Diplomacy: Not such wicked leaks
Libération, Paris – For the celebrated novelist and intellectual Umberto Eco, the Wikileaks affair or "Cablegate" not only shows up the hypocrisy that governs relations between states, citizens and the...
View ArticleInternet: WikiLeaks copycat targets EU institutions
EUobserver.com, Brussels – A self-funded group of former EU officials and NGO, media and PR-sector workers based in Belgium has set up an EU version of WikiLeaks, in what is just one of several copycat...
View ArticleInstitutions: What action, Lady Ashton?
Le Monde, Paris – Catherine Ashton was cast as Europe’s international voice, the head diplomat of an EU full of world-wide ambitions. Unfortunately, she is not making her voice heard, is nearly...
View ArticleNetherlands-Iran: Diplomatic anger over secret burial
“Relations with Iran at all time low,” headlines Volkskrant in the wake of news that Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal, currently on a mission in the Middle East, has recalled the Netherlands’...
View ArticleJustice: Diplomatic war between France and Mexico
"Florence Cassez, an affair of state," announces Le Figaro in the wake of Mexico’s decision to cancel its participation in France’s “Year of Mexico” cultural programme. The crisis has been prompted by...
View ArticleArab revolutions: Sarkozy accused of amateurism
With Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya, French diplomacy has been “rocked by the Arab uprising,” headlines Le Monde. The French daily explains that “the sudden escalation of popular uprisings in the Middle...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Europe's zero doctrine
El País, Madrid – During major crises, every major power has a clearly defined diplomatic doctrine which it applies according to its interests. As revolution spreads across the Arab world, it’s the EU...
View ArticleTime to choose
EditorialMuch ink has already been spilled over Europe’s awkward response to the Arab revolutions: we have been told that its support for dictators has led it to disregard popular demands for freedom,...
View ArticleEurope-Libya: The moral test of fire
Presseurop, – A few hours after the UN approved military operations against Libya, the regime in Tripoli announced a cease-fire. This decision might well simplify a situation the European press deems...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Paris and London torpedo EU foreign policy
La Stampa, Turin – The initiative taken by France and the United Kingdom — two countries which occupy key posts in the European External Action Service — has fragmented the emerging structure of...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Saving Private Ashton
El País, Madrid – While the Libyan crisis unfolds before gates of Europe, the High Representative for EU foreign policy is totally absent from the scene. "One wonders if the post still makes sense,"...
View ArticleNetherlands: Austerity homes in on Defence
“Massive employment cuts in Defence”, reads the front page of NRC Handelsblad. Dutch defence minister Hans Hillen is scheduled to present the government’s austerity programme on 8 April. The evening...
View ArticleEnd of the line
EditorialA certain nostalgia is emerging for the days when Javier Solana, the EU’s elusive high representative for foreign affairs and security, was in charge. He, at least, was seen from time to time,...
View ArticleGeopolitics: EU and NATO in a tail spin
El País, Madrid – The military operations in Libya have shown that NATO is no longer able to control the course of world events. And the EU is incapable of taking over for the same reasons: faultlines...
View ArticleGeopolitics: Bucharest gets foothold in Caucasus
“Why Russia and Turkey fear Romania” headlines România liberă, setting out the energy and military strategy that Bucharest has worked out for the Caucasus. The newspaper notes that “Romania is the only...
View ArticleSlovakia: Ice hockey paves the way to Moscow thaw
"Only a day left before the hockey," announces SME in the run-up to the International Ice Hockey Federation Championship which opens in Bratislava on 29 April. In its report, the daily also notes that...
View ArticleEU-US: At last, Obama woos Europe
Long-ignored by Barack Obama in the beginning of his term in favour of Asia and Arab nations, Europe is back on the US President’s priority list. For French daily Le Monde the trip to Washington, DC of...
View ArticleChina – Germany: Tokens of friendship
Wen Jiabao bearing “gifts before the summit,” headlines Berliner Zeitung. The release of two dissidents, the artist Ai Weiwei and the civil rights activist Hu Jia, is not a coincidence, the paper says:...
View ArticleGermany: Diplomacy without a voice
Die Zeit, Hamburg – With an estranged foreign minister on one side and a less than united coalition on the other, the government of Angela Merkel must steer through an increasingly difficult...
View ArticleDiplomacy: An EU human rights representative?
“The EU wants to reinforce the fight for values”, announces Jyllands-Posten. Meeting in Copenhagen on March 9, EU foreign ministers are to discuss a Danish-German proposal for the appointment of a...
View ArticleIsrael-EU: Lady Ashton has hit a raw nerve
Ha’aretz, Tel-Aviv – The parallel drawn by the EU's foreign affairs chief between the massacre of three Jewish children in Toulouse and Syrian, Israeli and Palestinian war victims has provoked...
View ArticleUnited Kingdom: Assange helps case for EU extradition law
The Daily Telegraph, London – The parable of Julian Assange, holed-up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, at least had the merit of demonstrating that the European Arrest Warrant system, which is...
View ArticleDebate: Towards a diplomacy without inhibitions
El País, Madrid – To make Europe’s voice heard on the world stage, its policymakers should adopt a more incisive and strident tone. A number of rambunctious young ministers of foreign affairs, like...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Syria: Europe’s unsustainable strategic weakness
Le Huffington Post , Paris – The impotence of the EU faced with the drama in Syria reflects the lack of a credible European foreign policy. But this can only come about if the European Union gets a...
View ArticleEvery man for himself
EditorialThe major diplomatic event of this week was the United Nations’ decision to recognise the Palestinian Territories as a non-member observer state on November 29. The vote in the UN General...
View ArticleDiplomacy: European small is beautiful
EUobserver.com, Brussels – From Germany’s austerity drive to the UK’s planned referendum on EU membership, it is always the big states that get the headlines in EU policy making. But the smaller states...
View ArticleDiplomacy: UK and Argentina are polls apart over Falklands
A referendum on the status of the Falklands Islands (Las Malvinas in Spanish) carried out among the South Atlantic archipelago’s 2,900 inhabitants found 99.8 per cent support for remaining a UK...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Stupidity and stinginess in Mali
Le Monde, Paris – Despite what its European partners say in public, France is alone in fighting the armed Islamists and helping rebuild the Malian state. The EU's inability to agree on major global...
View ArticleEU-Syria: ‘UK and France: We must arm Syrian rebels’
French President François Hollande and UK Prime Minister David Cameron called on European Union leaders to support them in lifting the European arms embargo to Syria. At an EU summit in Brussels,...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Berlin’s new activism
Le Monde, Paris – Germany is taking advantage of its robust economic health to firm up its presence on the international stage. However, trade is the engine of a diplomacy that still fears embracing...
View ArticleEU-Syria: EU considers lifting oil embargo
European Union member states have reached a preliminary agreement to ease an embargo on Syrian oil exports in what would be the first easing of sanctions since the beginning of President Bashar...
View ArticleEU-Syria: Better to get it wrong than do nothing
Die Tageszeitung, Berlin – The EU's 27 member states decided on May 27 to lift the embargo on the supply of arms to Syrian rebels, while also supporting a peace conference planned for mid-June in...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Romania looks to the east
România libera, Bucharest – A visit to Beijing, followed by another to Moscow: in the space of a few days, the Romanian government has reached out to two major powers that it used to view with...
View ArticleDiplomacy: Sanctioning Hezbollah, but which Hezbollah?
The European Union's foreign affairs ministers decided, on July 22, to include the armed wing of the Hezbollah on the EU list of terrorist organisations. German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung strongly...
View ArticleEU-Egypt: Catherine Ashton’s useful but indecisive mediation
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, succeeded in meeting Mohamed Morsi on July 30. She thus became the first person who is not a member of the...
View ArticleDiplomacy: ‘Băsescu changes attitude to Romanian-Hungarian relations’
On August 12, Romanian President Traian Băsescu declared that 2013 would be the last year in which Hungarian politicians would be allowed to do as they wished in Romania, reports Jurnalul Național....
View ArticleResearch: New settlements threaten Israel’s role in EU program
Israel’s announcement on August 13 that it will give the green light to building 942 new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank could put the breaks on its participation in a multi-billion-euro EU...
View ArticleGibraltar: ‘If you come any closer it will get worse for you’
Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo on Sunday sent the Royal Gibraltar Police to intercept Spanish fishing boats protesting at the government’s decision to sink 70 cement blocks in disputed...
View ArticleEU-Egypt: Sanctions against barbarism
Le Monde, Paris – Facing the violent repression of the supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian military, EU members are struggling to come up with a common stance. However, the...
View ArticleGibraltar: ‘EU will mediate in Gibraltar’
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed on Monday to send an EU fact-finding mission to Gibraltar to examine border controls introduced by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
War in Syria: ‘No good options against Assad’
By allowing the UN through to inspect the scene of the massacre, “Syria’s president will be gambling that allowing the inspectors in will deepen divisions over the appropriate response to his apparent...
View ArticleWar in Syria: Where are all the intellectuals?
NRC Handelsblad, Amsterdam – In the past, writers, philosophers and other western thinkers mobilised to demand their governments act – or not – during international crises. Why are they so silent about...
View ArticlePortugal: ‘Government reaffirms Portuguese claim over Savage Islands at UN’
The Portuguese Foreign Ministry will respond in writing to a Spanish objection raised with the United Nations regarding control of territorial waters around the Savage Islands in the Atlantic Ocean,...
View ArticleRussia-Netherlands: The ‘clash of civilisations’
In the wake of the ongoing dispute over Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship, which was sailing under Dutch flag and detained along with her crew in the Russian port of Murmansk, a new “power struggle with...
View ArticlePoland-Russia: ‘Blaaaazing’
Another Polish-Russian conflict, writes Dziennik Gazeta Prawna following November 11 incidents when masked participants of the nationalist Independence March climbed a fence at the Russian embassy in...
View ArticleIranian Nuclear talks: Lady Ashton’s Geneva triumph
The Guardian, London – The agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, signed in the early hours of November 24, is the fruit of a behind the scenes diplomatic marathon in which the EU’s High Representative...
View ArticleEU enlargement 2004-2014: The rise of the Eastern European diplomats
In 2004, the diplomats of the new EU member states of Eastern Europe “walked around like Alice in Wonderland” in the European capital, writes Marc Peeperkorn, EU correspondent of De Volkskrant. Ten...
View ArticleMike Pence visits Europe: The Munich spirit
Jyllands-Posten, Aarhus – Cartoon. See more.
View Article
