The European Parliament, among others, has used the presidential spotlight shining on Hungary to criticise its restrictive new media law. Has the EU finally heard the message that breaches of fundamental values by member states are a source of collective shame?

The UN and humanitarian NGOs care for nearly three million people who have been driven from their homes in Darfur, but is foreign aid helping to perpetuate the ethnic cleansing of the region? A debate is growing within the aid community about how their work is being abused there, and elsewhere.

Ban Ki-moon's first term as UN Secretary-General, which is set to expire on 31st December 2011, will be defined by peacekeeping in Sudan. If he wants to win a second term in his post, rather than secure it by default, he must raise his game to lead the UN through the tough challenges that Sudan will present in the coming year, starting with the January 9th referendum. 

The Nobel peace prize ceremony earlier this month demonstrated that Europe can act together against heavy-handed Chinese pressure. But unless EU member states consistently eschew bilateral advantage in favour of a united stance on China, Beijing will divide and rule the continent.

The post-election violence in Belarus was both a surprise and a challenge. It hasn't ended the European Union's hopes of rapprochement with Minsk, but it has highlighted the need to understand and discriminate between actors in Belarus if it is to succeed in bringing the country in from the cold.

ECFR reports: Gulnur Aybet on Turkey & NATO

ECFR agenda: Kosovo's elections & the Balkans

ECFR español: José Ignacio Torreblanca presenta "La fragmentación del poder europeo"

ECFR italiano: le missioni civili all'estero funzionano?

ECFR français: les implications de la crise monétaire

ECFR deutsch: zu Deutschlands Rolle in Europa

President Lukashenka doesn't expect to lose the election being held in Belarus, but the great survivor knows that his basic strategy is under severe strain - both at home and abroad.

The Maastricht foundation that underpins the € has been shown to be a fair weather construct, unsuited to the economic troubles of the last two years. Now a new storm-proof framework is needed, with Germany sharing economic sovereignty in exchange for other eurozone members buying into a new governance model largely devised in Berlin.

There are two important lessons to be learned from last month's EU-Africa summit. First, Europe needs to reassert its diplomatic clout after a post-Lisbon period of uncertainty. Second, it needs to think more cleverly about how to promote its values in a world where our economic and political models are no longer unquestioningly accepted.

It is easy to resign oneself to the idea that 'Chinese democracy' is an oxymoron. Yet the potential implications of democratisation in China are so huge that the possiblity of it happening is worth imagining. Lu Xiaobo allows us to do so, if only for a few hours.

Richard Holbrooke, the veteran US diplomat who died this week aged 68, had a reputation for being brash and abrasive. But he was perhaps the best Secretary of State that his country never had.

A shift in the power balance between the EU and India has changed the two powers' attitudes to each other, but there will still be plenty to talk about at their summit this week. Concluding a free trade agreement, and greater strategic cooperation on a range of security issues, is in the interests of both.

Europe needs to convince the world that its political unity is not in question. Only "federation light," and a functional federal budget big enough to make macroeconomic stability part of its normal functioning, will convince the markets and everybody else that the EU and the eurozone have a stable, prosperous future.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, says that the G20 has passed its “heroic phase.” Certainly the last leaders' meeting in Seoul lacked the high drama of those during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. But perhaps we need to redefine heroic leadership: what the world needs now is politicians who are ready to make complex multilateral compromises for the common good.

Cancun will not achieve a global deal, but that should not mean that the EU gives up. By pursuing bilateral deals, particularly with China, and engaging with civil society, Europe can make progress on climate change even in the absence of worldwide agreement. Such innovative approaches might even strengthen the multilateral approach in the longer term.