Special

EU Coalition Explorer

Rethink:Europe - 8 July, 2020

Special

EU Coalition Explorer 2020: Coronavirus Special

Claire Busse, Rafael Loss, Jana Puglierin, Marlene Riedel, Pawel Zerka, Ulrike Esther Franke - 1 July, 2020

Special

EU Coalition Explorer 2020: Policy Intentions Mapping

Claire Busse, Rafael Loss, Jana Puglierin, Marlene Riedel, Pawel Zerka, Ulrike Esther Franke - 1 July, 2020

The frugal blues: An underappreciated threat to the European project

Pawel Zerka - 15 September, 2020

It would be premature to conclude that the frugal four are, or will remain, happy about the EU’s budgetary deal.

Brexit as perpetual motion: Why Boris Johnson will never stop fighting the EU

Rafael Loss - 11 September, 2020

It is in the British prime minister’s interests to carry on a ‘war with Brussels’, no matter how tired EU leaders already are of the issue.

Trump’s Kosovo show: No big deal

Majda Ruge - 10 September, 2020

The White House’s sloppy agreement does little to advance dialogue, and comes at a high price.

Why America is facing off against the International Criminal Court

Anthony Dworkin - 8 September, 2020

The US long ago took umbrage at the – unlikely – prospect that the ICC could prosecute Americans. The consequences of this stance are now revealing themselves.  

View from the Council

Pulling together or pulling apart: The coronavirus crisis and political participation

Milica Delevic - 8 September, 2020

The sheer magnitude of the crisis and the way in which it exposes existing fault lines – particularly the shocking levels of inequality in many societies – are making political mobilisation more likely.  

How the frugal four could grow in number and influence

Catharina Sørensen - 7 September, 2020

Brexit has denied Denmark a regular ally in EU negotiations. Copenhagen can find new friends – but it should start the hard yards now. 

View from the Council

Why Finland never joined the frugal four

Hanna Ojanen - 4 September, 2020

Recent signs that Finland has joined the “frugal four” are overstated, but one member of the group may well be its closest coalition partner.  

From fragility to vitality – Analysing von der Leyen’s #SOTEU

Ursula von der Leyen’s first State of the European Union speech was as long as it was broad in topics and calls for action. Host Mark Leonard is joined by Alexander Stubb, ECFR Board Member, Director of the European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance and Former Prime Minister of Finland and Carlos Moedas Trustee at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and former European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation. Together they break down the speech and analyse its various parts, from climate to health policy, from digital sovereignty to Europe’s place in the world. What did the Commission President promise and envision? And did she point out some black sheep?

This podcast was recorded on 16 September 2020.

Bookshelf:

• "Governance in the new global disorder: Politics for a post-sovereign society" by Daniel Innerarity
• "The virus in the age of madness" by Bernard-Henri Lévy
• "Has China won? The Chinese challenge to American primacy” by Kishore Mahbubani
• "Negotiating flexibility in the European Union" by Alexander Stubb
• "Taming Sino-American rivalry" by Feng Zhang & Richard Ned Lebow

Listen online   

Trump’s dirty tricks

Although US President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the election are shameless, they are still more subtle than the outright election rigging that one finds in places like Belarus. Like other authoritarian leaders, Trump is deploying a new anti-democratic politics that has yet to be fully comprehended. Together with Asli Aydintasbas, Jeremy Shapiro and Andrew Wilson, Mark Leonard depicts seven dirty tricks that Trump seems to be borrowing from e.g. Russian President Vladimir Putin or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Further reading: "Trump's dirty tricks", by Mark Leonard

This podcast was recorded on 9 September 2020.

Bookshelf:

• “Circe” and “The song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller
• “The eternal city: A history of Rome” by Ferdinand Addis
• “Democracy for sale” by Peter Geoghegan 

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Surveillance and the inevitable AI future

In this week’s episode, we feature one of the focus sessions from our Annual Council Meeting this June. Policy Fellow Ulrike Franke moderated this online panel discussion featuring Marietje Schaake, International Director of Policy at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Centre and former Member of the European Parliament, and Carlos Moedas Trustee at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and former European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, European Commission. Is the European Union indeed a “regulatory superpower” for digitalisation and the tech market? Does the EU draw on its AI potential to the fullest? Where should Europe position itself in the US-China rivalry?

The session was recorded on 29 June 2020.

Further reading:

• Europe’s digital sovereignty: From rulemaker to superpower in the age of US-China rivalry by Carla Hobbs (ed.)
• Not smart enough: The poverty of European military thinking on artificial intelligence by Ulrike Franke

Bookshelf:

• ECFR’s August Reading List

Listen online   

If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready: Rethinking global health security

“Defending the WHO is necessary but not sufficient to address the weaknesses that the corvid-19 crisis has revealed. Fundamentally, those weaknesses revolve around the interplay between, first, underfunded national and local health systems and second, international coordination which relies on goodwill and is too weak in a world of great power rivalry,” write Jonas Gahr Støre, Leader of the Norwegian Labour Party and former Health and Foreign Minister as well as David Miliband, CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former UK Foreign Secretary in their recent op-ed. Mark Leonard invited the two author to his podcast talking about how the global health system could be reformed: what role should Europe play? And is it likely that the US position to global health changes with a potential Biden win? And can China also to play a positive role in global health security?

Further reading:

• “Global Health Security Needs New Thinking” by David Miliband and Jonas Gahr
• “Health sovereignty: How to build a resilient European response to pandemics” by Jonathan Hackenbroich, Jeremy Shapiro, and Tara Varma

This podcast was recorded on 31 July 2020.

Bookshelf:

• "The United States Needs a New Foreign Policy" by William J Burns in The Atlantic

• "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mante

• "Dinner at the Center of the Earth" by Nathan Englander

• "The years" by Annie Ernaux

• "The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century" by Tony Judt

• "Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power" by Jon Meacham

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Where there's a will, there's a way: France, Germany and EU coalition building

In this week’s episode, Mark Leonard presents the new and third edition of ECFR´s Coalition explorer, which also included special questions regarding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Together with policy fellows Ulrike Franke and Pawel Zerka, he analyses the collected data in-depth, answering the question of France’s and Germany´s role within the EU: How are the two countries perceived by their European partners? How can this power tandem influence EU policy-making? And what kind of new coalition patterns did emerge during the covid-19 crisis?

Browse the EU Coalition Explorer!

Further reading: The big engine that might: How France and Germany can build a geopolitical Europe by Ulrike Franke and Jana Puglierin 

The EU Coalition Explorer was developed within ECFR’s Rethink: Europe” project supported by Stiftung Mercator.

This podcast was recorded on 31 July 2020.

Bookshelf:

• “In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy” by Katrina Forrester 
• “Recursion” by Blake Crouch 
• “Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist” by Niall Ferguson 
• “Normal People” and “Conversation with friends” by Sally Rooney 

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The Biden effect and the future of US-Europe relations | Part II

After last week’s discussion with Matt Duss and Jeremy Shapiro, Mark Leonard follows up by gathering the European views on a possible Biden win and its effect on US foreign policy. Vessela Tcherneva, deputy director of ECFR and head of our Sofia office, Jana Puglierin, head of ECFRs Berlin office, Tara Varma, head of ECFRs Paris office and Jeremy Shapiro, ECFR´s research director and in-house US expert analyse what a potential Biden administration would mean for European sovereignty and EU foreign policies. How do expectations differ in France, Germany and Central and Eastern Europe? What would another Trump or Biden administration mean for European security? And could Biden also restore the public image of the US which has worsened during the coronavirus crisis significantly in Europe?

This podcast was recorded on 29 July 2020.

 Bookshelf:

• "Falken im Sturm“ by Constanze Stelzenmüller in Internationale Politik 
• "Counterpart“ TV show
• "Twilight of Democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism" by Anne Applebaum 
• "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller 
• "Quest for Status: Chinese and Russian Foreign Policy" by Alexei Shevchenko and Deborah Welch Larson 

Listen online   

The Biden effect and the future of US-Europe relations | Part I

The United States presidential election is approaching and there is no doubt that its result will have a significant and large-scale impact on global politics. Across the Atlantic, European analysts already started to discuss the possible outcomes and what they would mean for Europe and the transatlantic partnership. What changes would a Biden win bring? How could US foreign policy look like under him as President? How would it affect the US-Europe relations? In this week’s podcast, Mark Leonard is joined by Matt Duss, foreign policy advisor to the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign and Jeremy Shapiro, ECFR´s research director and in-house US expert to discuss what Biden will bring to the table.

This podcast was recorded on 29 July 2020.

Bookshelf:

• “Blowback” by Brendan James and Noah Kulwin
• “Miles: The Autobiography” by Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe
• “Circe” by Madeline Miller
• “Why We're Polarized” by Ezra Klein

Listen online   

Video

Deep Dive into Russia: Russia's view on the future of arms control

Andrey Baklitskiy - 8 June, 2020

Andrey Baklitsky, a consultant at PIR Center Moscow, analyses the current picture of arms control since the US withdrawal from the INF treaty and how this could impact the strategic stability in the global order and draw the Russian countermeasures.

Video

ECFR Quarantimes #8 - with Wolfgang Schmidt

ECFR - 5 June, 2020

Has the coronavirus been Europe’s ‘Hamiltonian’ moment?

Video

Deep Dive into Russia: Russia and the OSCE-based European order

Andrey Zagorsky - 13 May, 2020

This week we will have with us Andrey Zagorsky, professor at MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations) and IMEMO (the Institute of World Economy and International Relations). Andrey will speak about “Russia and the OSCE-based European order".

Video

ECFR Quarantimes #3 - with Arancha González

ECFR - 30 April, 2020

Arancha González, Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, shares her thinking on how global health can help revive multilateralism.

Video

Can regulation save the internet? View from Washington

ECFR - 17 March, 2020

Video

Can regulation save the internet? View from Berlin

ECFR - 17 March, 2020

Video

How can the key issues in internet regulation be solved? The view from London

ECFR - 13 November, 2019

Berlin - Paris - 19 Jun 20

Berlin - Paris - 29 May 20

What does the corona crisis mean for economic coercion? 

Berlin - 15 May 20

Diskussionsrunde zum Thema Nukleare Teilhabe

Paris - 07 May 20

How will the tensions around the response to the coronavirus play out through the recovery from this crisis? Can EU states, with their diverse perspectives on the transatlantic relationship, come to a common understanding on how to engage with the US bilaterally and multilaterally, in what will be a highly competitive environment?

Berlin - 06 Mar 20

ECFR hosts a discussion with a German MP and a Japanese professor of International Politics.

Berlin - 04 Mar 20

Experts present a report on the effectiveness and downfalls of the sanctions that were imposed on Russia by the European Union and the United States in the aftermath of the illegal annexation of Crimea. 

Berlin - 02 Mar 20

We welcome you to join us when Anu Bradford presents her new book on the Brussels effect - a refreshingly positive perspective on the EUs dominant role in the world of trade and regulation.