Germany at the helm: How Berlin kept Europe together in 2020
Germany managed to keep Europe together in a time of severe crisis. The country led diplomatic efforts to find an agreement on the EU’s seven-year budget and its recovery fund.
Archive
Low expectations: A year of renewal for the EU-Turkey relationship
Grand bargains are tough to achieve but, eventually, Turkey and the EU will have to strike up a working partnership whereby they cooperate on some issues and compete on others
The geopolitics of covid vaccines in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood
Many of the EU’s neighbours are hoping it will help them secure vaccines – leaving offers from China and Russia to flood in
Brexit lessons for the EU and its neighbours
The EU can learn from Brexit how to manage divergence and differentiate integration – for the sake of its other neighbours
The impossible stalemate: How the Belarus face-off could go on and on
Aliaksandr Lukashenka rewrote the rules to keep himself in power. But it did not succeed in 2020 – and the EU will not be able to remain a spectator to Belarus’s problems forever
How Russia and the West try to weaken each other
The West and Russia are both worse off for their efforts to try to weaken each other. This competition will only end when one side feels it is losing the race.
The long year: Top foreign policy trends for 2021
Mark Leonard and Jeremy Shapiro predict ten bright and bold policy projections for the year to come
Europe’s China deal: How not to work with the Biden administration
The mere prospect of a strengthened EU-US alliance forced Beijing to make concessions to Brussels last month – a lesson on the power of global coalition-building that Europe failed to take on
Where Portugal can lead Europe in 2021
As president of the European Council, Portugal’s foreign policy intray is full to brimming – but the country has numerous strengths to bring to bear
Why a ‘Black-Green’ German government could finally create a coherent defence policy
The election of a new CDU party leader last weekend might be the first step towards a novel Black-Green coalition government – whose defence policy could be surprisingly visionary, if the parties are willing to work together