Publications

It is no exaggeration to say that the Islamic Republic of Iran has posed a challenge to the West since the very day of its inception. However, since 2002, concerns about Iran's nuclear issue have further worsened relations, to such an extent that the US identified Iran as a main...

I was in Montenegro 20-24 May over the referendum period, and in Belgrade 24-27 May to gauge reactions to the result there. The following note presents my reflections on the significance of the referendum for EU Balkans policy; on the prospects for independent Montenegro; and...

Last November, EU Defence Ministers mandated the European Defence Agency (EDA) to develop a Long Term Vision (LTV) for European Military Capability Needs, with the horizon of 2025. This exercise, known as the LTV's Strand One, was developed alongside two parallel and...

Three years after the US-led intervention, Iraq has become neither more secure nor more democratic. Formal democratic procedures do not necessarily amount to democracy. National sovereignty, a non-negotiable prerequisite for democracy, exists on paper only and the country's...

The OSCE is in crisis. There can be no doubt but that the OSCE today, as compared to its heyday during the Cold War and in the mid-1990s, is a far less visible landmark on the European institutional landscape than was formerly the case.

Près d’un an après la crise politique ouverte par les « non » français et néerlandais au référendum sur la Constitution européenne, le bilan de l’Union en matière de sécurité et de défense témoigne toujours d’une dynamique ascendante.

Die Beziehungen der EU zur Islamischen Republik Iran gestalteten sich seit jeher schwierig. Erst als das Regime in den 1990er Jahren seinen internationalen Pariah-Status überwinden wollte und sich in seiner Rhetorik sowie in seine Außenpolitik mäßigte, war an ein Ausloten...

Dos acontecimientos marcarán la vida de los Balcanes en lo que queda de año. Primero, un referéndum previsto hacia los meses de mayo o junio en Montenegro, el territorio de Serbia y Montenegro que da al Mar Adriático, sobre una posible independencia, y la continuación de las...

(a modified version of this analysis was published by European Voice, 23-29 March 2006) In his now famous essay 'Power and Paradise' Robert Kagan forcefully argued that 'America was from Mars and Europe from Venus' and as a consequence of this America and Europe were diverging...

The European Union (EU) has for a long time paid attention to processes of regional integration and cooperation on other continents. However, the relations the EU has developed with other regional or sub-regional organisations until a very recent period were essentially focused...