Europe Archive

The contentious relationship between Turkey and the West hit a little-noticed but significant milestone this week, when the Dutch government announced it was formally downgrading diplomatic ties and officially withdrawing its ambassador from Ankara. Turkey and the Netherlands remain NATO allies, and diplomatic relations continue at the level of charges d’affaires. While not garnering the attention of the escalating confrontation between Turkey and NATO in Syria, the Dutch move is an important marker of Turkey’s continuing drift away from the West under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The decision was also unexpected because Turkey and the Netherlands had been in talks […]

BELGRADE, Serbia—Is China building a Trojan horse in a divided Europe? The diplomatic initiative between China and 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, known as the 16+1, has become more controversial since its launch in 2012 at a summit in Poland. Critics worry that it may undermine the European Union’s unified approach to Beijing, weaken transparency in economic and diplomatic engagement, and give a secretive regime with an increasingly muscular foreign policy a foothold in Europe. The 16 European countries are all ex-communist states, and all but five are EU members. In January, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, the EU’s ambassador […]

In late December, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had a tense meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, during a visit to Moscow—the first by a British foreign secretary in five years. Johnson and Lavrov clashed over allegations of Russian meddling in European elections and the U.K.’s Brexit referendum. Lavrov admitted it was “not a secret” that the relationship between Russia and the U.K. was at a “very low point.” In an email interview, Duncan Allan, an associate fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House in London, discusses the nature of the tensions, their economic impact and […]