Valdai Club

There are compelling reasons to believe that, despite the bellicose rhetoric directed at Russia, the EU’s strategic priority remains gaining independence from the United States. However, the strategic “liberation of Europe” process is currently stagnating, and it is premature, if not impossible, to talk about the emergence of signs of genuine EU sovereignty in the near future, Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky  writes.

The paradox of relations between Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe is that despite the recent presence of developed political, economic, and cultural ties, their real value is small and continues to decline on the whole.

The current Catalan separatist movement, whose history spans over a century, has become much brighter and more active than before, but its chances of secession are now less likely than at any point in time since the days of Franco’s dictatorship.

The first act of the post-election drama in Moldova is over. Russia managed to form a very complex alliance between the right-wing ACUM coalition (now Platform DA and PAS) and the Socialist Party of President Igor Dodon, directed against the all-encompassing power of the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.

On March 13, 2019, the British MPs held a regular vote on Brexit; the majority of parliamentarians opposed leaving the EU without a deal. Since there is no exit deal which everyone finds satisfactory, the question of the postponement arises; however, it is not yet clear whether the British can agree and whether Brussels will agree too.

It is quite difficult to predict what will happen to Brexit while competition prevails over cooperation in British politics and within the Conservative Party. However, there are several options: a second referendum, no-deal Brexit, Brexit delay or no Brexit at all.

Supporters of keeping Britain part of the EU suggest another option, which is holding another referendum. While it is too early to talk about now, this scenario cannot be ruled out in the future. It is rather difficult to predict how events will unfold, but one thing is certain: under any of the above scenarios, the Brexit process (or revising relations as part of the union) is not nearing an end, but only just beginning. And the main battles still lie ahead.

There has been much talk for quite some time now about the need to condemn, if not sanction, Hungary for its constitutional amendments, a lack of loyalty toward Brussels on the redistribution of migrants, and then a legislative package that came to be known as the Stop Soros laws. Poland went through a similar, albeit somewhat different, process in 2017 with the decision by the European Commission.

The meeting took place amid a trade war unfolding between the United States and European countries. Its reasons are not in Donald Trump’s specific views and political manners, but in the problems which have remained unsolved for many years, and could not be resolved by Barack Obama signing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement (TTIP).

An expansion of the European Union has not been a subject of heated debate in the past few years although few analysts denied that it may ever happen. In early February of this year, the European Commission (EC) produced a number of documents on the EU’s strategy towards the Balkan countries that seek to join.