Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

Mit Abkommen wie Mercosur und Initiativen im Asien-Pazifik-Raum kann Deutschland wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeiten verringern. Die Kolumne „Gastwirtschaft“.

Mit Abkommen wie Mercosur und Initiativen im Asien-Pazifik-Raum kann Deutschland wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeiten verringern. Die Kolumne „Gastwirtschaft“.

Unsere Strassen könnten in Zukunft viel sicherer werden: Zahlen des Robotaxi-Unternehmens Waymo in den USA zeigen: Die selbstfahrenden Autos sind viel sicherer – gerade auch für Fussgänger, Velo- und Motorradfahrer.

Depuis l'effondrement mortel de l'auvent de la gare de Novi Sad, le 1er novembre 2024, la Serbie se soulève contre la corruption meurtrière du régime du président Vučić et pour le respect de l'État de droit. Cette exigence de justice menée par les étudiants a gagné tout le pays. Suivez les dernières informations en temps réel et en accès libre.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Vucic, Serbie, Politique, Société, Gratuit

Die beiden letzten Wochen könnten die wichtigsten in der ganzen YB-Saison gewesen sein. Teamintern wurde Klartext geredet. «Wir waren auf dem Platz zu lieb», sagt Christian Fassnacht. Das solle sich ändern.

Die britische Königsfamilie zieht Konsequenzen: Prinz Andrew muss seine royalen Titel niederlegen. Ein Kommentar.

Donald Trump feiert sich als Friedensengel im Nahen Osten und widmet sich wieder dem Ukraine-Krieg. Doch einmal mehr setzt er auf Worte statt Taten – und spielt Putins Hinhaltetaktik in die Hände.

GDPR set the global benchmark for privacy laws worldwide. But policymakers must now decide whether ethical leadership is compatible with the pace and ambition required to compete on the global stage

The Matanza Riachuelo River in Buenos Aires—long considered one of the world’s most polluted waterways—became the focus of a landmark 2006 Supreme Court ruling mandating its restoration in the name of environmental justice. !is article examines how that mandate unfolded through the lens of political ecology and environmental justice. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how judicial orders and technocratic planning translated global imaginaries of “green corridors” into local interventions, as state actors interpreted and operationalized notions of risk and justice in ways that often displaced riverine dwellers. These interventions deepened inequality by neglecting residents’ territorial ties, everyday practices, and right to remain. We highlight how technocratic planning sidelined vulnerable populations and how communities resisted through claims to rootedness and in situ re-urbanization. Building on Latin American scholarship, the article demonstrates that restoration framed solely as ecological repair risks reproducing social inequities. We argue that river restoration must embrace governance frameworks that center a'ected populations, integrate ecological goals with social equity, and advance justice as recognition, participation, and distribution.

The Matanza Riachuelo River in Buenos Aires—long considered one of the world’s most polluted waterways—became the focus of a landmark 2006 Supreme Court ruling mandating its restoration in the name of environmental justice. !is article examines how that mandate unfolded through the lens of political ecology and environmental justice. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how judicial orders and technocratic planning translated global imaginaries of “green corridors” into local interventions, as state actors interpreted and operationalized notions of risk and justice in ways that often displaced riverine dwellers. These interventions deepened inequality by neglecting residents’ territorial ties, everyday practices, and right to remain. We highlight how technocratic planning sidelined vulnerable populations and how communities resisted through claims to rootedness and in situ re-urbanization. Building on Latin American scholarship, the article demonstrates that restoration framed solely as ecological repair risks reproducing social inequities. We argue that river restoration must embrace governance frameworks that center a'ected populations, integrate ecological goals with social equity, and advance justice as recognition, participation, and distribution.

The Matanza Riachuelo River in Buenos Aires—long considered one of the world’s most polluted waterways—became the focus of a landmark 2006 Supreme Court ruling mandating its restoration in the name of environmental justice. !is article examines how that mandate unfolded through the lens of political ecology and environmental justice. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how judicial orders and technocratic planning translated global imaginaries of “green corridors” into local interventions, as state actors interpreted and operationalized notions of risk and justice in ways that often displaced riverine dwellers. These interventions deepened inequality by neglecting residents’ territorial ties, everyday practices, and right to remain. We highlight how technocratic planning sidelined vulnerable populations and how communities resisted through claims to rootedness and in situ re-urbanization. Building on Latin American scholarship, the article demonstrates that restoration framed solely as ecological repair risks reproducing social inequities. We argue that river restoration must embrace governance frameworks that center a'ected populations, integrate ecological goals with social equity, and advance justice as recognition, participation, and distribution.

Im November und Dezember 2025 kehrt unsere Online-Seminarreihe "SOEPcampus: Learn to use the SOEP over lunch" mit einem letzten Online-Workshop zurück. Der Workshop bietet eine umfassende, praxisnahe Einführung in die Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP). Die Teilnehmenden lernen den Inhalt ...

The world is falling behind on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a situation exacerbated by recent geopolitical disruptions and challenges to international cooperation. This policy brief, based on a virtual roundtable in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) with influential experts from Latin America, Africa and Asia, explores how recent global shifts – such as reduced funding for development, fundamental policy changes of major powers and weakened multilateral institutions – are reshaping development and trade cooperation.
While these disruptions have had damaging effects on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular, they also present opportunities to reform international systems, diversify cooperation formats and strengthen regional and sectoral alliances. Three key recommendations emerge from the roundtable discussion that are relevant for international cooperation for sustainable development going forward:
• Trade is increasingly being used as a tool to project geopolitical power, contributing to the fragmentation of global economic systems. In response to these disruptions, countries are encouraged to diversify cooperation by promoting open regionalism, fostering plurilateral partnerships and strengthening sectoral collaboration (e.g. on artificial intelligence) and economic resilience.
• The decline in development aid cannot be compensated by individual actors alone. LMICs are forced to actively address financing gaps through improved conditions for investments, stronger domestic revenue generation, better macroeconomic management and efforts to curb illicit financial flows. The international community should support them in these efforts. Aid remains vital, especially for low-income countries and humanitarian emergencies. However, fairer and more reciprocal part-nerships should be developed, acknowledging mutual economic interests and based on knowledge sharing.
• Recent disruptive and polarising policy decisions, while theoretically reversible, have lasting negative effects on trust, budget priorities and international cooperation. Nevertheless, experts emphasise the potential to build new alliances, involving LMICs, for sustainability transitions, reformed global governance structures and alternative cooperation models. To seize these opportunities, leadership from countries that depend on rules-based international cooperation systems – especially middle powers – is considered essential for driving systemic change.

The world is falling behind on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a situation exacerbated by recent geopolitical disruptions and challenges to international cooperation. This policy brief, based on a virtual roundtable in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) with influential experts from Latin America, Africa and Asia, explores how recent global shifts – such as reduced funding for development, fundamental policy changes of major powers and weakened multilateral institutions – are reshaping development and trade cooperation.
While these disruptions have had damaging effects on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular, they also present opportunities to reform international systems, diversify cooperation formats and strengthen regional and sectoral alliances. Three key recommendations emerge from the roundtable discussion that are relevant for international cooperation for sustainable development going forward:
• Trade is increasingly being used as a tool to project geopolitical power, contributing to the fragmentation of global economic systems. In response to these disruptions, countries are encouraged to diversify cooperation by promoting open regionalism, fostering plurilateral partnerships and strengthening sectoral collaboration (e.g. on artificial intelligence) and economic resilience.
• The decline in development aid cannot be compensated by individual actors alone. LMICs are forced to actively address financing gaps through improved conditions for investments, stronger domestic revenue generation, better macroeconomic management and efforts to curb illicit financial flows. The international community should support them in these efforts. Aid remains vital, especially for low-income countries and humanitarian emergencies. However, fairer and more reciprocal part-nerships should be developed, acknowledging mutual economic interests and based on knowledge sharing.
• Recent disruptive and polarising policy decisions, while theoretically reversible, have lasting negative effects on trust, budget priorities and international cooperation. Nevertheless, experts emphasise the potential to build new alliances, involving LMICs, for sustainability transitions, reformed global governance structures and alternative cooperation models. To seize these opportunities, leadership from countries that depend on rules-based international cooperation systems – especially middle powers – is considered essential for driving systemic change.

The world is falling behind on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a situation exacerbated by recent geopolitical disruptions and challenges to international cooperation. This policy brief, based on a virtual roundtable in the context of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC) with influential experts from Latin America, Africa and Asia, explores how recent global shifts – such as reduced funding for development, fundamental policy changes of major powers and weakened multilateral institutions – are reshaping development and trade cooperation.
While these disruptions have had damaging effects on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular, they also present opportunities to reform international systems, diversify cooperation formats and strengthen regional and sectoral alliances. Three key recommendations emerge from the roundtable discussion that are relevant for international cooperation for sustainable development going forward:
• Trade is increasingly being used as a tool to project geopolitical power, contributing to the fragmentation of global economic systems. In response to these disruptions, countries are encouraged to diversify cooperation by promoting open regionalism, fostering plurilateral partnerships and strengthening sectoral collaboration (e.g. on artificial intelligence) and economic resilience.
• The decline in development aid cannot be compensated by individual actors alone. LMICs are forced to actively address financing gaps through improved conditions for investments, stronger domestic revenue generation, better macroeconomic management and efforts to curb illicit financial flows. The international community should support them in these efforts. Aid remains vital, especially for low-income countries and humanitarian emergencies. However, fairer and more reciprocal part-nerships should be developed, acknowledging mutual economic interests and based on knowledge sharing.
• Recent disruptive and polarising policy decisions, while theoretically reversible, have lasting negative effects on trust, budget priorities and international cooperation. Nevertheless, experts emphasise the potential to build new alliances, involving LMICs, for sustainability transitions, reformed global governance structures and alternative cooperation models. To seize these opportunities, leadership from countries that depend on rules-based international cooperation systems – especially middle powers – is considered essential for driving systemic change.

This policy brief provides strategic recommendations for the G20 to advance reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and strengthen the rules-based global trading system. The WTO faces mounting challenges, including stalled negotiations, a weakened dispute settlement mechanism, and governance deficiencies. These issues have been exacerbated by shifting geopolitical tensions, declining multilateral engagement, and recent shifts in US trade policy. The multilateral trading system has been in decline due to unresolved issues regarding the full restoration of the WTO dispute settlement understanding (DSU) and the failure of its legislative function: the Doha Development Agenda has not progressed and has not been succeeded by a work programme in sync with geoeconomic realities. Unresolved issues are not intractable. Businesses in all nations want orderly conduct of trade. Challenges can be tackled by proposals that address outstanding DSU issues – appeal/review procedures and access of developing countries, an increased focus on negotiations on emerging concerns, and enhanced executive functions and leadership within the organisation. Building a broad-based coalition for reform is undoubtedly challenging given the diverse interests of WTO Members. The institution needs a series of informal yet open and inclusive processes benefitting from potential solutions suggested by previous multilateral initiatives, and new suggestions that enable building of trust of the membership, particularly developing countries and Least Developed Countries, and practical suggestions that move the trade bicycle forward. The G20 with its focus on solidarity, equality and sustainability can take the lead.

This policy brief provides strategic recommendations for the G20 to advance reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and strengthen the rules-based global trading system. The WTO faces mounting challenges, including stalled negotiations, a weakened dispute settlement mechanism, and governance deficiencies. These issues have been exacerbated by shifting geopolitical tensions, declining multilateral engagement, and recent shifts in US trade policy. The multilateral trading system has been in decline due to unresolved issues regarding the full restoration of the WTO dispute settlement understanding (DSU) and the failure of its legislative function: the Doha Development Agenda has not progressed and has not been succeeded by a work programme in sync with geoeconomic realities. Unresolved issues are not intractable. Businesses in all nations want orderly conduct of trade. Challenges can be tackled by proposals that address outstanding DSU issues – appeal/review procedures and access of developing countries, an increased focus on negotiations on emerging concerns, and enhanced executive functions and leadership within the organisation. Building a broad-based coalition for reform is undoubtedly challenging given the diverse interests of WTO Members. The institution needs a series of informal yet open and inclusive processes benefitting from potential solutions suggested by previous multilateral initiatives, and new suggestions that enable building of trust of the membership, particularly developing countries and Least Developed Countries, and practical suggestions that move the trade bicycle forward. The G20 with its focus on solidarity, equality and sustainability can take the lead.

This policy brief provides strategic recommendations for the G20 to advance reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and strengthen the rules-based global trading system. The WTO faces mounting challenges, including stalled negotiations, a weakened dispute settlement mechanism, and governance deficiencies. These issues have been exacerbated by shifting geopolitical tensions, declining multilateral engagement, and recent shifts in US trade policy. The multilateral trading system has been in decline due to unresolved issues regarding the full restoration of the WTO dispute settlement understanding (DSU) and the failure of its legislative function: the Doha Development Agenda has not progressed and has not been succeeded by a work programme in sync with geoeconomic realities. Unresolved issues are not intractable. Businesses in all nations want orderly conduct of trade. Challenges can be tackled by proposals that address outstanding DSU issues – appeal/review procedures and access of developing countries, an increased focus on negotiations on emerging concerns, and enhanced executive functions and leadership within the organisation. Building a broad-based coalition for reform is undoubtedly challenging given the diverse interests of WTO Members. The institution needs a series of informal yet open and inclusive processes benefitting from potential solutions suggested by previous multilateral initiatives, and new suggestions that enable building of trust of the membership, particularly developing countries and Least Developed Countries, and practical suggestions that move the trade bicycle forward. The G20 with its focus on solidarity, equality and sustainability can take the lead.

Trotz massiv erhöhter Preise wurden in der ersten Verkaufsrunde über eine Million Tickets für die Fussball-WM 2026 verkauft. Fans aus 212 Ländern haben Karten erworben, mit den Gastgeberländern USA, Kanada und Mexiko an der Spitze der Käufer.

Constantinos Capsaskis, Research Fellow, ELIAMEP

The Pact for the Mediterranean is being brought forward at a very difficult juncture for the region, and especially so in the Eastern Mediterranean, and its implementation seems to present even greater challenges. Both international upheavals and regional developments continue to widen the gap between Europe and its Mediterranean partners. The increasingly transactional nature of the Union’s foreign policy on key issues such as energy and migration is also exacerbating the situation, creating an even more challenging backdrop for the development of closer relations.

For Greece, the Pact could prove to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is natural that any European emphasis on a region directly related to Greece’s interests could be seen as a positive development. However, Greek diplomacy must remain vigilant, since any institutional EU engagement with the Mediterranean also threatens the capacity for self-determination which the country’s geographical position provides. Greece’s regional diplomacy with countries like Egypt is founded on Athens’ role as a mediator in Brussels.

If the Cairo-Athens-Brussels link-up becomes a direct Cairo-Brussels one, Greek diplomacy will have to obtain some guarantee, primarily from the EU, that Greece’s vital regional interests will not be adversely affected, and that it will not be deprived of its role in the region. Athens will also have to offer its regional partners alternative motives —in the form of opportunities and gains—for deepening bilateral relations.

Triantafyllos Karatrantos, Research Associate, ELIAMEP

The Pact for the Mediterranean arrives at a time of intense geopolitical change, but also of armed conflicts in the Middle East that have created new factors of instability and insecurity. In this context, it really matters whether the Pact will be able to function as a political institutional arrangement for cooperation, or as a loose agreement in specific sectors with an emphasis on trade and transport. Organized crime and terrorism cannot be, and radicalization prevented, without the cooperation of the countries of the wider Mediterranean region. The same applies to both migration management and maritime security. This is why the EU has been investing for years in externalizing its activities in these areas. However, the results have generally been fragmented and achieved in the context of bilateral cooperation. It is therefore important that the Pact includes actions in its security priority that both ensure sustained cooperation with concrete and measurable milestones, and foster a culture of common threat perception and cooperative responses. The EU-Western Balkans framework for cooperation in the fight against terrorism, for example, could serve as a useful model. Finally, it would be especially useful to extend cooperation beyond environmental policy and establish a framework for jointly managing and responding to natural disasters.

Cleopatra Kitti, Senior Policy Advisor, ELIAMEP

The Mediterranean region is the EU’s frontline to Africa.  

It is a region of 500 million people (as large as the EU’s internal market),  producing 10% of global GDP but only 1/4 of its trade is intra regional.  

It is the least inter connected region in the world.  

In the 10 years we are tracking trade and socio-economic data –  UNCTAD, IMF, national statistics agencies’, Eurostat and World Bank’s 1500 socio-economic indicators, – for each country the Mediterranean region (EU and non EU), – where we aggregate, analyze and compare data – there has been no significant progress to report on interconnectivity and on materially socio-economic collaboration for growth and prosperity.  

To make this a meaningful Pact, it must ensure: 

* Data: Evidence based policy making. 

* Governance: establish benchmarks of success with checks and balances, review mechanisms and authentic projects that ensure socio-economic progress for the citizens and businesses of non EU countries. 

* Leadership: the governance model of the Pact should include organisation and institution leaders with integrity and with governance knowledge not only politicians. These individuals must have the ability to embrace evidence based policy making, travel through the region including to the most challenged areas to understand the situation that they need to remediate, bolster and interconnect.    

Otherwise it is doomed to the same results as those of the last decade, which neither the EU nor Non EU countries can afford. The world order and global financial architecture are changing fast, it is not an option to be left behind.  

George Tzogopoulos, Senior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP

It depends on what the scope of the new Mediterranean deal is. If it encompasses issues the European Union can handle—such as trade, energy transition, education, culture and, possibly, migration—then it will be a positive initiative that can deliver results. However, if its scope includes foreign policy and security issues, it is highly unlikely the new Pact for the Mediterranean will have any impact. Generally speaking, the European Union tends to present plans for the Mediterranean at intervals, and then fail to implement them. In 2020, for example, the idea of a multilateral conference on the Eastern Mediterranean was mooted, but no action was taken towards its realization. The current situation—with the war in the Middle East just one of multiple problems—does not provide much grounds for optimism about the future.