France and the European Union: a story of reason rather than love
In France, the push for the European integration process has come historically for a large part from the political and administrative elite. Over the past 60 years, they have expressed not only interest but also belief in European integration, as the US scholar Craig Parsons has rightly noted. Three beliefs about the EU have been recurrent fundamentals for French political and administrative elites: 1. The EU must have a ‘core’ consisting in the major member states which exercise a leadership on the rest. In this regard, France and Germany must share the role of motor or driving force. 2. The EU must not be limited to a single market. It should develop as a political project including a foreign and security policy. This is usually called in France l’Europe puissance, a term difficult to translate. 3. The EU governance should be a combination of supranational and intergovernmental institutions
One of Three Roads: The Role of the Northern Sea Route in Evolving Sino-Russian Strategic Relations
Europe's energy future
Ukraine is one of the most important external markets for Russian gas and the most important transit country for Russian gas supplies to Europe. However, gas relations between Russia and Ukraine have not been easy.
Russia and China in Central Asia
Over the last three years, Russia and China have increased their engagement in Central Asia in response to NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Moscow has deepened its security cooperation with the Central Asian states with a new strategic purpose– guarding against instability spilling over from northern Afghanistan– and has promoted the expansion of the Eurasian Economic Union. China also has dramatically accelerated its economic activities in the region by announcing the One Belt One Route (OBOR) initiative, an ambitious project to upgrade regional infrastructure and connect China to Europe and the Middle East. Although both Beijing and Moscow claim to be regional partners and not rivals, since the Ukraine crisis Russia has been forced to accept China’s terms of cooperation in order to signal that it has non-Western partners and opportunities.
The Flexible Cost of Insulting China: Trade Politics and the “Dalai Lama Effect”
Towards Multi-level Security Community Building: The EU’s and Norway’s External Governance in Ukraine
initial objective of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was to expand the European zone of peace beyond the EU’s borders through processes of external governance. It was seen as an instrument for promoting security in the region through processes of integration and association. Although initially developed as a rather coherent policy, it has over the years become something very different. In this paper, we examine what these changes have actually entailed. Our main argument is that the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy –the lead framework of the EU’s external governance has been developing from the original concept of a set of rationally planned processes coherent across countries of this Neighbourhood, towards a complex and ambiguous set of ‘garbage can’ type of processes in individual countries. We focus on the latter dimension, specifically analysing the nature of coordination of reform processes in Ukraine. Here, the original model of a rational process, with detailed action plans, monitoring, reporting and progress assessment of reforms, has given way to a set of loosely coupled processes involving various interests, problems, solutions and decision-making situations–what Cohen, March and Olsen (1972) termed the garbage can model of change. EU institutions and EU member states are involved in various forms of engagement with Ukraine, resulting in complex and often loosely coupled forms of adaptation. Nevertheless, Ukraine is experiencing unprecedented levels of extensive transformation processes connecting its various societal segments with the EU.
Frihandelsavtalen mellom EU og Canada : Virkninger for Norge og norsk eksport av fisk
I 2016 er det ventet at ferdigforhandlet frihandelsavtale mellom EU og Canada vil tre i kraft. Avtalen innebærer at de fleste tollsatser mellom EU og Canada fjernes. Det tas også sikte på å redusere andre handelshindre. Den samlede utenrikshandelen til EU og Canada representerer om lag 34 prosent av den totale verdenshandelen. Handelen mellom EU og Canada er mindre og representerer 0.25 prosent av verdens totale handel. Avtalen er likevel viktig og den er ventet å øke handelen mellom EU og Canada. Avtalen får også virkninger for andre land. En virkning av frihandelsavtaler er handelsvridning. Import fra tredjeland erstattes av import fra avtalepartnerne. For Norge kan dette være av betydning siden Norge i utgangspunktet har frihandelsavtaler både med EU og Canada. Norges handelspreferanser i EU og Canada blir mindre med frihandelsavtale mellom EU og Canada.I notatet beregnes slike virkninger for Norges eksport til EU og til Canada. Virkningene på norsk eksport avhenger av handelshindrene iutgangspunktet og av markedsandelen til henholdsvis EU i canadiske markeder og Canada i europeiske markeder. De samlede virkningene av frihandelsavtalen mellom EU og Canada beregnes å være små. Men for enkelte varer og varetyper kan virkningene være betydelige.
Towards Multi-level Security Community Building: The EU's External Governance in Ukraine