Europe

Big news out of Georgia (which is where I am until 17 November), where thirteen men were arrested on charges of spying for Russia, Georgia’s nemesis. Most of the men were arrested in October, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs made the announcement on 5 November, perhaps due to Reuters breaking the story a week […]

A proposition for major cuts on the uniformed and civilian division of the German army has been suggested to the German Defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg by an expert commission. The plan would be to downgrade the Bundeswehr from 250.000 to 180.000. Mr. zu Guttenberg has been calling for cutting military spending by professionalizing the […]

This is nothing new per se of course, it has been argued before that European integration proceeds only when faced with an important obstacle. In that sense once again the financial crises have led to a number of heretofore unimaginable cooperative steps of governments giving up national sovereignty. The French President Sarkozy has proposed an […]

The EU is none too fond of referendums. As most will recall, it was the pesky public and its fear of all things Brussels that sunk the EU Constitution Treaty, which, after considerable wrangling, was adopted in a revised version as the Treaty of Lisbon. Following the announcement by European leaders of the European Council’s […]

Europe in the past has seen its fair share of successful (and unsuccessful) mass movements descending in the street and clamoring for justice of course. The 1968-69 demonstrations spectacularly failed (Prague) or led to ambiguous changes in the social life styles of society difficult to measure (Germany, France). The 1989 mobilizations were an unequivocal success […]

With the Cold War a thing of the past and the limits of US unilateralism clearly demonstrated, the EU must be experiencing perfect conditions for their key competencies; soft power and diplomatic dexterity  – right? European nations have after all been conditioned by the continent’s tumultuous history in the necessity of taking other points of view […]

On November 25, 2010, Lady Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, announced in a press release the appointment of the two top administrators of the External Action Service: Pierre Vimont as the Executive Secretary General and David O’Sullivan as its Chief Operating Officer. […]

For your average German citizen it seems that they might feel they are supporting many of their European cousins while they work to keep the books balanced. The year 2010 has become a year where Germany and in some aspects, France, have been supporting an EU that many in the media had left for dead […]

A spectre is haunting Europe once again, yet unlike during the 1840s it is not Communism but instead the continent-wide popular appeal of modern far right, xenophobic politicians and beliefs which menace the traditional parties’ grip on power. While the specific situations in European countries differ widely, common trends and forces are clearly discernible.Let us […]

Once again, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Azerbaijan. RFE/RL reports that the Court (commonly referred to as “the Strasbourg Court”) has ruled that the Azerbaijani government illegally annulled the election victory of pop singer Flora Karimova after the 2005 parliamentary elections. The court ruling (which is available here) addressed decisions of […]

According to the Global Post and other sources, Georgia has finally adopted jury trials, at least for cases of aggravated murder – and for now, only in Tbilisi. This is reportedly part of a larger program to introduce jury trials more broadly, weaken the role of judges in Georgian trials, where they are more like […]

My apologies for being away from the blog for so long, but I was in Afghanistan for three weeks and just returned. I had been working as an observer during the recent parliamentary elections, and was sent by Democracy International, an NGO based in Bethesda, Maryland. While Afghanistan is somewhat outside my normal baliwick, I […]