Western Europe Archive

In NATO’s annual “state of the alliance” report published yesterday, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen details the areas in which Russia and NATO expanded their “practical cooperation” last year. Russia continued to allow NATO governments to transport supplies to their military contingents in Afghanistan through Russian territory, and joined with the alliance in developing the Afghan Air Force through the NATO-Russia Council Helicopter Maintenance Trust Fund. NATO and Russia also expanded cooperation in counterterrorism, including the Vigilant Skies 2013 exercise, which simulated a joint mid-air response to the hijacking of civilian aircraft, and tests of their joint IED-detection technologies developed under […]

In a visit to Havana this month, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans urged the EU to improve its ties with Cuba. In an email interview, Joaquín Roy, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at University of Miami, director of the University of Miami European Union Center and co-director of the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, explained European Union relations with Cuba. WPR: What is the current state of European Union relations with Cuba? Joaquín Roy: Each EU member state has maintained its own pragmatic relations with Cuba—in trade, investment and development aid—since the establishment of the EU Common Position […]

Recent U.K. government engagement with Asia has seen high-level visits to Japan and China, a growing role for London in the internationalization of China’s currency, the renmibi (RMB), and enhanced commercial diplomacy across Asia. This is in the context of a U.K. foreign policy that remains global in outlook. However, London’s continued focus on the Middle East in particular means that Asia’s relative importance in U.K. policy remains uncertain. The best place to start looking at the current U.K. government’s Asia policy is still the April 2012 speech given in Singapore by Foreign Secretary William Hague. The overall message of […]

In the past month, events in the long, drawn-out process toward the dissolution of ETA, the violent Basque separatist organization, have taken a surprising turn. On Dec. 28, ETA’s prisoners—more than 500 of whom are dispersed across prisons in Spain and France, vastly outnumbering the few dozen militants who remain in hiding—issued a statement in which they distanced themselves from armed struggle and recognized the suffering and harm inflicted by decades of violence. They also pledged to pursue their release from prison through the Spanish legal system, abandoning their old demand for amnesty. A week later came the turn of […]

Although 2013 marked a respite for Europe compared to previous years, the relative calm underscored the degree to which strategic relevance remains hampered, economic recovery fragile and normality elusive. The implications, for Europe’s partners but also for its democracies, are significant. This WPR special report examines Europe’s international and domestic challenges. Foreign and Trade Policy Europe’s Struggle for Strategic Competitiveness, Part IBy Richard GowanNov. 25, 2013 Europe’s Struggle for Strategic Competitiveness, Part IIBy Richard GowanDec. 2, 2013 Ending the Pretense: Reinventing the Trans-Atlantic RelationshipBy Judy DempseyJune 25, 2013 U.S.-EU FTA Talks Chart a New Path for Global TradeBy Edward AldenMarch […]

The Italian political landscape is slowly changing. In the past few weeks, major shifts have occurred in the leadership and structure of both the key parties of the left-right coalition that is supporting the government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta. Developments in the center-right directly affected the size and composition of the parliamentary majority backing the cabinet. Due to his conviction for tax fraud, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was expelled from the Senate in late-November. Earlier that month, Berlusconi had decided to sink his People of Freedom Party (PdL) and relaunch Forza Italia, the movement of his 1994 political […]

Ireland and Portugal, though dissimilar in many ways, share the distinction of being the first members of Europe’s troubled periphery to graduate from a bailout. They also share a pressing need to go beyond the budget austerity they have had to adopt and secure fundamental economic and financial reforms. In this, the two countries exemplify a more general need throughout the eurozone and underscore why, for all the gains made in dealing with this fiscal-financial crisis, Europe remains vulnerable to another crisis. There is much reason to cheer the successful emergence of these countries from their bailouts. In 2011, Ireland […]