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Argos Media

France 24 | EU offers partnership to former Soviet states | France 24 - 0 views

www.france24.com/...et-states-summit-prague-russia

Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus EU Eastern Europe Europe Georgia Moldova Russia Ukraine

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • European Union nations gathered for landmark talks Thursday with six former Soviet states, aiming to foster stability without angering Moscow or offering anyone the hope of eventual EU membership.     The main goal of the new Eastern Partnership is to "accelerate political association and further economic integration" between the 27 EU nations and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, according to a draft summit statement.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday warned against the creation of "new dividing lines" in Europe.     However EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana assured in Prague that the Eastern partnership "is not against Russia with whom we also have a partnership".
  • Brussels says the new scheme is designed to foster stability in the region and is not handing out the carrot of eventual EU partnership.     "This is not about building spheres of influence, this is not about building competition, this is a language that belongs to the past," EU commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said.
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  • The project was the initiative of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency till the end of next month.
  • Prague was unable to convince key EU leaders to attend -- with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi among the no-shows.
  • Overall the meeting was turned into something of a semi-summit, with just over half of the 27 EU nations represented by their heads of state or government.     A senior European Commission official said the absences increase the danger of "policy for the East made by countries from the East (of the EU), and a policy for the Mediterranean made by Mediterranean countries".
  • The draft shows some of the tensions over the eastward rapprochement, with subtle but key text changes in the final version reflecting the wishes of western Europe -- France, Germany and the Benelux countries in particular -- not to go too far with the project.     The six partner nations are clearly referred to as "Eastern European Partners" whereas the Czechs wanted to drop the "Eastern" tag.
  • The reference "long-term goal" was also added to a paragraph on visa liberalisation.
  • No mention of EU membership goals for the six is made, with several EU nations feeling they have enough on their hands with the European aspirations of the Balkan nations.
  • The Eastern Partnership was promoted by Czech, Polish and Swedish concerns that the EU's political focus had moved to areas where it had little real influence rather than stay on more "European" states.
Argos Media

EU Offers Aid, Loans to Six Eastern Nations - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB124173320363397977.html

Angela Merkel Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus EU Eastern Europe Europe Georgia Germany Moldova Russia Ukraine

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • The European Union on Thursday offered six former Soviet states €600 million ($798 million) in incentives to promote stronger energy and economic ties and democratic reforms.
  • The plan, called the Eastern Partnership, has inflamed tensions between the EU and Russia, as Moscow worries that the bloc is encroaching on its traditional turf. The EU, for its part, remains wary following Russia's war in Georgia last year and a weekslong January cutoff of gas supplies to the EU during a dispute between Moscow and Ukraine.
  • "The EU knows, not just because of the Georgia crisis and the gas crisis at the beginning of this year, that safety and prosperity in Europe also depend on the stability of the Eastern partner countries," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a summit here of the six countries and the EU.
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  • In addition to the money, international institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, have been asked to increase their lending in the six -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -- some of which have been hit hard by the downturn.
  • But the EU may be losing the competition for influence with a more-determined Russia. Only €350 million of the money is new, suggesting limited commitment. Moscow sees the Eastern Partnership, which it has described as EU "meddling," as an attempt by the West to carry on with a failed attempt to expand NATO into the region, says Alexander Rahr, director of the Russia program at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
  • In a sign of EU divisions over the Eastern Partnership plan, Ms. Merkel was the only leader of a big EU nation to attend the summit. Leaders of the six Eastern Partnership countries also gave the offer a mixed reception. Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who have close ties to Moscow, didn't attend.
Pedro Gonçalves

Whatever euro's fate, Europe's reputation savaged | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...putation-idUKBRE85F03P20120616

EU Europe US China

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Whether the euro lives or dies, the chaotic way Europe has tackled the crisis could undermine the region's geopolitical clout for years to come and leave it at a distinct disadvantage in a rapidly changing world.
  • "The Europeans are completely consumed with a battle to save the euro zone," says Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "It's a deep and ongoing crisis bigger than any they've experienced in decades... it's an environment where European leaders could hardly be expected to prioritise anything else."That could leave the continent being increasingly sidelined as emerging powers - not just the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China but other states such as Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa - grow in importance.At the very least, it could undermine the ability of the continent's leaders to persuade the rest of the world to take them seriously on a range of issues, from trade to the importance of democracy and human rights."Europe probably isn't going to stop preaching to the rest of the world," says Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College. "But it's much less likely that others are going to be inclined to listen."
  • At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, European states suffered the indignity of being outside the room when the final deal was struck between the United States and emerging powers. In the aftermath of the euro zone crisis, it's a position European leaders may simply have to get used to.
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  • for the rest of the world, it's not just the continent itself that is rapidly losing its shine. The whole European political model - generous welfare systems, democratic decision-making, closer regional integration and the idea of a currency union as a stabilising factor - no longer seems nearly as appealing to other, still growing regions.
  • "If the euro dies, it will mark the end of the European experiment in forging closer financial and political integration. But it will also have wider international implications."
  • Chellaney argues the demise of the euro might help secure the primacy of the dollar - and therefore perhaps of the United States itself - for years to come.But others believe a European collapse would be a sign of things to come for the US as well.
  • "The health of the euro or the EU, for that matter, will have a marginal impact on gold and power that is tending any way towards Asia, especially China,"
  • While Britain and France took the political lead in Libya last year, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates complained European NATO forces were in fact almost entirely dependent on US munitions, logistics and other backup.
  • Washington takes the potential threat of Europe's unravelling very seriously. In the short-term, the Obama administration is clearly concerned over the electoral fallout should the crisis in Europe cross the Atlantic before November's presidential election.But in the longer term, whether the euro survives or not US planners are beginning to face up to the fact that the continent will likely be poorer and rather more self-centred than Washington had hoped.
  • But the change in European thinking and the additional defence spending Washington called for now looks all but impossible in this time of austerity.
  • "It's doubtful any future US Defence Secretary is even going to bother to make that kind of pitch," says Gvosdev at the US Naval War College. "We'd hoped Europe could take the lead in some parts of North Africa as well as the Balkans and Eastern Europe. That now looks very unlikely."
  • Washington's military "pivot " towards Asia, he said, had been based in part on the assumption that Europe would remain stable and wealthy and the US now had little or nothing to worry about on its North Atlantic flank. A weakened Europe could make US planners much less confident of that, particularly if China extends its influence.
  • Beijing has upped its investments in Europe in recent years, including major port projects in Greece and Italy.
  • Some waning of Europe's international influence was always likely, experts say, with an ageing population chewing up ever more resources and emerging economies inevitably growing faster. But the current crisis could supercharge its decline. Whether the continent's leaders realise that, however, is another matter.
  • "Europe's main source of influence (should) be the success of its political and economic model in providing high living standards and democratic freedoms," says Jack Goldstone, professor of international affairs at George Mason University near Washington DC "If the current crisis undermines both of those as well, Europe will look like a rather weak, badly run system of ageing and economically stagnant states. Irrelevance awaits."
Argos Media

EU seeks greater links with ex-Soviet states - The Irish Times - Fri, May 08, 2009 - 0 views

www.irishtimes.com/...1224246132063.html

Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus EU Eastern Europe Europe Frederik Reinfeldt Georgia Moldova Reinfeldt Russia Ukraine

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • THE EU has invited six former Soviet republics to join an eastern partnership initiative promising closer ties amid growing fears of serious economic and political upheaval in the region.
  • At a summit yesterday, the union offered the prospect of free trade, additional economic aid, a gradual relaxation in visa restrictions and integration into the European single market. But the initiative stops short of offering the prospect of future EU membership to any of the participants and commits them to respect human rights and democracy.
  • “If we don’t export stability to this region, we will import instability,” said Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who, along with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, co-developed the eastern partnership plan in an attempt to stabilise eastern Europe.
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  • Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and the 27 EU states signed up to a declaration promising a “more ambitious partnership”. The EU is also planning to boost the amount of aid it provides to the region to about €600 billion and provide technical assistance to the six states.
  • Moscow rejects European accusations of meddling in the region and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the proposed partnership when he met his European counterparts, telling them it should “not get in the way of the post-Soviet era”.
  • EU diplomats attempted to soothe Russian concerns to prevent tensions between Nato and Russia worsening. “This is not anti-Russian,” said Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. “They are our close eastern neighbours and we have a vital interest in their stability and prosperity. This is an offer, not an EU projection of force.”
  • However, the commitment of EU states to the eastern partnership initiative came under question, with several high-profile EU leaders staying away. British prime minister Gordon Brown, French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish prime minister José Luís Zapatero did not attend.
  • Polish hopes that the partnership may be used to give countries such as Ukraine the chance to apply for EU membership face opposition from Germany and the Netherlands. Diplomats from both states insisted on watering down the declaration, which initially referred to the states as “European countries”. Instead, they were described as “partners” and promises of fast-track visa liberalisation were deleted.
Argos Media

As Economic Turmoil Mounts, So Do Attacks on Hungary's Gypsies - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...27hungary.html

Eastern Europe Roma Hungary Czech Republic Slovakia Hungarian Guard

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Over the past year, at least seven Roma have been killed in Hungary, and Roma leaders have counted some 30 Molotov cocktail attacks against Roma homes, often accompanied by sprays of gunfire.
  • Experts on Roma issues describe an ever more aggressive atmosphere toward Roma in Hungary and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, led by extreme right-wing parties, whose leaders are playing on old stereotypes of Roma as petty criminals and drains on social welfare systems at a time of rising economic and political turmoil. As unemployment rises, officials and Roma experts fear the attacks will only intensify.
  • In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they tried to march through Roma neighborhoods, a small child and her parents were severely burned after assailants firebombed their home in the town of Vitkov this month. The police in Slovakia were caught on video recently tormenting six Roma boys they had arrested, forcing them to undress, hit and kiss one another.
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  • But nowhere has the violence reached the level it has in Hungary, spreading fear and intimidation through a Roma population of roughly 600,000. (Estimates vary widely in part because Roma say they are afraid to identify themselves in surveys.)
  • “In the past five years, attitudes toward Roma in many parts of Eastern Europe have hardened, and new extremists have started to use the Roma issue in a way that either they didn’t dare to or didn’t get an airing before,” said Michael Stewart, coordinator of the Europe-wide Roma Research Network.
  • The extreme-right party Jobbik has used the issue of what its leaders call “Gypsy crime” to rise in the polls to near the 5 percent threshold for seats in Hungary’s Parliament in next year’s election, which would be a first for the party. Opponents accuse the Hungarian Guard, the paramilitary group associated with the party, of staging marches and public meetings to stir up anti-Roma sentiment and to intimidate the local Roma population.
Pedro Gonçalves

Georgia: expect storms ahead | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...georgia-storms-ahead

Georgia Russia EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • For energy-poor western Europe, Georgia is a vital conduit for Caspian basin oil and gas exports that are not, for now at least, under Moscow's manipulative control. Vladimir Putin's Kremlin views Georgia very much as part of its backyard, a "near abroad" property (though the phrase is not much used these days) that should conform to Russian interests. Europe believes it belongs inside its post-Soviet, liberal pro-market "eastern neighbourhood".
  • The idea Georgia might one day join Nato – it already contributes through the Partnership for Peace scheme – and the EU is anathema to Russian nationalists. It is not coincidental that since 2008, when Putin sent his tanks deep into Georgian territory in support of independence for the breakaway satraps of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia has effectively controlled about one-fifth of Georgia's total land mass.
  • The problem for both sides of this strategic equation is that Georgia's leaders – they might better be termed overlords – tend not to do what they are told, even by putative friends. Saakashvili's authoritarian, sometimes confrontational style, pockmarked by serial rights abuses including a recent prison torture scandal, has embarrassed his Brussels backers. The west wants a stable Georgian government, not one engaged in a personalised, potentially dangerous feud with the Putin regime.Yet the man behind the Georgian Dream opposition, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, could also prove an awkward customer, should he be confirmed as prime minister. Ivanishvili made his money, lots and lots of it, during Russia's corrupt oligarch era. He still reportedly holds a chunk of Gazprom shares. Saakashvili predictably labelled him a Kremlin stooge, a charge he denies.
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  • "Greek scholar Ilia Roubanis has called Georgian politics 'pluralistic feudalism', a competition between a patriarchal leader who enjoys uncontested rule over the country and a leader of the opposition bidding to unseat him and acquire the same [...]
  • Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Oct 12
     
    "For energy-poor western Europe, Georgia is a vital conduit for Caspian basin oil and gas exports that are not, for now at least, under Moscow's manipulative control. Vladimir Putin's Kremlin views Georgia very much as part of its backyard, a "near abroad" property (though the phrase is not much used these days) that should conform to Russian interests. Europe believes it belongs inside its post-Soviet, liberal pro-market "eastern neighbourhood"."
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Russia alarmed over new EU pact - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8061042.stm

Russia EU Eastern Europe Eastern Partnership Dmitry Medvedev

shared by Argos Media on 22 May 09 - Cached
  • "We would not want the Eastern Partnership to turn into partnership against Russia. There are various examples," Mr Mevedev told a news conference at the end of the summit.
  • Moscow has accused the 27-member bloc of creating new dividing lines in Europe by offering closer ties to six former Soviet republics. The Eastern Partnership Initiative aims to forge close political and economic ties in exchange for democratic reforms. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have signed up to the initiative, which seeks to bolster stability in the region. However it does not offer the prospect of eventual EU membership.
  • Russia supplies more than a quarter of EU gas needs. Its decision to cut all gas to Ukraine - a vital transit country - meant that many EU member states also lost their supplies of gas for two weeks in January. Speaking in Khabarovsk, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned there should be no more disruptions to gas supplies from Russia.
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  • On the divisive issue of energy supplies, President Medvedev raised questions about whether Ukraine can afford billions of dollars to top up its gas stocks. "We have doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay," he said. He also proposed that Moscow and the EU should help Ukraine get a loan for gas payments.
  • "I would simply not want this partnership to consolidate certain individual states, which are of an anti-Russian bent, with other European states," he said.
Argos Media

As Jobs Die, Europe's Migrants Head Home - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25migrants.html

Europe Economy Immigration

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Mr. Mituletu, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
  • But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Mituletu are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
  • While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
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  • In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
  • Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
  • But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
  • The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave. The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home. And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
  • Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
  • Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
Argos Media

EU pact challenges Russian influence in the east | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...sia-eu-europe-partnership-deal

EU Eastern Europe Russia Georgia Ukraine Belarus Azerbaijan Armenia Moldova

shared by Argos Media on 08 May 09 - Cached
  • A summit of 33 countries in Prague brought the EU's 27 governments together for the first time with the leaders of the post-Soviet countries of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus to inaugurate the so-called "Eastern Partnership".
  • The attempt to ringfence Russia's clout in a region that Moscow views proprietorially as its "near abroad" has been triggered by the destabilising events of the past nine months, notably Russia's invasion of Georgia last August and its gas war with Ukraine in January."This is only happening because Russia has annoyed everyone," said Michael Emerson, a Brussels analyst and former European Commission chief in Moscow.
  • Yesterday's summit also coincided with a fresh bout of worsening tension, with Russia and the west engaged in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and spies over the past week, Moscow raging at Nato military exercises in Georgia starting this week and the west incensed at Russian assertion of border controls in Georgia's two breakaway regions.
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  • Senior Czech officials organising yesterday's summit openly acknowledged that the eastern partnership was aimed at countering Russia's influence in its backyard."Foreign policy is always about the projection of interests," said Alexandr Vondra, the outgoing Czech deputy prime minister. "You can project your interests, but you must give the respective countries the freedom to make choices."
  • The policy launched yesterday breaks new ground by seeking to entice the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. The instability in Georgia, the recent unrest in Moldova, and the permanent feuding among Ukraine's political elites all point to the formidable challenges for a policy that the European Commission describes as "a strategic imperative".
  • The new policy treats the six countries as a regional bloc, aiming to establish free trade areas between them and the EU, to tap their energy resources, and to promote human rights and democracy-building projects. But while the initiative is aimed at bringing the six countries in, it is also intended to keep them out. The declaration adopted yesterday was changed to call the six countries "east Europeans" rather than "Europeans" lest the latter description encourage applications to join the EU, as pushed by Ukraine and Georgia and opposed by western Europe.Eastern clamour for visa liberalisation to make it easier to travel to the EU was also blocked, with the issue parked for the long-term.
Argos Media

After the Fall of Wall: A Report Card on Post-Cold War European Integration - SPIEGEL O... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,613866,00.html

EU NATO Eastern Europe

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Let us begin with NATO, the Western military alliance celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. It has helped integrate many of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe into the Western fold and it has become an anchor of stability for many of them. At the same time, the alliance has evolved from a defense alliance into a United Nations "subcontractor" that is dispatched on international humanitarian peace missions and interventions. Also, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the transatlantic alliance has managed to adapt to the challenges of transnational terrorism.
  • And yet, despite all of Europe's success stories over the last 20 years, one can not overlook its shortcomings. Let us take a closer look at three of them: the continuing divisions of the continent, the failed pursuit of a common foreign policy and the dwindling legitimacy of the European project.
  • despite the expansion of NATO and EU membership, there are still major political differences between Western and Eastern Europe. Of course, the new EU member states have stable democracies. But they also sometimes harbor deficiencies that depart vastly from the Western European ideal. These countries often feature unorganized and unconsolidated groupings of political parties; radical and sudden changes in government; a detached political elite with a penchant for populism; and a media landscape with only a limited capacity to hold the political establishment accountable.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Eternal Candidate: Turkey Bets on Regional Influence as EU Hopes Fade - SPIEGEL ONL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628575,00.html

Turkey EU Recep Tayyip Erdogan Neo-Ottomanism Ahmet Davutoglu Middle East Syria Gaza Lebanon Georgia Russia Caucasus Armenia France Germany Foreign Policy Turkish Foreign Policy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The Turks, who always used to complain to their Western allies about their rough neighborhood, apparently no longer have any enemies in the east. Turkey's old rival Russia has since become its most important energy and trading partner. Syria and Iraq, two countries with which Ankara has in the past been on the brink of war, are now friends of Turkey, and relations are even improving with Armenia. The Arabs, who never truly took to the successors of the Ottomans, now look with admiration to what they call the "Turkish model," a dynamic, open country that has a better handle on its problems than they do.
  • When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed office in 2003, he planned to lead Turkey into the European Union. But Europe was unmoved by this vision, and it has also lost much of its appeal within Turkey. According to Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think tank linked to the center-left Social Democratic Party, as the Europeans have become weary of expansion, Turkey has lost interest in joining the EU. Indeed, what Erdogan meant when he spoke of Turkey's "alternative" to becoming an EU member is becoming increasingly clear.
  • Critics and supporters alike describe this new course as "neo-Ottomanism." Ankara remains formally committed to its European ambitions. However, frustrated by the open rejection with which it has long been met in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, and which it has been facing once again during the EU election campaign, Turkey is focusing increasingly on its role as a peacekeeping power in a region it either ruled or dominated for centuries.
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  • The Turkish press touts Davutoglu as "Turkey's Kissinger," and even Erdogan and Gül refer to him as "hoca" ("venerable teacher"). The country's foreign policy increasingly bears his signature. For example, at his suggestion, Turkish diplomats revived talks between Syria and Israel that had been discontinued in 2000, leading to secret peace talks that began in Istanbul in 2004. However, the talks were temporarily suspended in late 2008 because of parliamentary elections in Israel and the Gaza offensive.
  • Davutoglu is convinced that Ankara must be on good terms with all its neighbors, and it cannot fear contact with the countries and organizations branded as pariahs by the West, namely Syria, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. He believes that Turkey should have no qualms about acknowledging its Ottoman past -- in other words, it should become a respected regional power throughout the territory once ruled by the Ottoman Empire (see graphic).
  • Davutoglu, like President Gül, is from Central Anatolia and a member of a new elite influenced by Islamic thought. He completed his secondary-school education at a German overseas school, learned Arabic and taught at an Islamic university in Malaysia. He believes that a one-sided Western orientation is unhealthy for a country like Turkey.
  • The Turks say that they achieved more during the Gaza conflict than Middle East veterans like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, arguing that Hamas's willingness to accept Israel's ceasefire offer was attributable to Ankara's intervention. They also say that the fact that Erdogan angrily broke off a discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Summit in Davos cemented his reputation in the Islamic world as a friend of the Palestinians. When street fighting erupted in Lebanon between supporters of the pro-Western government and of Hezbollah in May 2008, Erdogan intervened as a mediator.
  • Ankara is also seeking to reduce tensions in the Caucasus region, where the Turks have often acted against Russia, prompting Moscow to accuse Turkey of being sympathetic to the Chechen cause. After the war in Georgia last summer, the Erdogan government brought together officials from Tbilisi and Moscow. Turkey and Armenia are now seeking to overcome long-standing hostility by establishing diplomatic relations and reopening their shared border.
  • Off the Horn of Africa, the US Fifth Fleet turned over the leadership of Combined Task Force 151, which is responsible for combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, to the Turkish navy. At the same time, a man paid an official visit to Ankara who had not appeared in public since 2007: Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, the head of the notorious Mahdi Army militia. Davutoglu had sent a private jet to bring him to Turkey from his exile in Iran.
  • Critics like political scientist Soner Cagaptay describe Ankara's foreign policy as "pro-Arab Islamist." In a recent op-ed for the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Cagaptay argued that Turkish diplomats, who had once "looked to Europe, particularly France, for political inspiration" have now fallen for the Arab world, and generally for Islamists
  • Diplomats like Hakki Akil, the Turkish ambassador in Abu Dhabi, disagree. According to Akil, Turkey has acquired "soft power" by expanding its sphere of influence from the Balkans to Afghanistan, transporting Russian, Caspian Sea and Iranian oil and gas to the West, and building housing and airports in Kurdish northern Iraq. Europe, says Akil, ought to be pleased with Ankara's course. As Akil's boss Davutoglu said in Brussels, political stability, a secure energy corridor and a strong partner on its southeastern flank are all "in the fundamental interest of the EU."
  • According to a recent internal European Commission report, Turkey has made "only limited progress." Some EU countries have already abandoned the idea of accepting Turkey into their midst. In Bavaria, conservative Christian Social Union campaigners promote a message of "No to Turkey" as they make the rounds of beer tents. At a televised campaign appearance in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made their opposition to EU membership for Turkey clear.
  • Ironically, Turkey's strategic importance for Europe "is even greater today than in the days of the Cold War," says Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament for the conservative Christian Democratic Union who specializes in foreign policy issues. And then there is the paradox of the fact that the more intensively Turkey, out of frustration with Europe, engages with its eastern neighbors, the more valuable it becomes to the West. According to Brok, the West must "do everything possible to keep Ankara on board."
  • Brok and other members of the European Parliament envision making so-called "privileged partner" status palatable to Turkey. It would enable Turkey to have a similar relationship to the EU as Norway does today and to enjoy many of the benefits of EU membership, including access to the European single market, visa-free travel, police cooperation and joint research programs. But it would not, however, become a member.
Pedro Gonçalves

China's Wen - ready to boost eastern Europe trade | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...hina-wen-idUKBRE83P0K520120426

China Poland EU Economy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • China will set a $10 billion credit line and a $500 million investment fund dedicated to eastern and southern European states as it aims to increase trade with the region to $100 billion in 2015, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Thursday.
  • "The Chinese side understands concerns among eastern European countries over trade imbalances and will boost imports from those countries," he said
  • Cash-rich China has signed a string of bilateral currency agreements, including with Mongolia and Kazakhstan, to promote the use of Chinese yuan in cross-border trade and investment.
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  • Earlier this week Wen also promised to increase bilateral trade volumes with Germany [ID:nW8E7KD00A] and Poland [ID:nL5E8FOFAP] as part of a drive to diversify its foreign currency reserves, the world's largest at $3.3 trillion.
  • Poland, the largest eastern EU member and still outside the single currency area, is engaged in a large-scale infrastructure building programme and struggling to modernise its energy sector to curb reliance on highly polluting coal.Warsaw hopes for Chinese investments in those fields.China is interested in Poland's banking sector and wants to open branches of its banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, its biggest lender, in Poland.
  • "We are pleased that Poland today is China's largest partner in central Europe, with trade volumes exceeding 14 billion euros in 2011," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, adding that the potential for trade between China and Poland and its regional peers was much bigger.
  • Poland is the only European Union member to have avoided recession since the 2008 start of the global financial crisis.
Pedro Gonçalves

The new cold war: Russia's missiles to target Europe | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...topstories3.politics

Russia US Putin Missile Defense Shield

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jul 09 - Cached
  • On missile defence, Mr Putin said that if the Bush administration installed elements of a missile shield in eastern Europe, Russia would retaliate by training nuclear missiles on European targets. Russia has not specifically aimed its missiles at Europe since the end of the cold war but, asked if it might do so again if the US missile shield went ahead, Mr Putin said: "Of course we are returning to those times. It is clear that if a part of the US nuclear capability turns up in Europe, and, in the opinion of our military specialists will threaten us, then we are forced to take corresponding steps in response.""What will those steps be? Naturally, we will have to have new targets in Europe."He said: "We want to be heard, we want our position to be understood. But if that does not happen, we lift from ourselves any responsibility for the steps we take in response, because we are not the ones who are initating the arms race in Europe."
Argos Media

General Wesley Clark on NATO's Future | Newsweek International Edition | Newsweek.com - 0 views

www.newsweek.com/...195701

NATO Wesley Clark Russia

shared by Argos Media on 05 May 09 - Cached
  • Among all other international organizations, there are none stronger than the relationships of NATO.
  • You've got to share information and coordinate action. Though there are also bilateral relationships, which are preferred by the intelligence community. There are some NATO partners who don't get the same level of candor and detail as others.
  • It's also a major force for stabilizing Eastern Europe, which is still dominated by fears—some founded, some unfounded—of inappropriate influence by Russia.
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  • Is Eastern European security still a worry of NATO's? Is its mission outdated?I hosted the Russian chief of defense in Bosnia in 1997, and talks were candid. Those exchanges were shut down by the resurgence of the traditional power ministries and men like Yevgeny Primakov, who reestablished the grip of the intelligence services on the military. It became impossible for me to call my Russian counterpart. Since then we've seen threats to Eastern Europe and the action in Georgia. In the Czech Republic, our allies are very worried about what it might mean to "reset" relations with Russia. I heard from Condi Rice in 2000 that the Clinton administration had somehow destroyed relations with Russia and that the new team would make things better. Now we're [talking about "resetting"] relations again.
Pedro Gonçalves

Eastern Europe, Seeking Energy Security, Turns to Shale Gas - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...12shale.html

Energy Europe Shale Gas

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 May 10 - Cached
  • The industrial Lublin and Podlasie basins of southeastern Poland are becoming major attractions for global energy giants hoping to tap into new sources for Europe.
  • “Shale can be a way to increase the region’s energy security, depending on what the results are of all these projects,” said Richard Morningstar, U.S special envoy for Eurasian energy, during a recent visit to Poland. “It is not a question of being independent from Russia. It is a question of having overall energy security.”
  • The GeoForschungsZentrum or GFZ Institute, a German research center for geosciences in Potsdam, has estimated that Europe has 510 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, perhaps 5 percent of the world’s supply. Europe contains “prime targets for shale gas exploration,” the institute said. Those targets include Poland, Germany, Hungary, Romania and Turkey, all of which have received overtures from U.S. energy companies.
Pedro Gonçalves

Skeptic on the Inside Undercuts European Union - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04czech.html

Vaclav Klaus Czech Republic EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 04 Aug 09 - Cached
  • When the European Union and Russia held their most recent summit meeting in May, the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, stunned European diplomats when he passed out copies of his book denouncing the fight against global warming — a central policy of the 27-nation bloc he was supposed to lead.
  • He declined to display its gold-starred flag in his office during his nation’s presidential term.
  • In November, Mr. Klaus set the stage for the Czech presidency when he visited Ireland’s leading activist against the Lisbon Treaty. He praised him as a “dissident” akin to Czechoslovak rebels like Vaclav Havel who had languished in prison during the communist era.
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  • In early January, a spokesman for the Czech presidency described the Israeli offensive in Gaza as more defensive than offensive, taking a position that was anathema to most big European nations, including France, which had strongly condemned Israel’s action. That prompted the Czechs to revoke their comments, which they said had been misunderstood.
  • Likewise, the Czechs apologized to several countries for a public artwork they commissioned in Brussels to celebrate their presidency. The art installation consisted of an avowedly satirical map of Europe that depicted Bulgaria as a Turkish toilet and Germany as a highway resembling a swastika, among other offenses.
  • Ahead of Mr. Obama’s first presidential trip to Europe, Mr. Topolanek called the American fiscal stimulus package “a road to hell” in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
  • With Mr. Topolanek a lame duck, the signature event of the Czech presidency — a May meeting to engage with the European Union’s eastern neighbors, including Georgia, Moldova and Belarus — was snubbed by leaders of the main European players, including France, Britain and Italy.
Argos Media

Suffocated by Debt: Greece Teeters on the Verge of Bankruptcy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,617915,00.html

Greece Economy

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Over the past few weeks, workers and public employees have been calling strikes across the country. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Greece's major cities, paralyzing public life. Trains, buses, and ferries stopped running. Hospitals offered only emergency services. Public schools were closed.
  • Crisis? The situation in Greece is not all that bad, insists Panos Livadas, the government's secretary general of information. The shops and cafés are full of customers, he points out. The Greek economy is "really indestructible. I don't understand these international situation assessments."
  • Educated young people from the middle class have little prospect of finding employment, despite being well qualified, and are forced to take casual jobs to make ends meet. As a result, many young Greeks are forced to live with their parents until they are well past the age of 30. The anger of the "€700 generation" -- as the young people are known -- over their situation exploded last December in weeks of rioting throughout the country.
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  • He characterizes Greece's banking sector as being "basically sound" and "in considerably better condition" than those in other EU countries and in the United States. He notes that Greece was the first EU country to provide a government guarantee for personal savings up to a total of €100,000.
  • now the European Commission has instigated disciplinary proceedings, because Athens has exceeded the euro zone budget deficit limit of 3 percent for the third time in a row. The results of audits carried out by Brussels look very different from the information in Livadas's glossy brochures. In EU statistics, Greek government debt is listed as amounting to 94 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Italy is the only other euro zone country which has a higher level of government debt. Greece also has the lowest credit rating of all the euro zone countries. It has to finance its government debt under terms which are worse than for any other euro zone country, with the exception of Malta.
  • He explains that in 2008 his country's economy expanded by 3.2 percent, "one of the highest growth rates in the euro zone." Over the past four years, he says, economic growth in Greece has been twice as high as the overall average in the currency union countries.
  • Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the Bank of Greece, the nation's central bank, warned his countrymen against "self-satisfaction" and spoke of a looming danger of national bankruptcy. And Greece has still to feel the full effects of the global recession.
  • "The negative factors you see here are all leftovers from the past," says one EU diplomat, adding that most of them are homegrown. Economic experts are anxiously waiting to see what's going to happen this summer. They fear there could be a decline in the tourism sector, one of the most important pillars of growth in the Greek economy, accounting for 17 percent of gross domestic product. The volume of tourist bookings from the United States is reported to have dropped by up to 50 percent. The number of British vacationers, some 3 million annually in the past, alongside 2.3 million Germans, is expected to shrink by up to 30 percent.
  • The situation of banks that invested in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans is uncertain. Greek financial institutions invested billions of euros in bank takeovers or in setting up their own branches in Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Given that the value of the national currencies in some of those countries has fallen dramatically, what were originally seen as attractive investments in developing economies could well turn out to be huge losses.
  • That's what the crisis looks like in Greece. "Nobody wants to see it, but everybody is afraid of it," says Kalliope Amyg, a young political scientist. "The country is dancing on a volcano."
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08moldova.html

Facebook Moldova Politics Politics 2.0 Social Media Twitter Web 2.0

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.
  • The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
  • The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.
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  • By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.
  • Young people have increasingly used the Internet to mobilize politically; cellphones and text messages helped swell protests in Ukraine in 2004, and in Belarus in 2006.
  • The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging.
  • Election observers from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had tentatively accepted the voting as fair, though they expressed some concern about interference from the authorities. But the results were a deep disappointment in the capital, where Communist candidates lost the last round of municipal elections.
  • Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs.
  • But Moldova remained desperately poor, and young people flocked overseas to work. They have looked to the West as the best path to economic stability and have defied Mr. Voronin’s government by urging closer integration with Romania.
  • “I wouldn’t necessarily call it an anti-Communist movement,” Mr. Patterson said. “This really is a generational squeeze. It’s not really the Communists versus the opposition. It’s the grandmothers versus the grandkids.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Declining Support for Nationalists: Hard Times for Eastern Europe's EU Haters - SPIEGEL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628141,00.html

EU Poland Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus Eastern Europe European Parliament Lithuania Slovakia Bulgaria Libertas Declan Ganley

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Today, opinion polls put support for Self-Defense at just three percent in the upcoming European parliamentary elections.
  • Five years on from the EU's big eastward expansion, there's not a single new member state where fierce critics of Brussels can expect good results in the EU election. In fact, they will be lucky to win enough votes to cross the five percent threshold needed to get seats in the EU parliament in Strasbourg.
  • In addition to Lepper, Poland's League of Polish Families has also slipped under the five percent mark in opinion polls.
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  • hings have quieted down at Prague Castle, Klaus's seat of office. The liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS) he co-founded has broken ranks and recently voted in favor of the reform treaty. The president's euro-skepticism has pushed him to the periphery of the country's political scene.
  • His newly founded right-wing Party of Free Citizens (SSO) is expected to fare even worse in the European elections than Lepper's Self Defense.
  • Opinion polls have registered increasing enthusiasm for the EU in the new member states. According to a Eurobarometer survey, a majority of citizens in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania believe that accession to the EU brought their countries economic growth and democratic progress.
  • Poland's farmers -- Lepper's clientele -- used to be the problem children of the EU, but are now regarded as a source of stability. In 2007, 14.7 percent of Poles still worked in the farming sector, compared to just two percent in Germany. A few years ago the vast majority of them were vehemently opposed to the EU and feared that large swathes of Polish farmland would be bought up by Germans. But by 2008, three quarters of farmers already believed that Poland's agricultural sector had benefited from EU membership.
  • The EU cut €220 million in payments to Bulgaria and froze a further €340 million because Bulgaria was incapable of putting the money to effective use as a result of endemic corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. But surprisingly, the ensuing public anger wasn't directed at Brussels but against their own politicians, who had led the country into the EU but weren't able to tap the EU's financial resources.
Pedro Gonçalves

US has 'scrapped plan for missile shield in eastern Europe' - Americas, Wor... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...in-eastern-europe-1778398.html

US Russia Missile Defense Shield

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Moving to avoid a rift with Moscow, Barack Obama has "all but abandoned" plans to locate parts of a controversial US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, a leading Polish newspaper claimed yesterday. The Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza said that the Pentagon has been asked to explore switching planned interceptor rocket sites from the two east European states to Israel, Turkey, the Balkans or to mobile launchers on warships
  • Controversy erupted earlier this year when rumours surfaced of a secret letter written by Mr Obama to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev allegedly hinting that the White House would back away if Russia offered help on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
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