The Foreign Ministries of contested entities such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia are active in managing (low-level) diplomatic relationships across the world. Almost 80% of their diplomatic engagements reach countries beyond their patron Russia. Given that no meaningful economic or military ties bind them to such partner countries, this may be regarded as an interesting puzzle.
Illegal migration into the European Union has been dominating the political discourse over the last months both on national and European level. The social problems in connection with illegal migration have their effects on the results of the national parliamentary elections, as it can be seen in the case of Italy: Lega and MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) both have strong anti-migration policies, which will have a strong impact on Italy’s bilateral relations with Libya. Libya is the main point of departure in illegal migration to the European Union, since the EU-Turkey deal came into force in 2016, so the stabilization of the fragile Libyan situation would affect the European political discourse.
Greece and Serbia start their national movements under similar circumstances, share their goals and follow the same examples, but a different social landscape and diverse historic paths combined with non-comparable cultural, linguistic and religious realities end up shaping those movements differently.
The traditionally German-speaking Alpine region of Südtirol (South Tyrol) became a part of Italy after the First World War – today, South Tyrol is an exemplary autonomous region where the rights of German-speakers are widely protected. How did South Tyrol become the autonomous region it is today? In order to explain, we need to understand the region’s history and Austria’s role as the “protector” of the German-speakers of South Tyrol.
In its legislative proposal to review the organisation of the EU power market, the European Commission proposes the emergence of transnational entities, the Regional Operational Centres, to enable transnational decision-making for the security of electricity power supply. This decision is controversial as ensuring a secure system operation is currently a national prerogative.
The EU’s principle of subsidiarity is rooted in Catholic social thought. It offers guidance on how to allocate powers among a plurality of communities. While the Catholic understanding centers around individual dignity and the vocation of each human collective to offer itself as a gift to social life, the EU’s approach resembles federalist visions based on instrumental-rational calculations of efficiency.
Post-Soviet Koreans – a Russianized ethnic minority also called Koryo-saram – are building an ethnically exclusive village close to Moscow.
Regionalism is not always the desire for greater independence. At the supranational level inside the European Union, it is about finding partners that share common interests or face similar challenges. While a multi-speed European is now finally in the pipe, some regional groups of interest have become topics for heated discussions.
The European citizenship, created in 1993, has been conceived as a way to legitimise the European project and to bring it closer to its peoples. However, by doing so, it has neglected non-Europeans residing in the continent.
The alleged dichotomy between the ‘religious’ and the ‘political’ constitutes a secularist lens which is being increasingly contested as artificial. A leading journal of International Relations traces this division back to the long 19th century – but the intellectual pedigree of secularism dates much deeper back to Antiquity.