European Student Think Tank

2012 has been a very busy and pro­duct­ive year for the European Stu­dent Think Tank. A new board has taken over duties, and the edit­or­ial office launched the Essays/Papers/Theses Pub­lic­a­tion sec­tion on the web­site. The amount of art­icles has increased, and in order to broaden its appeal and read­er­ship, EST has strung up cooper­a­tion agreements [...]

No other coun­try aspired mem­ber­ship to the European Union for such a long time as Tur­key. It’s been twenty-five years since EU-Turkey nego­ti­ations began. Dur­ing this time, the EU was able to exert much pos­it­ive influ­ence on the coun­try. The social, eco­nomic and polit­ical sys­tem of Tur­key has fun­da­ment­ally evolved and now resembles the European model more closely than ever. Also the EU would, eco­nom­ic­ally and polit­ic­ally, bene­fit enorm­ously from Turkey’s acces­sion. How­ever, many issues remain. The New Federalist’s Florian Grün­wald and Sarah Dejae­gher take a look at EU-Turkey relations.

The Future of Europe group, com­posed of 11 EU for­eign min­is­ters, released a paper with ground­break­ing integ­ra­tion­ist pro­pos­als and a very real­istic approach: when His­tory is call­ing upon you, don’t wait for the oth­ers. Artus Galiay from the New Fed­er­al­ist takes a look at the pro­pos­als for a bet­ter future of Europe.

The UK has tra­di­tion­ally been viewed as one of the least EU enthu­si­astic mem­ber states. Repeatedly rumour have sur­faced in the past that the UK might leave the com­munity. Emile Hoquee from The New Fed­er­al­ist takes a look at how likely such a scen­ario is today.

EST’s topic of the month focuses on Asia. Also Atlantic Com­munity mem­bers do so in their memo no 36: They aruge that the European Union must make a greater effort to strengthen its polit­ical and dip­lo­matic ties with Asian nations and regional organ­iz­a­tions. What do you think about Atlantic Community’s Memo 36? Tell us your opinion.

In Memo 35 Atlantic Com­munity argues that European coun­tries should work more with NATO and reduce ambi­tions for the EU Com­mon Secur­ity and Defense Policy. What is your opin­ion? Get into dis­cus­sion and reply with your own blog!

EST announces its cooper­a­tion with the think tank “Atlantic Community”.

Atlantic Memos show­case the best ideas and argu­ments from debates in our cooper­a­tion Think Tank Atlantic Com­munity. Memo 44 deals with the imr­pove­ment of Europe’s defense.

Atlantic Memos show­case the best ideas and argu­ments from debates in our cooper­a­tion Think Tank Atlantic Com­munity. Memo 33 calls for stronger ties with Asia. Atlantic Com­munity mem­bers call upon NATO to strengthen its exist­ing part­ner­ships and develop new col­lab­or­at­ive ties in Asia to remain effect­ive in an increas­ingly multi-polar world.