Jacques Delors once defined the first-ever project of long-lasting peace and cooperation between a union of sovereign states, i.e., the European Communities and subsequently the European Union (EU) as an “identified political object” characterized by uncertainty and inexplicability (Zielonka, 2006, p.4). Just like many of those cooperative projects aiming at developing integration and closeness between member states (hereafter MSs) …

August 23, 2021 marked the day of launching the International Crimean Platform which has been initiated by the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky  as an international response and moreover, foreign policy instrument against the occupation of Crimea by Russia. The summit was solely dedicated to the illegal annexation of Crimea and to bringing the issue back in the agenda of the …

The presidential election in Belarus on August 9, 2020 was followed by an extraordinary surge of social protests against Aleksandar Lukashenka’s regime. The flagrant fraud of election results, which declared Lukashenka the winner with approximately 80% of the vote, was the catalyst for these protests. As a result of widespread protests and strikes, the government responded with brute force, beatings …

On Tuesday, July 20, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke at the 47th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of the island of Cyprus. Therein, he emphasized that any future peace talks depends on a two-state solution declaring that “(w)e are right and we will defend our right to the end” (Aljazzera, 2021). Nicosia insists on its sovereignty over the whole …

The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) is a non-standard monetary policy measure in line with the other non-standard measures such as the APP, adopted in 2015. The APP includes the Public Sector Purchase Program (PSPP) for the purchase of bonds issued by euro area Member States, recognized agencies, international organizations and supranational institutions located in the eurozone. Compliance of the …

The Snap parliamentary election that was held in Moldova on July 11, 2021 has caught the worldwide attention as in Moldova’s recent history a Pro-western party leaded by President Maia Sandu gained the victory in the election (Politico 2021, “Moldova on pro-EU course after elections”). The election process itself was positively assessed by the joint observation mission from the OSCE …

The ongoing diplomatic incident in the Ceuta’s enclave is a genuine stress test for the migration policy of the European Union. The management of the EU-Morocco –or yet Spain-Morocco- border relies on an externalised principle which consists in the management by an external third state of migration and surveillance of the said border. Last week, Morocco allowed some 9,000 migrants …