Nothing new under the Azeri sun? There is! Earlier this autumn we have seen elections taking place in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (25th Oct). Soon it will be Azerbaijan’s turn to go to the ballot box for a new Parliament. On 1 November, the 125 seats in the Parliament will be re-allocated or re-confirmed. Of […]

The real European Games have only just begun: Finding the right approach on Azerbaijani prisoners of conscience. By Eske van Gils   Last June, Baku hosted the first European Games with much grandeur. Azerbaijan spent great amounts on the Games (dubbed by locals as ‘the Games for Europeans’) and wanted to put the country positively […]

The European Union very often likes to remind us that it is a community of values – solidarity, non-discrimination, human rights, and so on. This is all very well but, as Khrushchev once reminded Marxist enthusiasts in the Politburo, you cannot simply put theory into your soup. The question therefore is, what do these values […]

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on 10 March that Russia would suspend its participation in the joint consultative group of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Force in Europe (CFE), thereby all but formally pulling out of the agreement. The application of the treaty had already been suspended by Russia in 2007, a move justified by […]

The increasing number of migrants that are crossing the Strait of Sicily is upsetting.  In the first two months of 2015, almost 8000 arrived in Italy which is a rise of 43 percent compared to the previous year. Human traffickers are taking more and more advantage of the critical situation in North Africa. They use […]

The renewed outburst of large-scale violence in Ukraine has propelled the conflict to the headlines once again. These events should come as no surprise. Even before the recent flaring up of hostilities, the Minsk ceasefire was extremely precarious, with over 1,300 deadly victims between September and January. Yet as late as 10 January, Merkel refused […]

NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered his Annual Report, referring to 2014 as a ‘black year’ for European security, and announcing a number of measure that are to make the Alliance more secure. One of these included the creation of NATO Command Centres in the Baltic and Central Eastern Europe. These are a result of […]