Merkel’s recent visit to China was meant to assure Chinese risk-averse leaders that Europe is back on track. But the visit was also a part of the mosaic that makes up European foreign policy towards China.
As part of the ‘Reinvention of Europe’ project, ECFR is publishing a series of papers on the national debates within EU member states about the crisis and the future direction of Europe. The first paper in the series examines the Polish situation.
The financial markets have repeatedly shown their distrust in the long term sustainability of European Monetary Union. Confidence desperately needs to be restored, and that means rapid and credible agreement on measures that include a more integrated political framework.
With Europe and much of the West facing a seemingly painful decline, attention continues to shift to the BRICS and the world's other rising powers. But are these countries overplaying their hands as the cracks begin to show in their economic virility?
Germany's minimalist approach to fixing the eurozone crisis is not only leading to ever more bailouts. It is also harming the rest of the eurozone because Germany's 'ordoliberalism' is too inflexible to provide a coherent answer to the crisis.
After a frenetic 2011, what are the big trends that are going to shape Europe and the wider world in 2012? Here are ten that ECFR experts think are likely – and one widely predicted trend that we don't think will happen…
The only real success of the euro summit was that it might encourage the ECB to step up its role in the euro area. But years more austerity and a major rift with Britain are a high price the whole euro zone will have to pay for German ideology.
The economic crisis has huge implications for EU foreign policy. There is less time for it, less money available, and Europe's ability to project soft power is in a coma.
The answer to the EU's current problems is to rebuild from scratch, replacing the existing EU with a new, two layered structure with an inner and an outer core.
The economic crisis is now at a critical point, and Europe's leaders must chose between a federated eurozone power or yielding to the power of the markets and economic and political disruption.