European Student Think Tank

Italy is going to elec­tions by the end of this month after 14 months of technocratic-ruling admin­is­tra­tion. Pier Luigi Ber­sani, the center-left can­did­ate has a good chance of becom­ing Italy’s next leader and couple of days ago I atten­ded a short, yet very mean­ing­ful speech of him at the Ger­man Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions in Ber­lin. Pro-European, sharp and thought­ful, he delivered indeed a strong message.

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.

When the news was con­firmed, the announce­ment of the Nobel Peace Prize being awar­ded to the EU triggered a wide range of reac­tions, from joy and delight over mild cri­ti­cism to out­rage and dis­be­lief. Jean-Baptiste Houdart tries to sum­mar­ize reac­tions and explains why the EU is a worthy recip­i­ent of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

EST’s ambas­sador to Lithuania, Edvar­das Pocius, takes a look at the upcom­ing par­lia­ment­ary elec­tions in Lithuania and explains if any for­eign policy changes should be expec­ted, and if so, which obstacles might need to be over­come first.

While the crevice of the EU credit crisis is dis­sem­in­at­ing, the core issues, which are pain­fully ver­it­able, have remained remark­ably tacit. As a res­ult, the trouble­some reluct­ance to address the fun­da­mental issues of the crisis has raised ques­tions on what must be done to regain the eco­nomic growth of the EU. Henri Erti tries to give an answer.

The World Bank recently pub­lished a report which served as a reminder of a fact that is eas­ily for­got­ten these days: The European Union is a suc­cess story when it comes to eco­nomic growth and stand­ards of liv­ing. The key to suc­cess has been regional eco­nomic integ­ra­tion: The European Single Mar­ket has allowed enter­prises and work­ers to make use of busi­ness and job opportunities.

There is no per­fect human being. We all have vir­tues and flaws. The same thing some­how applies to states, con­sid­er­ing that there is no abso­lutely self-efficient, developed and envir­on­ment­ally con­scious coun­try. Coun­tries cooper­ate with each other and build up “friend­ships” to cover their needs and max­im­ize their vari­ous interests. A “friend­ship” of com­ple­ment­ary interests is found between the EU and China with a view to end up their crises.

“Belarus rep­res­ents an extreme case of an author­it­arian regime appar­ently little enticed by the EU’s car­rots and little dis­turbed by the EU’s sticks”, Pro­fessor Karen E. Smith poin­ted out while reflect­ing on the EU-Belarus rela­tions within the con­text of the European Neigh­bor­hood Policy (ENP) in 2005. Although six years have already passed, things have not [...]

The import­ance of recent par­lia­ment­ary elec­tions in Poland far exceeded its local lim­it­a­tions. No won­der that the EU member-states and out­side world care­fully and attent­ively observed the vot­ing pro­cess, since the pol­ish people had to determ­ine which for­eign policy vec­tor they would sup­port – pro-EU or anti-EU, neighbor-friendly or regional-defiant? What does this decision mean for the EU? An response to David Grodzki’s assess­ment entiteld “Why Poland’s new old gov­ern­ment is good news for the EU”.

At least 16 Kosovo Serbs and 4 NATO Peace­keep­ers were injured dur­ing clashes at a dis­puted bor­der cross­ing. Viol­ence in North­ern Kosovo has flared up again after the situ­ation seemed to have sta­bil­ized some­how after the end of the Balkan wars. What makes things worse is that this alarm­ing situ­ation might cause Ser­bia to lose its EU mem­ber­ship can­did­ate status: Ser­bia now faces a dilemma: its national pride on the one hand and its pos­sible European mem­ber­ship on the other.