European Student Think Tank

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.

His­tor­ic­ally, China has strictly stuck to the non-interference prin­ciple. But, this sac­red prin­ciple as inter­preted in the Chinese for­eign policy may appear quite ambigu­ous. It has been dur­ing a long time pushed by the Chinese dip­lomacy to its lim­its but appears some­what flex­ible, depend­ing on what it is at stake.
Nowadays, this prin­ciple seems to be some­times over­worked. So much so the concept is los­ing its sub­stance. There­fore, let’s go back to the origins…

December’s topic of the month invites your con­tri­bu­tions! “Chinese invest ments in Africa – how to com­pete with the dragon?” is what we ask this time. Sub­mit your con­crete topic proposal!

The trial against med­ical staff that treated pro­test­ers in Bahrain is now in full swing. The lack of any sig­ni­fic­ant reac­tion from Europe against the Bahraini regime amidst con­tinu­ous human rights viol­a­tions stands in stark con­trast to the reac­tion against other Arab dic­tat­ors. It is a shame that polit­ical and eco­nomic interests pre­vent the West from severely sanc­tion­ing the tiny Gulf state.

Ten­sions in the Eastern–Mediterranean area are escal­at­ing: A short time ago, Cyprus begun to con­duct drilling for oil and gas in its exclus­ive eco­nomic area, facing the con­tra­dic­tion of Tur­key. Tur­key claims a share in the “con­tro­ver­sial” Block 12.

US Pres­id­ent Barack Obama has under­taken a six-day trip of ‘the old con­tin­ent’. In the wake of his jour­ney, what can we tell about the rela­tion­ship with Europe in the cur­rent Amer­ican admin­is­tra­tion? What will be the future of the transat­lantic rela­tion between Europe and the United States?

The death of Osama Bin Laden is a great vic­tory for the free West. Almost ten years after the dev­ast­at­ing attacks on Septem­ber 11th 2001, the circle of the thou­sands of deaths on that fate­ful day is now com­plete. What does this mean for the secur­ity of the world? Is the ‘war on ter­ror’ about to be concluded?

France’s bombs on Gbagbo and Italy’s bombs on Khadafi show that Europe’s coun­tries dare to act in their former colon­ies. Accus­a­tions of neo­co­lo­ni­al­ism by evil­do­ers should be accep­ted as com­pli­ments, as it means stand­ing up for human rights, even in coun­tries where act­ing mil­it­ar­ily is sensitive.

The dis­turb­ances in the Middle-East and North Africa have now truly reached Europe. The past week­end, Italy star­ted dis­trib­ut­ing human­it­arian visas to refugees from Tunisia, who had star­ted arriv­ing at the small Italian island of Lampedusa after the revolt in their home coun­try. Around 25.000 visas will be handed out, which gives them full travel pos­sib­il­it­ies through­out Europe. What will be the impact on the other mem­ber states?

The west­ern world has begun its third mil­it­ary inter­ven­tion in a Muslim coun­try since the attacks on Septem­ber 11th. After pre­vi­ous con­flicts, what les­sons have been learned? What is the most desir­able out­come in the Libyan con­flict? And what can be said about the role of the inter­na­tional coalition?