Section: European Union Institute for Security Studies (France)
The EU visa suspension mechanism
Visa liberalisation will be high up on the EU agenda in 2017, with the Union about to waive visa requirements for 45 million Ukrainians and 5 million Georgians. Kosovo is hoping for near visa-free travel, as is Turkey: the Turkish government has repeatedly emphasised that only a visa waiver will guarantee a continuation of its efforts to curb the...
Georgia: a pre-election snapshot
Over the last decade Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova – the EU’s ‘closest’ eastern neighbours politically – have alternated between being potential ‘success stories’ or, conversely, cases of ‘fatigue’ in the eyes of their international partners. Georgia, which currently seems to be the best performer of the three, is now due...
Fellow submarines
Ever since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Russian military activity has increased in and around Europe. Russian air and land exercises have also become more assertive and frequent compared to previous years. Fighter jets of the Swedish and Finnish air forces, as well as NATO fighters protecting the air space of the three Baltic republics of...
Russia’s world: facing a century of instability
The Euro-Atlantic community and Russia seem to live in different worlds. It is increasingly obvious that the two sides have drawn different conclusions from the same evidence about the situation in Moldova, the Russo-Georgia war in 2008, the energy disputes between NaftogazUkraini and Gazprom in 2006 and 2009, and the causes and evolution of the...
Petro Burkovskyi – Deputy Chief of the Analytical and Information Division National Institute for Strategic Studies, Kiev
In the last eight years the European Union has endured a series of unprecedented crises. These have included the global ‘credit crunch’ of 2008-9 that threatened to break up the eurozone, the spillover of Islamist violence and extremism in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ and ensuing civil wars in Libya and Syria, and the ‘hybrid...
Hybrid: what’s in a name?
Security analysts and practitioners have a tendency to coin new terms which capture the challenge(s) they are facing or the mandate(s) they are supposed to embrace. Terms such as ‘low-intensity conflicts’, ‘failed’ or ‘fragile’ states, ‘asymmetrical’ threats or even, for that matter, ‘comprehensive approach’ are all...
Hybrid operations: lessons from the past
The security situation in and around Europe has changed dramatically over the past two years. The conflict in Ukraine and the success of the Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East and North Africa have put territorial defence and homeland security back on the agenda in Europe. Hybrid threats and operations against the EU and its partners are real...
The Belarus dilemma
There never was much doubt that Alexander Lukashenko would obtain a fifth mandate in the presidential elections held in Belarus on 11 October. The incumbent, often labelled as Europe’s last dictator, won another landslide victory, with 87.75% of the recorded votes. More surprising was the limited protest that greeted his re-election,...
On target? EU sanctions as security policy tools
Amid lingering questions over their utility in restraining the proscribed actions of the Assad regime in Syria, curbing Iran’s nuclear programme or softening Russia’s aggressive stance on Ukraine, the EU stands to benefit from a balanced, empirically-informed assessment on how sanctions have been implemented, monitored and enforced....
Ukraine’s other war
Ukraine is fighting two wars simultaneously. The most obvious is the hybrid conflict in the east, fuelled and sustained by Russia. But while the ‘hot phase’ in this arena is over, at least for now, Ukraine is also engaged in a war against itself. It is locked in a struggle against its own dysfunctionality and endemic levels of corruption...
