Agrégateur de flux

Satellites from the French Optical Space Component (CSO), operated by the French Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM), have for several days been monitoring the build-up of Russian forces in Belarus, while Washington has been deploying all available sensors over the area

Overlooking the Moskva river, the Russian capital's imposing President Hotel was the setting for a recent successful human intelligence operation

Terminals Holding, an Emirati aeronautical services provider that has been managing airports in Afghanistan via subsidiary GAAC since 2021, in

Pakistani Prime Minister Shebhaz Sharif on 17 March granted Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu a one-year extension to head

The FBI is probing the hacking of a Pittsburgh-based robotics company, which was allegedly committed by a former employee, Intelligence

Dutch oil trader Niels Troost has hired a former Joe Biden aide to lobby for him in Washington as he

The aid agency is flawed, but it is also saving Palestinian lives.

They don’t look like America’s—but they’re still dangerous.

Since the first feminist foreign policy (FFP) was adopted by Sweden in 2014, sixteen countries have either published an FFP or announced their intention to do so. Some proponents of FFPs have indicated that these policies can be a way to democratize and transform multilateralism, integrating feminist approaches and principles into multilateral institutions and leading to more inclusive and equitable outcomes. This requires seeing FFPs as not just a “women’s issue” but also as a way to reinvigorate an outdated and inequitable system through transformational change and the interrogation of entrenched power dynamics, including in areas such as trade, climate, migration, and disarmament.

One obstacle to realizing the potential of FFPs is that there is no single definition of feminist foreign policy. Part of the challenge is that there are many interpretations of feminism, some of which reflect a more transformative, systemic approach than others. Ultimately, there is no single way to “do” feminism, and approaches to FFP should, and will, vary. If FFP is to survive and grow, it will encompass contradictions and compromises, as with all policymaking, and civil society and member states will have to collaborate to advance feminist principles in the multilateral arena.

To explore the future of FFPs, the International Peace Institute, in partnership with the Open Society Foundations and in collaboration with the co-chairs of the Feminist Foreign Policy Plus (FFP+) Group, Chile and Germany, convened a retreat on Feminist Foreign Policy and Multilateralism in July 2023. Drawing on insights from the retreat, this paper discusses five ongoing debates that FFP-interested states should meaningfully engage with:

• Militarization, demilitarization, and the root causes of violence;
• Global perspectives and postcolonial critiques;
• The branding and substance of FFPs;
• The domestication of FFPs; and
• Accountability and sustainability.

Photo credit: Ministerie van Buitenland Zaken, Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy Conference 2023

Kenyan textiles traders have reacted angrily to a proposed EU ban on second-hand clothes exports following the first discussions at an EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels earlier this week.

Judges at the European General Court are demanding absurd levels of evidence for asylum seekers wanting justice over alleged abuses, says a lawyer suing the EU's border agency Frontex.

Éric Zemmour, polémiste et président du parti d'extrême droite Reconquête !, a été condamné jeudi par la cour d'appel de Paris pour injure à caractère raciste, pour avoir qualifié le prénom de l'ex-chroniqueuse du groupe Canal+ Hapsatou Sy d'"insulte à la France". Éric Zemmour a fait savoir qu'il entendait se pourvoir en cassation.

Hungary's governing party faces June's European elections with a worrying drop in support, following the presidential pardon scandal, polls show. Opposition parties, however, might not be able to profit from the decline

(B2) Si la France était attaquée demain, aurait-elle les moyens de se défendre ? C'est autour de cette question que Jean-Dominique Merchet, journaliste de l'Opinion, ex de Libération, et tenancier du blog Secret Défense nous emmène.

Question fondamentale à l'heure de la guerre en Ukraine qui a dépassé ses deux ans. Et alors que le président E. Macron n'a pas exclu, car il faut étudier toutes les options, la présence de « troupes au sol » en Ukraine.

Une formule qu'il décline en une dizaine d'interrogations : faut-il se préparer à une guerre comme en Ukraine ? La France est-elle à l'abri de son parapluie nucléaire ? Sommes-nous assez capables de produire assez d'armes ? Qui sont nos alliés, nos ennemis ? Etc. Sur chaque sujet, de sa plume trempée et vibrante, l'auteur discute chaque élément, l'émaillant de souvenirs historiques, de chiffres, de faits. Il décortique, analyse, commente les faiblesses, les failles de la défense française, mais aussi certaines de qualités, de ses forces. Sans concession.

« A l'abri de sa géographie, de sa dissuasion nucléaire » la France semble protégée. Mais son armée reste une « armée bonsaï ». Un peu de tout, mais pas assez pour faire face à un affrontement de masse, comme celui subi par l'Ukraine face à la Russie en février 2022. « Si l'armée française était déployée demain » dans une situation identique, « elle pourrait tenir un front de 80 km ». Et elle pourrait subir des pertes notables : « 1700 morts et 11 000 blessés ». Sur « une armée de terre de 25 000 hommes et femmes », la taille serait sévère. Et les services de santé des armés, sous dotés, seraient incapables d'y faire face.

La guerre en Ukraine a aussi secoué tous les présupposés de l'armée française qui a toujours minoré certaines armes : le génie, l'artillerie sol-air. L'analyse des premiers jours s'est trouvée faussée par un travers idéologique : la France se sentait plus proche des Russes que des Ukrainiens. Une réalité dont il a fallu se sortir... En matière d'armes, la France est « trop petite pour être indépendante ... seule. Son industrie doit impérativement exporter ». Une source de revenus, mais aussi de faiblesse, en termes de politique étrangère. Le client est « roi ». Et la France a une « certaine complaisance » envers certains pays, tels l'Égypte.

La France a une force, son régime présidentiel, et sa verticale du pouvoir. Mais c'est aussi une faiblesse remarque l'auteur. « Tenir pour acquis que le pouvoir politique serait, par principe à la hauteur d'une situation » est une erreur au regard de l'histoire. Le pouvoir français est solide. Mais sa nature « hyper-présidentialiste » peut se révéler « dans l'épreuve, une nouvelle ligne Maginot : solide, mais finalement contournable ».

Sur un autre sujet, la guerre contre qui ? » l'auteur rappelle ce constat, reprenant le propos de Gérard Challiand : « L'Occident ne gagne plus les guerres ». Le résultat des interventions extérieures de ces vingt dernières années, de l'Afghanistan au Sahel, « n'est pas brillant ». Pire, c'est une certaine cécité sur le résultat. « Les armées soutenues dans leur aveuglement par le pouvoir politique, refusent de parler d'échec de Barkhane. (...) Autant dire que, faute de regarder la réalité en face, on prépare les prochaines défaites ».

C'est cela l'essentiel de ce livre, selon ma lecture, regarder la réalité en face. Car Jean-Do Merchet est tout sauf défaitiste, ou sombre. « J'ai confiance dans les ressources de mon pays et de ses habitants, et dans ses capacités à surmonter les épreuves » conclut-il. L'exemple de la pandémie de Covid-19 ou du terrorisme l'a prouvé. Encore faut-il mettre de côté « certaines chimères de la grandeur et des illusions de la puissance ». Ou pour reprendre la formule de prêtée au Belge Paul-Henri Spaak, « Il n'y a que deux types d'États en Europe: les petits… et ceux qui ne savent pas encore qu'ils le sont. »

(Niolas Gros-Verheyde)

« Sommes-nous prêts pour la guerre. Un essai sur l’illusion de la puissance française », Jean-Dominique Merchet, 216 pages, 18 euros, éditions Robert Laffont

@Max Kukurudziak sur Unsplash

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

You are postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer at the University of Surrey, in Britain, and you would like to draw our attention to the fact that Ukraine is not only defending itself against the Russian aggression, but also fighting a second battle, against corruption.

That’s right, and this second battle is a serious test for the promotion of democracy, not least in the post-war context.

However, measuring corruption’s impact and the success of reforms is notoriously difficult. What does, for instance, the revelation of corruption cases mean? Does it mean that corruption has become more widespread? Or does it mean that anti-corruption institutions have started to work more efficiently? There is a crucial need to distinguish facts from perception.

 

Tell us how the fight against corruption actually works.

It begins with the realization that policy makers in systems that are characterized by large-scale corruption have rarely an incentive to conduct reforms on their own. The EU’s mission to promote such reforms revealed a certain divergence within its own ranks: there are Realists and Idealists, and each group has its own definition of success and method of evaluation.

The Realists, emphasizing geopolitical stability, caution against vocal criticism of reform failures, fearing it might bolster counter-narratives. For them, the sole existence of anti-corruption institutions is sufficient to speak of a success of their “reform advice”.

Idealists, on the other hand, view institutional reforms as the bedrock of geopolitical strength and the most potent weapon in the ongoing conflict with Russia. As a result, they call for openly addressing shortcomings of local anti-corruption institutions and see only the processing and conviction rate of corruption cases as a sufficient measure to speak of success.

This antagonism reveals the complexity of internal assessments. The dominance of the realist camp in the EU explains the way in which the EU approached reforms in Ukraine and the corresponding language of official documents, which lacked consistency and clear yardsticks over the years.

 

How strong is resistance to reform?

The multifaceted nature of resistance to reform was visible in 2020, with the Constitutional Court ruling on asset declaration transparency, no doubt the most important backsliding event during President Zelensky’s tenure.

Traditional views see backsliding as a phenomenon driven by the executive. But this case unveils a whole network of opposition spanning the judiciary and the legislature, which the executive later used for its own benefit. That’s when coalitions between Western actors and the Ukrainian civil society become essential. The battle against corruption demands a decentralized, collective front, which can bring about actual results by incentivising policy makers to become active.

 

So what does this say about the reconstruction of Ukraine, once this terrible war is over?

The insights from recent years clearly advocate for a shift from passive declarations to active, committed engagement in real anti-corruption efforts conducted by Western actors.

This also touches upon the current debate on transferring Russian frozen assets to Ukraine. This approach might bring about moral hazard: Western actors might be tempted to disengage in the reconstruction due to the “easy fix” of these assets. Instead, these assets should serve as a partial refund mechanism for Western reconstruction aid given to Ukraine, which must, however, be conditional upon meeting institutional benchmarks first that would be elaborated and monitored together with Ukrainian civil society. This would bind Western actors to truly commit to good institutional outcomes in Ukraine and use their leverage to push policymakers in Kyiv to conduct the necessary reforms.

 

In a nutshell, what will be the key to success?

The integration of internal and external actors from the onset: any internal reform drive must be supercharged with external pressure to sustain it. The challenge hereby lies not only in implementing anti-corruption measures formally, but also in crafting a cohesive and realistic assessment of factual progress, one that bridges the gap between theoretical ambition and practical achievement.

The path to meaningful reform is fraught with challenges but illuminated by the potential for profound, transformative change. The insights received from Ukraine’s experience can serve as a beacon for future post-war reform efforts, guiding policymakers and international actors towards more effective cooperative reform strategies.

 

And guiding Ukraine to its objective of eventual membership. Thank you very much, Michael Richter, for sharing your research insights on this topic. I recall you are postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Surrey, in Britain.

The post Ukraine’s other battle: the one against corruption appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Berliner Sparkasse bank has frozen the account of anti-zionist Jewish organisation.

Un véritable scandale s’est produit jeudi 28 mars à l’Assemblée où, par 67  voix contre  11,  seuls 78 députés sur 577 étaient présents, les  510 autres étant probablement dans d’« agréables ailleurs » - mais où étaient donc les 88 députés RN et les 57 députés LR ?-, fut approuvée une proposition de résolution qui «condamne la répression sanglante et meurtrière des Algériens commise sous l'autorité du préfet de police Maurice Papon le 17 octobre 1961»  au cours de laquelle le Figaro ose écrire qu’entre une trentaine et plus de 200 manifestants « pacifiques » seraient morts, selon les «  historiens ».

Le texte porté par l'écologiste Sabrina Sebaihi et la députée Renaissance Julie Delpech «souhaite» en outre «l'inscription d'une journée de commémoration de ce massacre» à «l'agenda des journées nationales et cérémonies officielles».

Or il s’agit là d’un scandale mémoriel car les députés ont allégrement violé la vérité historique. En effet:

1) Le seul mort « algérien » durant cette manifestation, fut un Français nommé Guy Chevallier, tué vers 21h devant le cinéma REX, crâne fracassé. Par qui ?

2) Les députés ne savent même pas que sous le gouvernement Jospin, une commission d’enquête officielle a fait litière de ces accusations.

3) L’histoire de cette manifestation et de sa « répression » est parfaitement connue, sauf semble t-il des députés, et je renvoie au chapitre  IX  « Le 17 octobre 1961 à Paris : un massacre imaginaire ? » de mon livre Algérie l’histoire à l’endroit.

Retour aux faits, rien qu’aux faits.

La suite de cette analyse (87%) est réservée aux abonnés à l'Afrique Réelle.

Pour vous abonner, cliquer ici

© European Union 2024 – Source : EP

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Simon Usherwood! I’m very pleased to welcome you back on Euradio. Your are professor at the Open University in Britain, and Chair of our partners UACES. Less than three months left until the elections to the European Parliament. What are your expectations? And: do you think these elections actually matter?

Whether these elections matter is a great question and one that often gets asked.

45 years after the first direct elections, it is still a key problem for the European Parliament that most people don’t know much about what it actually does. Instead, their main reference point is national politics.

As a result, many people vote to express their views about their national government’s performance, or to express their more instinctive political views. And many think there’s no real consequence: if you consider the European Parliament doesn’t do anything important, it’s your chance to get your general view, or simply your discontent out there.

Of course, you and I, Laurence, aren’t going to make the same mistake, because we both know that these elections do have consequences.

 

You are right: at EU!radio, we are well aware of the important role played by the 750 MEPs that will be elected in June.

To start with, it’s up to them to approve the formation of the new European Commission. Even if everyone expects right now that Ursula Von Der Leyen will most likely continue for another 5 years, she still has to get the votes of a majority of those MEPs, as will all of the other 26 Commissioners of her team. Given that she has raised various question marks over the past five years, this might not be as simple as it appears.

Secondly, the fields in which MEPs get to co-legislate cover a very wide range nowadays, from regional development to agricultural spending, from environmental protection to international development, so your choice at the ballot box really counts.

And finally, MEPs help to hold the rest of the Union to account. The Parliament’s committees can scrutinise the work of other institutions and invite individuals to give evidence. By holding up a mirror to the EU’s work, they can improve the quality and legitimacy of what it does.

 

Which is certainly not unnecessary. What do you expect for the election campaign?

The centre-right EPP group, with lead candidate Von der Leyen, is set to retain its position as the largest in the new Parliament, bolstered by substantial representation in every member state. On the centre-left, the S&D group will most likely be the second-largest group, making the current ‘grand coalition’ with the EPP and the liberal Renew group quite probable.

However, polls suggest that we are likely to see more critical voices in the Parliament than before. Mostly this comes from the nationalist and eurosceptic right, but also in part from the far left. Remember how I said voters often chose parties as a function of how they see their national government? Well, one consequence of that is that populist rhetoric about how ‘politics is failing’ or ‘all politicians are the same’ gets an outlet here. We see similar kinds of arguments in pretty much every member state.

 

Many of them sound like the UKIP’s pitch before the Brexit referendum eight years ago!

That’s right. At the same time, perhaps because Brexit was very messy, you hear fewer voices saying that leaving the Union is a good idea, but this doesn’t stop them criticising what the EU does and how it does it. Not without a certain inconsistency: the loudest critics are often the ones whose MEPs are the least present in the daily life of the Parliament.

The problem faced by the European Parliament are very similar to the problems in all democracies. Democracy lives through participation and engagement of citizens with those who make decisions on their behalf. And the first way to engage is to vote.

So the answer to the question whether European elections matter is: voting matters!

My message to the listeners: over the next three months, take a bit of your time to find out more about what parties say they will do for you and remember that your vote will have consequences.

 

Many thanks, Simon Usherwood, for sharing your thoughts on the forthcoming elections. I recall you are professor at the Open University, and Chair of our partners UACES.

The post European elections: voting matters! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

@engin akyurt sur Unsplash

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

 

Bonjour, Emilija Tudzarovska, you are Lecturer in Contemporary European Politics at Charles University, in Prague, and your research focuses on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. How do you evaluate it today?

Let me start with going back to the economic crisis that struck the world in 2008. This crisis revealed deeper problems plaguing representative democracies and party politics, but also effected a profound change in EU member states’ political and economic systems.

One of the consequences has been the emergence of a new type of parties, movements and political leaders. These new parties are using appeals to both populism and technocracy, sometimes intertwining the two, as strategies to gain, hold and exercise power on behalf of ‘the people’. Their logic exploits what can be called clashes of sovereignty at the nation-state level.

 

Can you explain what exactly is understood by “clashes of sovereignty”?

Research has discussed EU democratic legitimacy from several different viewpoints. Some scholars have examined the transfer of key policy competencies in economic governance to the supranational level, especially since the Maastricht Treaty. In principle, national parliaments are supposed to exercise surveillance and accountability, on this share of authority, especially in economic policy, in order to provide legitimacy to democratic decisions, which should represent citizens’ interests.

The question is how well-equipped national parliaments are to do so. Their role has been changing, and the EU integration project has contributed to these transformations.

As a result, political systems and political parties are struggling to institutionalise popular sovereignty. In political science, this situation is best contextualized in a conflicts of sovereignty framework analysis. The framework identifies three main types of sovereignty conflicts: foundational, institutional, and territorial. What we are currently witnessing in Europe is an institutional conflict over where final authority lies.

 

If I understand correctly, this kind of conflict occurs between parliamentary sovereignty and claims to popular sovereignty?

Yes. In some other cases, it can also be between constitutional and popular sovereignty.

What these conflicts have in common is that they all came to the fore during the EU debt crisis in Southern and Eastern Europe. Events in Greece, Slovenia, Italy and Bulgaria, for example, show the degree to which institutional conflict has weakened the ‘institutionalization’ of political competition, and created a fertile ground for what is called a technopopulist logic – a new concept that describes a new way of doing politics.

The EU economic crisis was not only about clashes of sovereignty between the Troika and EU debt countries. It was also about how popular sovereignty is exercised within the EU, and it was underlaid by a crisis in party politics. All this results in different institutional conflicts of sovereignty.

 

What are the best strategies for resolving these conflicts?

Some European countries responded to citizens’ calls for more democracy by holding referenda. Many people think referenda enhance direct democracy because citizens can voice their opinions directly on a specific matter.

In Greece and Slovenia, states ignored demands for popular referenda. Instead, they introduced measures supported by supranational technocratic executives. Bulgaria and Italy organised two referenda to reform the institution of parliament. Both failed, but have substantially weakened parliaments in the face of national executives.

In all four countries, the clash between popular and parliamentary sovereignty has paved the way for “technopopulism”, and for the rise of political parties, movements and leaders, which combine appeals to populism and appeals to technocracy, to win elections. Both appeals, combined or not, constitute a challenge to traditional representative democracy.

The management of the Euro crisis brought politicians to pass policies through weak parliaments while at the same time invoking popular sovereignty to weaken parliaments even further.

 

Do you see a way out of this self-perpetuating crisis?

Not in the immediate. Popular and parliamentary sovereignty remains trapped in a technopopulist loop, which not only reflects the new conflicts of sovereignty but exacerbates them, leading to an ongoing crisis and challenging pluralistic forms of representative democracy. It will be difficult to break the loop that reinforces the tendency of government “for the people” rather than “by the people”.

 

Many thanks, Emilija Tudzarovska, for sharing with us your scientific approach to the crisis of representative democracy that we all perceive. I recall you are Lecturer in Contemporary European Politics at Charles University, in Prague.

 

A first text version of this contribution has been published on The Loop, the blog of ECPR, the European Consortium for Political Research.

The post Clashes of sovereignty appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.