Section: CIDOB (Spain)
Interrogantes ante la nueva victoria de Putin
Vladímir Putin va a ganar las elecciones presidenciales del 18 de marzo y renovará su mandato por seis años más hasta el 2024. De hecho, su victoria es tan inevitable que sus críticos se resisten a calificar los comicios de elecciones y optan por fórmulas como plebiscito, celebración, espectáculo o performance. Si se cumplen las previsiones,...
The Middle East Helps Russia’s Comeback as a Global Power
Not for decades has there been such public hand-wringing over Russian intentions in Syria, Libya and the Mediterranean. European and American media keep reminding us that Russia’s moves are evidence of aggressive policies, similar to Russian military actions in Ukraine and Crimea. Ethan Chorin, a former US diplomat, in “Russia Strategic...
Facing Russia’s Strategic Challenge: Security Developments from the Baltic to the Black Sea
The EU and NATO are facing an increasingly uncertain and complex situation on their eastern and south-eastern borders. In what the EU has traditionally conceived as its ‘shared neighbourhood’ with Russia and NATO its ‘eastern flank’, Moscow is exhibiting a growingly assertive military posture. The context of the Baltic and the Black...
The Myth of Return. The Market of Symbolic Policies
First it was Trump who promised to expel millions of undocumented migrants. Now the European Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, is urging member states to speed up deportations. Both give out the same message – a “firm hand” against those without papers. In the European context, two arguments are put forward: this policy allows...
The “Trump cards” of the Russian Propaganda and Disinformation Operations
The outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in the late 2013 has not only demonstrated the deepness of the abyss between Russia and the West. There is yet another aspect: quarter of a century that passed since the disillusion of the USSR has not led toward democratisations of Russia, nor has it witnessed Moscow abdicating from neo-imperial ambitions of...
Beware of What you Wish for: the Unconsidered EU Consensus on Russia
*This article was previously published in the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) The rift between Brussels and Moscow is deep. The Ukrainian war, the subsequent European Union (EU) sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions have dragged the bilateral relationship to its lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Strategic...
The Asylum System in Spain: Guaranteed Right to Protection?
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filled central Barcelona on February 18th to demand that European governments fulfil their obligations. They demanded compliance with the relocation quotas from Greece and Italy. But they called for more, insisting that the right to asylum must be guaranteed with safe means of entry, that asylum procedures...
Change may be afoot in Belarus
“Russia has no intention of occupying Belarus” declared the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in February 2017, three days after Russia set up controls along the length of its border with the only country with which it has a union treaty. This statement was added to the voices of alarm of national (and some international) experts who...
Shapes of a Union: From Ever Closer Union to Flexible Differentiation after Brexit
Farewell, “ever closer union” The logic behind “ever closer union” was gone well before the Brexit referendum. When negotiating a definitive opt-out from the clause, David Cameron revealed how the growing trend towards integration had reached a symbolic limit, regardless of the referendum result. In that European Council of February 2016, it...
The World in 2017: Ten Issues that Will Set the International Agenda
* Text finalised in January 9th 2017.This Nota Internacional is the result of collective reflection by the CIDOB research team. Coordinated and edited by Eduard Soler i Lecha and Eckart Woertz, it has benefitted from the contributions of Anna Ayuso, Jordi Bacaria, Anna Bardolet, Moussa Bourekba, Luigi Carafa, Paula de Castro, Carmen Claudín,...
