Mr Juncker’s White Paper
The European Commission issued a “White Paper on the Future of Europe” as its contribution to the soul-searching in Brussels.
Editorials
Cold plunge into the Trump era
On Friday, 20 January 2017, Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America. He used the occasion to remind his fellow US citizens and the rest of the world of his campaign promises, summing up with the nationalist slogans “America First” and “Make America Great Again”. The new President did not lose time before starting to implement some of those promises.
Zygmunt Bauman will stay near
He was a consistent critic of postmodernity and identified the basic mechanism of reproduction in contemporary societies: consumption and seduction.
Down with you, 2016! Dark thoughts, lingering hopes, firm resolution
What a year it has been! The last few days of it serve as a reminder of what we went through in the previous 12 months.
Marrakech: Climate conference in grim political weather
The UN’s 22n climate change conference, or COP22 as it is broadly known, ended in Marrakech, Morocco. Trump’s election cast a shadow over its relative successes.
Trump’s White House and Paris Climate Agreement: Is Europe up for the challenge?
The election victory of Donald Trump can paralyse global climate and sustainable development policy for years. But it is not just for to the US to decide whether it actually comes to this.
The US presidential election drama
- World , USA , Editorials
For many months now the world has been watching the unfolding drama of the US presidential campaign, starring Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The American elections are of global relevance, as the USA remains the single most powerful country with a unique combination of economic, military, diplomatic but also cultural and normative strength. We have…
Antonio Guterres: One formality away from the post of the UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres, former socialist Prime Minister of Portugal and until last year head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has emerged as the broadly accepted choice to replace UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose term ends on 31 December 2016. Mr. Guterres has been the frontrunner in all six informal votes held at the 15-member Security Council of the United Nations in New York in the recent months. Before that he had presented his vision for the United Nations to the 193 members of the UN General Assembly and had participated in debates and other events, as did the other declared candidates for the job.
G20 – Between G2 and G200
This year’s summit of the G20 took place from 4 to 5 September in Hangzhou, China. The agenda once again went beyond the classical economic issues of growth, trade and investment, and covered climate change, the 2030 Agenda or Sustainable Development, Brexit and even terrorism and health issues. These summits are gradually turning into sessions of some kind of a Global Economic Security Council, if not of a Global Directorate bringing together the most important established and emerging world powers. Should the G20 remain a stage for those preferring the freedom of ad hoc actions than global multilateral scrutiny, or should it be integrated into the more legitimate UN structures, revitalizing them at the same time?
The lesser of two evils
In this year’s US presidential election, Europe is sticking to its guns once again favoring a Democrat over a Republican. But, this time, the reasons are quite different.
