In September, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte offered assistance to Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on water management after a dike was breached, forcing over 700,000 Pakistanis to flee their homes. In an email interview, Mariska Heijs, training and research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations “Clingendael,” discussed the Netherlands’ water management diplomacy. WPR: How prominently does water management diplomacy fit into the Netherlands’ wider foreign aid and development policies, and what expertise does the Netherlands offer? Mariska Heijs: Water is one of the four themes of the Netherlands’ foreign aid and development policy, alongside security and [...]
On Saturday, the European Union’s border agency Frontex launched a border control mission in the Mediterranean Sea known as Triton. The operation comes days after Italy ended its search-and-rescue mission, Mare Nostrum, which rescued over 150,000 migrants over the past year. Italy will still maintain a Mediterranean presence during a two-month transition period, but Mare Nostrum’s $12 million monthly price tag, together with pressure from other EU member states that claim the mission gave migrants easy entrance into Europe, have caused Italy to end the operation. As I wrote earlier this year, Italy has borne the brunt of European migration. [...]
Yesterday, Russia and Ukraine reached a gas deal after months of tense negotiations against the backdrop of violence in Ukraine’s east that has left more than 3,700 people dead. The agreement took place just days after Ukraine’s snap parliamentary elections, which showed surprisingly robust support for pro-European parties. But challenges remain, both in the east, where pro-Russian separatists will stage their own unsanctioned elections this weekend, and in Kiev, where the government must overcome a legacy of corruption and dysfunction. The elections have been hailed as a triumph in the West, and for good reason. Ukrainians resoundingly rejected the far-right [...]
