by Hilde Hardeman, Director of the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI), Brussels The EU launched a comprehensive response to the Covid-19 pandemic, focussing both on the needs at home and on the situation in partner countries, notably with our support for the COVAX mechanism (Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access) in close cooperation with…
It is high time for the EU to make strategic choices by David McAllister MEP, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, European Parliament, Brussels/Strasbourg As Europe begins its path to recovery from a major health crisis, foreign policy issues that have been temporarily out of the spotlight are bound to resurface. This comes at…
by Patrick Bellouard, President of EuroDéfense-France, Paris Since the beginning of 2020, Covid-19 and its economic and social impacts have revealed the vulnerability and dependencies of Europe in the health sector and more globally in the economic domain and value chains. There is a feeling of global uncertainty.The battle to halt the pandemic is a…
by General Eberhard Zorn, Chief of Defence, Berlin As Europeans, we have demonstrated solidarity with our partners and allies in the past months and supported each other in the fight against the coronavirus, including with capabilities of our armed forces. However, we must not allow these circumstances to draw attention away from the fact that…
Interview with François Bausch, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Luxembourg The European: Minister, Luxembourg is rightly recognised for the role it plays in the international community and its contribution to European security by its strong commitment to the EU and NATO. Defence is at a turning point in every country in Europe. Behind…
by Frédéric Mauro, Associate Research Fellow at IRIS, Lawyer at the bar of Brussels The need for a common defence of the European Union has been acknowledged since the early 1990s, when European leaders realised that they were unable to stop a genocide “two hours by plane from Paris”. Since the Treaty of Nice in…
by Michael Gahler MEP, Brussels/Strasbourg The Covid-19 pandemic is the most severe global crisis we are facing since World War 2. Fighting it is undoubtedly our current top priority. At the same time, we must not forget about the other global challenges that face us: the steady erosion of the international rules-based and multilateral order,…
by Arie Egozi, journalist, Tel Aviv A serious look at the Normalisation Agreements, also referred to as the “Abraham accords” signed on 15th September at the White House in Washington between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, as well as later between Israel and Sudan, proves that after the celebrations end, some major…
by Professor Hideshi Tokuchi, Senior Fellow, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo In 1954, when the then Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida visited west Germany, he emphasised to the Germans that European nations should pay more attention to east Asia as the communist bloc would go on the offensive, striking at the liberal bloc’s most…
The impact of the US election on Europe by General (ret.) Harald Kujat, formerm Chairman NATO Military Committee, Berlin No sooner is the election over than expectations are mounting on both sides of the Atlantic that the President-elect will seek to overcome the upheavals in the transatlantic relationship. Nothing would be better suited to restoring…