The struggle for positioning in the solar energy marketplace took another turn. On June 4 Karel de Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, announced a new 11.8 percent tariff to be applied to imported Chinese made solar panels, and photovoltaic cells and polysilicon wafers, two system components. To avoid an additional increase escalating to […]
The gesture itself was subtle, but as the collection of briefing notes were set to one side, so with it went a thin layer of pulped political barricade. What remained were two government leaders seated across a table, a Russian president asking a British prime minister to state his case. David Cameron traveled to Sochi […]
The struggle to keep the Eurozone intact threatens the future of a united Europe. It is not, however, the only threat the EU faces, and perhaps not even the primary one. Robert Kaplan, in a new essay (“Europe’s New Map” for The American Interest) gives proponents of a robust EU additional reasons to worry. Many of […]
Earlier this month, two prominent figures in the defense community – Retired Gen. David Petraeus and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post promoting reforms to the energy, manufacturing and IT sectors, among others, that they argue would ensure a bright American future. It is not too surprising that […]
To American policymakers working through the sequester, Cyprus’ 10 billion euro bailout must sound like a rounding error. Context is key: the amount equals nearly half of Cyprus’ annual GDP. Euro-watchers first warned that the disjointed political path to the bailout agreement — including a proposed tax on all Cyprus bank deposits — adds to the […]
Kosovo has been a hotly contested region of the Balkans for many centuries. Adversity has often devolved into violence, especially since the collapse of Yugoslavia in early 1990s. Kosovo declared itself an independent state in 2008, and is recognized as such by many countries. Yet Serbia, which lays claim to the territory, refuses to […]
By Sarwar Kashmeri “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role,” former Secretary of State Dean Acheson presciently observed in his 1962 speech at the U.S. Military Academy/West Point. It is the epigram with which David Hannay, the former British diplomat, and one of Britain’s most distinguished foreign service veterans, introduces […]
In the U.S., sequestration threatens a shaky recovery. In the eurozone, unemployment rose to record levels this week. In response, both sides of the Transatlantic partnership are recasting what was traditionally a strategic partnership as an economic one, aimed at enhancing global security by facilitating economic growth. For the past several years, economic anxiety […]
Estonia, which joined the EU in 2004 and the Eurozone in 2011, officially unveiled its nation-wide electric vehicle (EV) network last week. The ex-Soviet republic designed its pioneering new fast-charging, web-connected network to eliminate “range anxiety,” improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. The network’s current infrastructure includes 151 fast-charging stations with 14 additional […]
Following on former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination to serve as President Obama’s third secretary of defense, Foreign Affairs has made available his 2004 essay “A Republican Foreign Policy.” Reading it with the benefit of eight years of hindsight, the essay reveals how Sen. Hagel’s worldview appeals to the Obama Administration. His views on the foundational […]
The topic of Winston Churchill’s speeches – particularly his postwar speeches – first brings to mind his “iron curtain” speech. During the recent round of discussions over the future of the Euro after the financial crisis, Churchill’s name is occasionally invoked as a one of Europe’s founding statesmen. He was not, like Jean Monnet, an […]
Belatedly and after many recommendations, I went to see Ben Affleck’s Argo recently before heading home for the holidays. True to the reviews, it was smart, suspenseful (particularly since one knew walking in how it all ended) and had its share of dark humor, particularly about the limitation on decision-making within a government bureaucracy and […]
By Dominik P. Jankowski and Paweł Świeżak The recently popular thesis concerning the EU turning to the South is an oversimplification and needs to be treated with reserve. Nevertheless, the interests and the involvement of the EU have been moving towards the African continent at least since 2010. This is clearly visible especially in the […]
Two and a half years after the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU showed up with a new human rights face for its external relations. The often repeated words of Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, stating that human rights have to be a “silver thread” that runs […]
Iceland sits right on the divide between the North American and Eurasian continental plates. A little hotspot of volcanic activity in the North Atlantic, it has tried to rediscover its geopolitical identity several times over the past century. I recently read Klaus Dodds and Valur Ingimundarson’s article in the Polar Journal, “Territorial nationalism and Arctic […]