The European Union’s integration has often been driven by crisis. At the same time, not every problem confronting European policymakers has led to further integration. It is only when specific external threats become intertwined with tensions inside the EU that a moment of crisis can present policymakers with an existential choice.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has largely chosen caution over confrontation in Rome’s foreign policy. But when it comes to Italy’s position on the war in Ukraine, and by extension its bilateral relationship with Russia, her administration’s emphasis on continuity seems to be diverging from domestic public opinion.
In January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds before midnight, in an assessment of how close the world is to “global catastrophe”—the prospect of nuclear war. Three recent events over the past few weeks have reinforced the idea that the world is entering a dangerous era of nuclear risk.
Lawmakers in Brussels are going through the details of the Windsor Framework deal, a proposed adjustment to the Northern Ireland protocol, announced by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday. The key question they’re asking: Has the European Union compromised too much?
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and a delegation of government officials recently met with their Moroccan counterparts for the first time in eight years, in an effort to mend relations amid tensions over territorial issues and migration. But the timing of the summit was awkward, due to concerns over Morocco’s human rights record.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western governments realized that they had overestimated the power of the Russian state and underestimated the resilience of Ukraine’s. Governments must examine why certain flawed paradigms proved so persistent, in order to avoid similar miscalculations in the future.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 upended international politics, and seriously affected China’s strategic calculations. Beijing is now scrambling to limit the fallout of the conflict on its core strategic and economic interests, and with the prospects of a clear Russian victory waning by the day, China faces a dilemma.