The recent decision of France’s lower house to ban the full-face veil in public places has, yet again, brought the veil debate to the forefront. Belgium took the lead on the matter, but as the reoccurrence of the debate in practically every European country has amply demonstrated, the “burqa ban” controversy is a pan-European phenomenon. […]
The Parliament’s acceptance of the EEAS, the EU’s diplomatic corps, on July 8 was hailed as a ‘historic’ moment by the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Of course, such words are necessary on special occasions. Nevertheless, Ashton certainly has plenty of reason to be pleased. The overwhelming support among MEPs (549 votes for, […]
This post can also been seen in FPA’s Latin America Blog. You can find some of the biggest futbol fans in Spain and Holland, and that was before either of them reached a World Cup final. Neither team has ever won the prestigious title and Spain, while being the current European champions, have never been to […]
The Turkish-Brazilian brokered fuel swap deal with Iran, and the following “no” to further Iran sanctions, has been the object of much analysis in the past month. Reoccurring themes to these analyses were the ‘rising power’ aspects of the Turkish-Brazilian diplomacy, and of course, whether these developments demonstrated that Turkey has tired of the West, […]
WARSAW – Bronislaw Komorowski celebrated with supporters at his election campaign headquarters here in Warsaw last night, as polls show him the likely next president. Komorowski’s victory over Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of former President Lech Kaczynski who died in a plane crash with other top Polish officials in April, takes the reins at […]
It is not the first time that the EU’s High Representative has spoken candidly on the subject of Israeli settlement construction in East Jerusalem. Indeed, Ashton remarked in her maiden speech as the EU’s foreign policy chief that “East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the West Bank.” Needless to say the remark caused […]
This blog has been posted in FPA’s European Union Blog and Latin America Blog. The G20 started off where everyone expected, getting the fiscal houses in order of the United States and European Union with inputs from multinational financial institutions, the UK and as a mediator and G20 and between the BRICs, advanced economies, […]
Radio Free Europe reports that the Iranian ambassador to Armenia has warned publicly against the insertion of US peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in the event of a comprehensive settlement of the 1992-94 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In a Yerevan news conference on June 23, Seyed Ali Saghaeyan claimed that the United States is eager to […]
This blog has been posted in FPA’s European Union Blog and Latin America Blog. Yesterday we discussed the opening of the G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ontario and some initial policy announcements and opening talks between the G8 leaders and invited diplomatic guests. Friday and Saturday morning saw the completion of the G8 talks and […]
This post has been posted on FPA’s European Union Blog and Latin America Blog. FPA.org and the European Union Blog and Latin America blog is proud to blog directly from Toronto and the G8 and G20 meetings in Canada this weekend. Rich Basas, who is one of the principal bloggers and writers for both […]
News out of Baku is that the “Azadliq” (freedom) opposition bloc staged a rally on Saturday (19 June) during which as many as 82 protesters were arrested. The rally, which had not been authorized by the Baku city authorities, was organized to protest alleged curbs on freedom of expression, and to underscore concerns that the […]
As things stand, the member states and the Commission have accepted the EU foreign policy chief Ashton’s blueprint for the European diplomatic corps – the European External Action Service (EEAS). This institutional innovation is intended to be a step towards a coherent European foreign policy, and to provide the EU with a pool of foreign […]
The recent EU-Russia summit in Rostov-on-Don demonstrated a definite strengthening in EU-Russian ties. Thus the relationship would seem to be more than recovering from the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. During the summit previously contentious issues were breached. These included human rights and democratic standards. Although the summit did not bring produce many concrete results – e.g. […]
On Sunday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Baku, a long-overdue trip by a senior administration official. The reportage from American journalists adhered to the same moltif: that the Aliyev administration feels “neglected” and that they are “peeved.” For instance, this Washington Post article by Craig Whitlock informs the reader that Gates carried a […]
European governments and economic experts have spent the last two months trying to reassure the rest of the world that Greece and the Eurozone would not become the Global Financial Crisis-Part Deux. One Trillion dollars or Euros, however it is counted, has not been the silver bullet that would kill the fears of economic troubles […]