Research
The EU-Russia energy dialogue
09 May 2003
Russia is the EU's biggest neighbour. The EU is Russia's most important trading partner and source of foreign investment. Yet EU-Russia relations have often suffered from discord over contentious issues such as trade quotas, rules on visas, the Kaliningrad enclave or human rights in Chechnya. So it is all the...
Guarding Europe
02 May 2003
The European Union needs to build an effective security framework to stop criminals and terrorists from roaming freely across its internal borders.
Europe needs an avant-garde for military capabilities
04 April 2003
Europe has many lessons to learn from the Iraq crisis. Politically, Europe is divided between "old" (those countries that opposed the Iraq war) and "new" (those that supported the war). Europe’s lack of military muscle compared to the Americans was exposed by the short Iraq campaign. The gap in transatlantic...
More power for the parliament
01 April 2003
The Convention on the future of Europe is drawing up a constitution that is supposed to transform the EU. Much of the discussion has focused on the EU's executive: the powers of the Commission, the organisation of the EU presidency and the role of the European Council.
The decline of American power
01 April 2003
Saddam Hussein notwithstanding, most of the world's problems cannot be solved by military force. Their solution requires 'soft power', which can be defined as a country's ability to influence events through persuasion and attraction, rather than military or financial coercion. A country has more soft power if its culture, values...
War: Who is to blame
01 April 2003
The French President has employed scorn and threats to insult sovereign European states, in a style reminiscent of comments made by Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle about France and Germany.
Issue 29 - 2003
28 March 2003
- More power for the parliament , Pervenche Bérès MEP
- The decline of American power, Charles Grant
- War: Who is to blame, Pierre Hassner
Does enlargement matter for the EU economy?
07 March 2003
The economies of the new member-states are too small to have much impact on the current EU. The EU as a whole has gained from enlargement and will continue to do so. But labour intensive industries and border regions will have to cope with increased competition. Germany, Austria and other...
The Lisbon scorecard III: The status of economic reform in the enlarging EU
07 March 2003
Three years into the EU's Lisbon economic reform agenda, the EU remains far from meeting its goal of becoming the 'most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010'.
The Europeans can stick together on Iraq
07 February 2003
The emergency EU summit on Iraq has produced a useful statement on what unites Europeans in their dealing with the Iraq crisis. After the very public squabbling of recent days and weeks, EU leaders pulled back from the brink and decided to underline the common ground between them. But deep...
How Europe can help the Middle East peace process
03 February 2003
The EU member-states are deeply divided over Iraq. But on the other great issue of the Middle East the Israel-Palestine conflict they have an increasingly common perspective.
Is an old versus new European divide replacing East against West?
03 February 2003
Are there really two Europes, as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims? His assertion in January that France and Germany represented an 'old Europe' seemed confirmed by the emergence of a 'new Europe' just a few weeks later.
The return of Franco-German dominance?
03 February 2003
The Franco-German alliance has provided both stability and momentum to the European Union, for most of its history. But by the time that François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl left the scene, the EU's 'motor' had more or less broken down.
Issue 28 - 2003
31 January 2003
- How Europe can help the Middle East peace process, Steven Everts
- Is an old versus new European divide replacing East against West?, Heather Grabbe
- The return of Franco-German dominance?, Charles Grant
The euro and prices
03 January 2003
By most measures, the euro’s first year been a success. Doomsayers had predicted that the currency changeover would cause mayhem on European highstreets, long queues in front of cash machines and a wave of crime and forgery. In the event, the participating countries adapted to the new currency quickly and...
The EU and the Middle East: A call for action
03 January 2003
The EU urgently needs a more effective and coherent Middle East strategy. With war looming against Iraq and violence escalating between Israelis and Palestinians, the EU is under intense pressure to spell out what it can do to solve these problems.
The EU and armaments co-operation
06 December 2002
Europe needs more military capabilities. Yet European defence budgets are static, and the cost of new military technologies is soaring. It is clear that governments need to extract more value out of each euro they spend.
The Copenhagen deal for enlargement
06 December 2002
The successful conclusion of accession negotiations at the Copenhagen summit on 13 December 2002 means that ten countries will join the European Union in its biggest-ever enlargement.
Russia and the WTO
06 December 2002
Russia first applied to the World Trade Organisation in 1993. But it was only when Vladimir Putin took over the presidency in 2000 that real progress towards accession became possible.
The EU's budget: Time to go back to basics
02 December 2002
The EU's summit in November descended into a nasty row between EU leaders about the Union's finances. The dilemma member-states face is how to finance enlargement the accession of ten, poorer countries without taking funds away from current EU members or pushing spending above the existing budget ceiling of 1.27 per cent of EU GDP.