Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Beijing has gone to great lengths to punish Lithuania for opening a Taiwanese representative office. In the long run, China’s tactics may end up making the EU stronger and more resilient.
Since October 2020, the European Union has gradually extended its sanctions against Belarus. Aimed to change the calculations and dynamics within the ruling elite, sanctions are now perceived as less important by the Belarusian people given the authoritarian regime's consolidation of power.
Featuring Rosa Balfour and Corinna Hörst, the WIIS Brussels’s final podcast of 2021 highlights these experts’s experiences in the worlds of academia and European affairs. The episode also looks back on the challenges of European security, defense, and foreign affairs in 2021, and looks forward to the new year.
The EU’s pursuit of a single European defense market necessitates stronger democratic oversight. Members of the European Parliament and national legislative bodies should play a more proactive role as watchdog and engage in strategic foresight and planning.
The EU has a major role to play in accelerating climate action both at home and abroad. If it fails, the bloc will succumb to supply chain breakdowns and migratory pressures. To avoid this, the EU must advance climate justice and restore trust between developed and developing countries.
European debates on climate change have focused so much on technocratic fixes that they’ve neglected to see how contentious political debates on cost sharing will be.
Disinformation and influence campaigns from domestic and international actors have thrived during the pandemic. European policies that build public trust in democratic institutions should be accompanied by regulation of online platforms that focuses on transparency and accountability.
The geopolitical pressures of Brexit, an unstable transatlantic partnership, dwindling member states’ defense budgets, and global competition in high technology areas have prompted European institutions to consolidate the union’s cooperation on defense industry and technology.
In Europe, security and defense cooperation have long been the realm of member states and other security organizations like NATO. But recent efforts at the EU level have begun to create a European defense sector—which presents unique challenges and opportunities.
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has voted to refer the Kavala v. Turkey case to the European Court of Human Rights. By doing so, the Council of Europe upheld European values and principles, namely the rule of law.