
by William Cockburn, Interim ExecutiveDirector, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Bilbao The Covid-19 pandemic continues to be one of the biggest challenges that our societies and economies are facing. With most of Europe under lockdown for months in 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, recently we are again witnessing very…
by Jacques Favin Lévêque, Général (ret),Versailles, and Claude Roche, Vice-President of the Académie de l’Air et de l’Espace, Paris The recent draft security treaty presented by Russia proposes bilateral guarantees between Russia and the United States (US), with the aim of severely restricting NATO’s reach and any attempt to extend it closer to Russia. This…
There is no alternative to the Franco-German tandem by Cyrille Schott, former director of the National Institute for Advanced Security and Justice Studies (INHESJ), member of EuroDéfense France, Strasbourg, and Hartmut Bühl, Publisher, Paris When the new French President was elected in 2017, the German weekly Der Spiegel devoted its front page to him, with…
Questioning initiatives in European defence In a telephone conference, we asked Dipl-Ing, Major General (ret), Reinhard Wolski, Moderator of The Berlin Security Conference, to take a stand on some of the developments in the EU’s security and defence policy and major armament developments. Nannette Cazaubon: General, the EU High Representative and Vice- President of the European…
Contribution in missile technology to the EU’s strategic compass Interview with Thomas Gottschild, Managing Director of MBDA Deutschland GmbH and Executive Group Director Strategy MBDA, Schrobenhausen The European: Mr Gottschild, MBDA was created in 2001 after the merger of missile systems companies from France, Italy and the UK, later followed by enterprises from Germany and Spain.…
The European Union is continuing efforts to develop own defence capabilities in cooperation, adapting structures and creating financial instruments for security and defence. Although European armaments cooperation is still in its infancy, the groundwork has been laid for drones, future air combat systems and ground combat systems – but they all involve political and technological risks. OCCAR: a centre…
by Jean-Louis Gergorin and Léo Isaac-Dognin, co-authors of “Cyber, la guerre permanente” (Editions du Cerf, 2018), Paris A year ago, we voiced our concerns regarding the exponential rise of ransomware attacks, and over the impunity enjoyed by certain cybercriminals – modern pirates sometimes more akin to corsairs – in the countries from which they conduct their…
A European Security Council provides the basis for re-engagement by Robert Walter, President of EuroDéfense-United-Kingdom, London The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the apparent continuation, under President Biden, of “America First”, and of course Brexit, provide a critical challenge for Europe and the strategic defence of our continent, our values and our interests. The reaction in…
The world is too complex for every country to adhere to the same political recipes by Vladimir A. Chizhov, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Brussels Though relations between Russia and the West have always been a complex story of ups and downs, one should not forget that from the outset we have been…