Central & Eastern Europe Archive

Before it recessed to focus on the midterm election campaign, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on draft legislation that would recognize Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova as “non-NATO allies” of the United States. Indeed, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s government had made such a request of Washington earlier this summer, although U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration declined to act on this matter, much to the disappointment of some Ukrainians and their supporters in Congress. Assuming that the legislation passes the full Senate and is also adopted by the House, it is highly unlikely that Obama would risk a veto of the […]

Last week, European Commission President-designate Jean-Claude Juncker named the rest of his team of commissioners and their policy areas; Italian Foreign Minister Frederica Mogherini had already been given the post of European Union high representative for foreign policy, which also functions as a vice president of the commission. The latest announcements have generated a lot of discussion in EU circles about how the posts were distributed among candidates and countries. Appointments to the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, are a complicated balancing act. Each of the 28 member states submits a candidate for the commission, and the […]

Last month the Kenyan-based mobile money transfer system M-PESA launched in Romania. In an email interview, Diane Mullenex, a partner at the law firm of Pinsent Masons, discussed the expansion of M-PESA outside of Africa. WPR: Why did M-PESA choose Romania as its first European country of operations? Diane Mullenex: M-PESA’s success in Kenya was primarily due to several factors, including the existence of a mostly “unbanked” population, a high penetration rate of mobile phones and a non-competitive market. Naturally, when it decided to expand its M-PESA service, Vodafone searched for countries presenting the same characteristics. After India in 2013, […]

Last month, Georgian prosecutors filed charges against former President Mikheil Saakashvili for misallocating public funds while in office. These were only the latest in a series of allegations against Saakashvili this summer, including the charges that the former president exceeded his authority in cracking down on a mass demonstration and ordering the police to raid a TV station in 2007. Saakashvili—who in recent months has steered clear of Georgia—has accused the government, led by the Georgian Dream party that defeated his United National Movement at the polls in 2012, of political motives. The U.S. State Department has voiced concern over […]

There was fighting talk at last week’s NATO summit in Wales. The alliance’s leaders pulled few punches in criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine and agreed on plans to counter future provocations by Moscow. The U.S. corralled a posse of its allies to coordinate the fight in Iraq against the Islamic State. After a summer characterized by global turbulence and ill-concealed uncertainty in both the U.S. and Europe over how to react, the summit signaled that the West has some sense of shared purpose. Yet it will take more than a decent conference to restore the Western powers’ vim and vigor. […]

As Russia’s intervention in Ukraine increasingly takes the form of an outright invasion, the strategic response by the West must be viewed through a different lens. No longer is the reaction of the U.S. and its European allies a matter of symbolism or messaging. The question now is whether economic sanctions, the West’s principal tactical weapon against Russia in Ukraine, can prove effective in pushing back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military advances. Despite the news of a possible cease-fire agreement, there is little indication that Putin is giving up his effort to exert control over eastern Ukraine and undermine […]

Over the weekend, the European Union announced appointments to two of its top posts. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will take over the post of president of the European Council, replacing Herman Van Rompuy when his term expires in December, and Italian Foreign Minister Frederica Mogherini will replace Catherine Ashton as EU high representative for foreign policy. The appointments of “a Kremlin critic from ex-communist Eastern Europe and the foreign minister of one of Moscow’s biggest customers for gas,” as Reuters put it, is emblematic of the steps the EU has taken to balance divisions among its members. As I […]

In responding to press queries last week about how the United States plans to tackle the threat from the Islamic State—also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS—President Barack Obama used an unfortunate choice of words in responding, “We don’t have a strategy yet.” The answer implied that Washington had been caught flat-flooted by the rapid deterioration of events in Iraq and was struggling to craft a response. In reality, whole segments of the U.S. government’s national security apparatus are devoted to strategic planning. With regard to the Islamic State crisis, options have been in development […]

Despite the recent prominence given to the issue of NATO’s membership enlargement, the alliance seems destined for at least the next few years to focus on broadening and deepening its partnerships with nonmember countries and other international institutions. NATO has developed an extensive partnership program since the Cold War and now has some two dozen official national partners, while developing ties with more countries as well as international institutions. Partners contribute capabilities, money and legitimacy to NATO activities. They have provided thousands of ground troops to NATO operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans, air capabilities in Libya and support to […]