European Student Think Tank

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.

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.

Ratko Mladic is caught, but Ser­bia has not changed much. Instead of act­ing as though the coun­try is stead­ily mov­ing toward the European Union, Europe’s lead­ers should reject Ser­bia until it truly deals with its past. The pop­u­lar Ser­bian sup­port for a gen­o­cidal gen­eral is sig­nal­ing a clear mes­sage that it has all but done so.

The West deems itself super­ior. Unfor­tu­nately that is an undeni­able fact. We have demo­cracy, rule of law, ‘Uni­ver­sal’ Human Rights. What’s more? Our cul­ture is top-class and even in eco­nomic and mil­it­ary terms we’re still num­ber one (though we’re on the verge of los­ing the lat­ter two pos­i­tions). In this blog I’ll dis­cuss the ori­gins of our mis­placed sense of superiority.

A specter is haunt­ing the Neth­er­lands, the specter of Euro­scep­ti­cism. The recent fail­ure of the EU budget talks is more and more show­ing the true col­ors of the newly formed Dutch gov­ern­ment. It’s prob­ably the most anti-European gov­ern­ments in my coun­tries’ his­tory. Here you can read a sad story, about how the biggest of the small European coun­tries is fol­low­ing the wrong path.

The 8th of Novem­ber. The Coun­cil of Min­is­ters unan­im­ously agreed to ease the visa rules on Albania and Bos­nia. All cit­izens from these coun­tries can now freely travel through­out the Schengen-area. A bless­ing or a curse?