The Putin paradox: Five things Navalny’s arrest says about Russia
The events Navalny set in motion both indicate the urgent need for change and make such change less likely to happen
Wider Europe
Decade of patience: How China became a power in the Western Balkans
As European and US ambivalence towards the Western Balkans persists, the region will be in increasing danger of falling into an endless spiral of competition between various foreign actors
Bosnia to war, to Dayton, and to its slow peace
It will be difficult to sustain progress for Bosnia or the region without a credible and clear EU accession process
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
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
The EU and Belarus in 2021
How is Europe planning to keep Belarus on the agenda and will it provide more political support for Belarusian civil society?
What to expect from the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue in 2021
Kosovo and Serbia will likely make little progress this year in their long-running dialogue, due to a lack of honest leadership and genuine attempts to prepare the public for a compromise