The European Council on Foreign Relations

On the site this week #2

Date: 25th February 2011  |  Author: Fran Yeoman,

Categories: Europe and the world,
Tags: None

Dear friends and supporters,

What happens after a leaderless revolution? That’s the question that four of our policy fellows were asking when they paid a research visit to post-revolutionary Tunisia in the last week. Anthony Dworkin, Nick Witney, Susi Dennison and Nicu Popescu were there to assess the transition and see what role the EU could play in the new Tunisia. The visit also led to a couple of articles and a podcast that have been added to a new section of our website dealing with Europe and the Arab revolutions (the photo that we’ve used was taken by Nicu on the trip).

• In an article that appeared in Foreign Policy, Anthony argued that the uprising left in its wake a crisis of political legitimacy that nobody seems to know how to resolve.
• Anthony also spoke about his impressions of post-revolutionary Tunisia in an ECFR agenda podcast.
• Nick wrote about how Europe is seen as complicit in the old Ben Ali regime, and resented for its slow reaction to the uprising in Tunisia. He argues that the EU must now try much harder to make amends.
• Susi wrote a blog post noting the common view in Tunisia that Europe seemed to be more concerned with migration than with helping the transition.
• Nicu argued that Tunisians were bitter about the role played by Europe, but that they saw nobody better placed to help than their northern neighbours.
• Emma Bonino called for action over Libya on our blog.
• Richard Gowan wrote about the urgent need to start planning to rebuild Libya even while Colonel Gaddafi remains in power.
• Daniel Korski co-wrote an article with Fabrizio Tassinari that looked at how Gaddafi – the mad dog of Libya – might be tamed.
• Silvia Francescon argued that Italy’s request for European help in dealing with an influx of North African migrants was a positive sign.
• From Shanghai, Raffaello Pantucci argued that links between the North African revolutions and the Chinese situation were overplayed.
• Finally, Mark Leonard was interviewed by the BBC’s Today Programme, along with analyst Daniel Finkelstein. We’ve put the transcript on our blog.

On other issues:

• Fran Yeoman wrote about the Irish election being held in the shadow of the euro crisis, and argued that seen from elsewhere in the eurozone, little would change.
• Ulrike Guerot wrote her weekly Germany in Europe blog about German manoeuvring on the euro ahead of the summit meeting in March.
• Our Madrid office produced a Spanish podcast exploring Germany’s new role in Europe, in an interview with journalist Borja Bergareche.
• I wrote a London View blog post about how Europe might once again be rearing its head in political debates here in Britain.

That’s it for another week. Please contact us with any feedback, comments or suggestions by e-mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or by leaving comments on our blog, Facebook or via Twitter.

Best wishes,

Nicholas Walton