Europe is stirring from a long geopolitical slumber. For decades security was outsourced, mainly to Washington. With Donald Trump’s return to the White House and mounting uncertainty over America’s future role in Europe, the time for strategic hesitation has passed. The continent must now take ownership of its security, or risk being caught unprepared in…
All roads lead to Strasbourg On 3 April 2025, fifty university students from Novi Sad in Serbia will set off for Strasbourg on bicycles. Having woken up even the smallest places in Serbia, they are set to wake up European human rights organisations; not because they’ve lost faith in Europe, but precisely because they still…
“A week is a long time in politics,” as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously remarked. The first two weeks of March 2025 have felt endless, marked by political shifts, surprises, and moments that could shape the future for decades to come. The U.S. initially paused military aid to Ukraine, raising concerns over the…
The European Union has just witnessed a strong surge in support for far-right and nationalist parties in the June 2024 EU Parliament elections. Parties such as France’s National Rally, Germany’s Alternative for Germany, and Italy’s Brothers of Italy, have all gained sweeping victories in the EU elections. This comes after months of speculation about the…
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has long created an image of herself as being a “champion” of the Italian far-right when it comes to issues of migration. Having campaigned and won, in part, because of her harsh rhetoric on immigration in the 2022 Italian general election, Meloni has since found it difficult to deliver on her…
Energy, mostly in the form of fossil fuels, drives everything we do. Nearly all aspects of 21st-century life, from commuting to work to waging a war, depending on the consumption of energy, make the latter arguably the most valuable tradable commodity in the human world. Consequently, the more one controls the energy supply, the more…
*This tribune was originally published in French in Le Monde dated 30/3/2022 After unsuccessfully and repeatedly calling on Russian President Putin to end this deadly conflict and respect the United Nations Charter, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SG), seems to have disappeared from the radar. Heads of State talk to Putin, heads…
By Tapio Kanninen and Georgios Kostakos* After the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started on 24 February 2022, the world was horrified at the prospect of a new major war in Europe. Condemnation for the invasion rightly goes to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. An overblown Western reaction, though, may have dangerous consequences for the…
As the war in Ukraine approaches the one-month mark – (the Russian invasion started on 24 February 2022) – and in view of the escalating destruction and human suffering, plus the potential for a wider confrontation and even nuclear war, the need to put an end to it becomes ever more urgent. This article looks…
The images of residential blocks hit by Russian missiles or artillery fire in Kiev, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities brought back memories of similar scenes from cities in Syria some years ago. Initially, it was news that something like that had happened. Then it became a commonplace, the lines of who did it – the…
