Europe Archive

In recent weeks, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish officials have threatened to abandon decades of effort to join the European Union (EU) and instead seek membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Their remarks should not have been so surprising, since Ankara has become increasingly skillful at leveraging Turkey’s new ties with its eastern partners to gain advantages in the West. In addition to reflecting a genuine concern about Turkey’s perceived mistreatment by the EU and an effort to gain easy popularity with domestic constituents by attacking an unpopular target, Erdogan and other Turkish leaders see […]

In February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Turkey, indicating a willingness to help Turkey revive stalled negotiations over its longstanding bid for European Union membership. In an email interview, Rana Deep Islam, a project manager with Stiftung Mercator whose research focuses on Turkey-EU relations, explained the state of Turkey’s EU accession bid and how it could move forward. WPR: What is behind Germany’s recent statement that it will support reviving Turkey’s EU accession process? Rana Deep Islam: The German government under Merkel still does not have a clear-cut policy on how it wants to handle Turkey’s membership aspirations. On one […]

Last week French President Francois Hollande announced that Operation Serval in Mali has entered its final phase and hinted that the withdrawal of French troops from the country would begin within a matter of weeks. The French government has always maintained that it does not intend to keep its forces in the region for the long haul, and wants to hand over operations to an African-led force as soon as the situation in Mali is stable. Emphasis will now gradually move to diplomatic discussions at the U.N. for a resolution mandating a peacekeeping force, and the level of media attention […]

At last month’s NATO defense ministerial meeting, one of the main topics of discussion concerned how many coalition forces will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, as well as what their mission will be and how rapidly to withdraw forces that will be departing. After almost 12 years of U.S. and coalition combat operations, the durability of recent gains remains under question as NATO withdraws its forces and reduces its other military support to the Afghan government, making it essential that the alliance plan carefully for drawing down its operations in the country. The numbers under consideration at February’s meeting assumed […]

In late-February, Interpol concluded its first-ever international operation against illegal logging, a three-month operation in Central and South America that resulted in the arrest of almost 200 people and the seizure of some $8 million worth of timber. Duncan Brack, an expert on illegal logging at Chatham House, explained the scope of the problem and efforts to curb it in an email interview. WPR: What is the extent of the problem of illegal logging in terms of problem regions and financial costs? Duncan Brack: Illegal logging and the international trade in illegally logged timber are major problems for many timber-producing […]

Diplomats are rarely dreamers or gamblers. The experience of grinding negotiations means that most ambassadors and their advisers dislike big ideas and unnecessary risks. But sometimes they have to take a gamble in pursuit of national goals. Two years ago, officials from Brazil, Germany, India and Japan — working collectively as the “Group of 4” or G4 — gambled on a drive to win permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, despite the failure of several similar initiatives over the past decade. This time, too, they were unable to secure a U.N. General Assembly resolution endorsing their hopes. The […]

The week before U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s Feb. 18 visit to India, the British press was abuzz with stories of how Cameron intended to use the visit to “try and steal” the coveted $12 billion dollar medium multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract from France’s Dassault Rafale in favor of the Anglo-German Eurofighter Typhoon. This story was no doubt fed by the perception that French President Francois Hollande, who was in India days before, had been unable to sew up the MMRCA contract. The speculation hints at how the three core European Union nations — the U.K., France and Germany […]

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had what sources are describing as constructive talks in their first face-to-face meeting in Berlin since Kerry was confirmed as Hillary Clinton’s replacement. While there were no major breakthroughs on any of the contentious issues in the U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship, the two men seemed to establish the basis for a good working relationship. This will be important if any vestige of the Obama administration’s reset of relations with Russia is to endure, given the lack of any strong personal connection between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President […]