Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

04.08.1887   
130. Geburtstag Ernst Rattenhuber

20.08.1937          
80. Geburtstag Walter Eykmann

21.08.1937         
80. Geburtstag Georg Fickler

31.08.1987   
30. Todestag Hans Eisenmann 

11/7/2017
Reputation Institute y Real Instituto Elcano

Edición 2017 del informe que analiza la reputación de España en el mundo mediante encuestas de opinión entre ciudadanos de diecinueve países utilizando la metodología Country RepTrak®.

The London School of Economics and the Hellenic Observatory published a new book on Greece: Modernisation and Europe 20 years. The book is edited by Dr Spyros Economides. Contributions include chapters written by Professors Loukas Tsoukalis, George Pagoulatos and Dimitri Sotiropoulos.  By clicking here, you can access the book.

Neuere Terroranschläge in Russland lenkten die Aufmerksamkeit im russischen Diskurs über islamistische Gewalt auf Täter aus Zentralasien. Bislang brachten die russischen Sicherheitsdienste Terror im eigenen Land vor allem mit Untergrundstrukturen im Nordkaukasus in Verbindung. Bei der Frage, inwieweit Zentralasien im Umfeld eines globalen Jihadismus steht, rücken zwei Arten von Ausreise aus dieser Region ins Blickfeld. Zum einen zieht es die meisten zentralasiatischen Arbeitsmigranten nach Russland. Dort wird inzwischen verstärkt vor islamistischer Rekrutierung in Migrantengemeinden gewarnt. Zum anderen sind Personen zentralasiatischer Herkunft an auswärtigen Jihad-Fronten wie in Irak und Syrien zu finden. Was Anschläge in der Region selbst betrifft, rangieren die fünf zentralasiatischen Staaten in der Statistik über globale Terroraktivitäten weit hinter anderen Regionen.

 

 

Das Erreichen der Pariser Klimaschutzziele erfordert Privatsektor-Investitionen. Doch welche Bedeutung haben diese bspw. in China, Saudi-Arabien oder den USA?

Pour façonner les services publics du XXIe siècle, l’État doit s’ « ubériser », autrement dit s’ouvrir à la multitude des usagers et entrepreneurs qui pourraient lui permettre de viser mieux et plus vite l’intérêt général A en croire les ministres successifs en charge de la Réforme de l’État, la France serait un modèle d’e-administration. À […]

Cet article Ubériser les services publics pour les rendre plus efficaces est apparu en premier sur Fondapol.

Nachdem das Bildungszentrum der HSS am vergangenen Wochenende bereits konzertanter Schauplatz des Liedermacher-Festivals "Lieder auf Banz" war, ist derzeit die CSU-Landesgruppe in der ehemaligen Benediktinerabtei in Klausur. Heute Abend kommt sogar die Kanzlerin. Wir haben uns einmal mit dem beschäftigt, was unser Bildungszentrum im Hintergrund kulinarisch alles bei solchen Anlässen leistet. Dazu hat unser Bildungszentrums-Leiter, Michael Möslein, ein paar Fragen beantwortet.

At first glance, the communiqué of the G20’s Hamburg Summit is an ordinary piece of international diplomacy. However, as is often the case, context is key to assess its real importance. Two context factors defined this year’s negotiations of G20 leaders in the exhibition halls in the city center of Hamburg. Within the negotiation room, an unruly US president questioned a number of common positions that had already been adopted by the G20 in previous years. Given this exceptional challenge, the communiqué entails a number of encouraging commitments that did not at all seem possible just a couple of days ago. Outside of the cosy negotiation room, however, violent and peaceful protesters on the streets of Hamburg sent a defiant message to the leaders of the G20. From their perspective, the G20 appears neither effective nor legitimate. Taming Trump Let’s start with the positive. Chancellor Merkel avoided the worst possible outcome – a Gzero constellation in which the leaders of the economically most important countries could not agree on critically important issues. On climate, of course, only the G19 agreed on reaffirming the Paris Agreement while it only took note of the withdrawal of the US from the agreement. However, in light of the provocative stance of the current US administration – documented by the insistence on the inclusion of a sentence on the promotion of ‘clean fossil fuels’ – it is a major achievement to preserve the cohesion of a group of countries that include the likes of Russia or Saudi Arabia. Crucially, the world is not waiting for the US on its joint path towards a more climate-friendly global economy. Given the recent spat on trade between the US and a number of G20 countries including the German chair the respective section in the communiqué is surprisingly strong. It stresses the importance of the non-discrimination principle and emphasises the importance of a rules-based international trading system including effective rules’ enforcement within the World Trade Organization. The G20, furthermore, commits to promote social and environmental standards and human rights in global value chains. Reading between the lines, though, some differences are still visible. For example, the G20 in Hamburg commits to “fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices” while recognising “legitimate trade defence instruments”. A year earlier in the Chinese city of Hangzhou the G20 condemned protectionism in all its forms. While a diplomatic gridlock on trade was avoided, it remains to be seen if this compromise is sufficient to curb and scale back the widespread recourse of G20 countries to trade-restricting measures. Beyond these two controversial issues that dominated the headlines prior to the summit, the meeting in Hamburg got a number of new initiatives off the ground such as the launch of a G20 Africa Partnership, the commitment to combat antimicrobial resistance or the adoption of an action plan to reduce marine litter. The G20 also gained further ground on some of the existing commitments such as financial regulation, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or the digital economy. Who cares? While avoiding a backsliding on many of the G20’s commitments is a diplomatic success, it is, however, not enough to get the G20 out of its deep-routed legitimacy crisis. The pictures of peaceful protests but also of the violent riots and burning cars in the streets of Hamburg are so much more powerful than a 15-page communiqué, no matter how well-crafted it could ever be. Certainly, it was a big gamble of the German host to hold the G20 summit in the middle of a city known for its (violent) protest culture. But, circumventing violent protests by moving the summit to a remote beach resort, like in 2015, or by clearing whole city districts, like in 2016, is also not the way forward. Of course, in particular the heavy clashes between radical protestors and the police that made the international headlines. However, we should not forget the tens of thousands protestors peacefully demanding substantial change to the current model of globalization. They are the ones that really deserve closer attention of the G20 leaders. Participation and accountability So, what are lessons from Hamburg for Argentina and Japan that will host the G20 in 2018 and 2019 respectively? Agreeing on better policies that address the economic, social and environmental challenges of our times is necessary but not sufficient. A first crucial lesson for the G20, therefore, must be to find new ways to involve those that feel affected by the decisions that the G20 adopts or fails to adopt. The German presidency made some progress with regard to establishing dialogues with the so called engagement groups representing business associations, non-governmental organisations, labour unions or thinks tanks. However, if we like it or not, often these groups are perceived by many as being part of an elite that is not responsive to the needs and challenges of broad parts of our societies. Not only the G20 but also the engagement groups must find new ways to communicate with the men and women on the street and to give them a real chance to express their concerns and needs and to feed them back into the G20 process. At the same time, the G20 must improve its framework to report on its successes and shortcomings and allow more transparency. Some of the works streams of the G20 have such accountability mechanisms in place. These mechanisms should be broadened to establish an overarching accountability framework for the whole G20 that also involves stakeholders outside of the official process. What remains from Hamburg is the hope that this meeting will not only lead to more international cooperation despite – or maybe because of – the isolationist strategy of the Trump administration, but also to increased efforts to make the G20 a more transparent, participatory and accountable process.

Assessments of the quality of democracy focus on deviations from the rule of law and decreasing levels of political participation, but do not adequately explore the mechanisms through which the quality of democracy decreases. Populism is such a mechanism, used by populist leaders, after they ascent to power. Populism is combined with clientelism and corruption to form means of political domination in democratic regimes which are backpedalling or backsliding. Examples are three recently consolidated democratic regimes of Western Balkans. The governments of Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia, Nikola Gruevski in FYR Macedonia and Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro purposefully use populism, clientelism and corruption. Although not present in all backsliding democracies, populism, clientelism and corruption are associated with backsliding from recently consolidated democracies and deterioration of the quality of democracy.

Τhe paper written by Dr Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos is available here.

You can read here the article about terrorism and the refugee crisis, which was written by Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos. This commentary was published in the Greek daily Kathimerini on 9 July 2017 [in Greek].

ARI 58/2017 - 10/7/2017
Mario Kölling

La presentación por parte de la Comisión Europea de su documento de reflexión sobre el futuro de las finanzas de la UE acelera el debate sobre la orientación del Marco Financiero Plurianual para el período posterior a 2020.

Traditionnellement, les partis politiques souffrent d'une mauvaise presse. Ce " mal inhérent aux gouvernements libres "[1] est souvent accusé de corrompre la formation de la volonté générale, en instillant la division et leur " régime de malheur "[2] là où la concorde devrait régner....

Jean-Dominique Giuliani, président de la Fondation, signe une tribune dans le Figaro du 10 juillet sur l'Europe de la défense à la suite de la décision des chefs d'État et de gouvernement européens le 23 juin de renforcer leur coopération de défense et d'adopter des propositions de la Commission européenne pour aider au financement des équipements militaires.

Le Président de la Fondation, Jean-Dominique Giuliani, publie "Pour quelques étoiles de plus... Quelle politique européenne pour la France ?" Lecture éclairante au moment où le président français Emmanuel Macron rappelle son attachement à l'Europe.

Les Prix Franco-Allemands du Journalisme (PFAJ) ont été remis le 4 juillet au cours d'une cérémonie à Paris. Le Grand Prix Franco-Allemand des Médias a été remis à l'association européenne SOS MEDITERRANEE pour son important engagement humanitaire. 5 autres prix ont été décernés.

Le "Rapport Schuman sur l'état de l'Union" 2017, paru aux éditions Lignes de Repères en français et en anglais, propose de nombreux articles captivants sur l'actualité européenne. Commandez-le en ligne...

Les ministres de l'Intérieur réunis à Tallinn se sont engagés le 6 juillet à "prendre des mesures urgentes" pour aider l'Italie, débordée par les arrivées incessantes de migrants sur ses côtes. Cette situation "est une source de très grande préoccupation pour tous les Etats membres", a déclaré l'Estonie dans un communiqué de presse.

Le 4 juillet, l'Organisation internationale pour les migrations a annoncé que plus de 100.000 migrants avaient traversé la Méditerranée vers l'Europe depuis janvier. 2.247 sont décédés ou portés disparus. Environ 85.000 se sont rendus en Italie, 9.300 en Grèce et 6.500 en Espagne. L'Italie menace de fermer ses ports aux bateaux secourant des migrants faute d'une répartition équilibrée et solidaire des responsabilités entre pays européens.