A new transatlantic bargain: An action plan for transformation, not restoration
The Trump years galvanised Europeans’ efforts to strengthen their own sovereignty; they now need to agree concrete offers they can make to the new administration
Director, Wider Europe programme
Russian domestic and foreign policies; Eastern Partnership countries and their relations with the EU; post-Soviet conflicts; cybersecurity
English, Russian, French, Romanian
Nicu Popescu is the director of the Wider Europe programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and he works from ECFR’s Paris office. His topics of focus include EU’s relations with Russia and the Eastern Partnership countries.
In 2019, Popescu served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova. Previously, he worked as a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (2013-2018); senior advisor on foreign policy to the prime minister of Moldova (2010, 2012-2013); senior research fellow at ECFR’s London office (2007-2009, 2011-2012), and as a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005-2007).
Popescu teaches at Sciences-Po Paris. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He is author of the EU foreign policy and post-Soviet conflicts: stealth intervention (Routledge 2010) and co-editor of Democratization in EU Foreign Policy (with Benedetta Berti and Kristina Mikulova), published in 2015.
The Trump years galvanised Europeans’ efforts to strengthen their own sovereignty; they now need to agree concrete offers they can make to the new administration
The relatively short-lived flare-up between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has ended in early November with a ceasefire brokered by Russia
When Biden enters the White House, he will look for a Europe that brings solutions rather than problems. Europeans should show they can be an equal partner & offer him a new transatlantic bargain.
No matter who wins the US election, the EU will need to play a bigger security role in its neighbourhood
If the EU is to be more geopolitically influential in its own neighbourhood, it needs to start developing strategic security partnerships with key neighbours to the east and the south
EU diplomacy could facilitate a conflict settlement process by pressuring Armenia and Azerbaijan to start implementing the Madrid Principles
Russia appears willing to allow Azerbaijan to recapture some areas around Nagorno-Karabakh, betting on Armenian dependency and Azerbaijani gratitude
The contested Nagorno-Karabakh region is at the heart of a decades-long armed standoff between neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan. The…
Azerbaijan and Armenia are shifting from two decades of ‘frozen conflict settlement’ to an era of ‘salami-slicing wars’ – small conflicts designed to extract diplomatic concessions or regain territory from the adversary slice by slice
Russia’s goal in its neighbourhood is to regain influence, not to be surrounded by neutral, self-sufficient buffer states
The Trump years galvanised Europeans’ efforts to strengthen their own sovereignty; they now need to agree concrete offers they can make to the new administration
If the EU is to be more geopolitically influential in its own neighbourhood, it needs to start developing strategic security partnerships with key neighbours to the east and the south
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No matter who wins the US election, the EU will need to play a bigger security role in its neighbourhood
EU diplomacy could facilitate a conflict settlement process by pressuring Armenia and Azerbaijan to start implementing the Madrid Principles
Russia appears willing to allow Azerbaijan to recapture some areas around Nagorno-Karabakh, betting on Armenian dependency and Azerbaijani gratitude
Azerbaijan and Armenia are shifting from two decades of ‘frozen conflict settlement’ to an era of ‘salami-slicing wars’ – small conflicts designed to extract diplomatic concessions or regain territory from the adversary slice by slice
Russia’s goal in its neighbourhood is to regain influence, not to be surrounded by neutral, self-sufficient buffer states
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When Biden enters the White House, he will look for a Europe that brings solutions rather than problems. Europeans should show they can be an equal partner & offer him a new transatlantic bargain.
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