To mark the launch of "The Ambassadors: Thinking About Diplomacy from Machiavelli to Modern Times", Rosa Balfour will host a conversation with author Robert Cooper on the peaks and troughs of diplomacy from sixteenth-century Florence to today’s liberal order.
As she nears the end of her last term as Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel should revert to toughening the EU’s stance on human rights. Making them subservient to trade and economic ties discredits the EU.
The EU is lagging behind the United States in global growth forecasts as they consider not renewing some vaccine options. With rising unemployment, it is going to take a while for Europe to bounce back.
The EU should back a coordinated global industrial strategy, including vaccine production facilities across the world, otherwise China will plug the gap. That means challenging private-sector patent monopolies.
Three factors explain why most European countries have found it difficult to deal with the pandemic: an unsuitable level of integration, an inability to make rapid decisions, and a breakdown of trust between governments and the governed.
Branding Europe as a unique civilization undermines the EU’s attractiveness to the rest of the world. Europe is better served by reckoning with its colonial history and underlining the universality of human rights.
EU governments are undermining the rule of law, independent judiciaries, and vibrant media. What a bonus for Russia’s and China’s efforts to weaken and divide Europe.
On March 26, the German Constitutional Court ordered the country’s president not to sign off on legislation to ratify the EU’s €750 billion post-coronavirus recovery fund. At stake is Europe’s ability to recover after the pandemic is over.
EU-UK cooperation on foreign policy will be hampered by the emotional and political fallout from a difficult divorce and boosted by a renewed transatlantic relationship. In the longer term, external challenges and the internal policy trends will determine the scope for working together.
Rosa Balfour speaks about German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatening to assert federal control over measures to stem the pandemic and picking a legal fight that reflects the gravity of the latest surge in infections.
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