Photo credit (©) AP On Wednesday, around 2.5 mio. Dutch voters rejected the EU-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (61.59% yes, turnout 32.2%). In effect, a small minority of less than 0.5% has become a veto player for an agreement affecting more than half a billion people. There are serious problems both with such a small minority being…
An unfortunate narrative has captured the discourse on the crisis in Ukraine, as political solutions to end the conflict and Russian incursion are sought. Many commentators have ruminated that a ‘Dayton-style solution’ or the ‘Bosnian model’ be implemented in Ukraine as a means to end the violence and embrace decentralized, regional based federalism where Kiev…
Two years ago, the former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, saved the day (and helped to resolve an inconclusive discussion at the Chicago summit on this subject) by making a public pledge that the next NATO summit will be about enlargement. In the meantime, NATO’s open-door policy had slipped down the priority list, and…
The Ukrainian crisis will have significant consequences for the future of the European periphery, which is now increasingly becoming an arena for competing powers. The game started with EU and Russia, but it quickly involved the United States too. In its foreign policy, Russia seems to be unimpressed with the EU, but not with the…