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Anna Nalyvayko

Deportations, abductions and forced Russification – the fate of Ukraine’s Children of War

Vladimir Putin might be nostalgic for the Czarist Russian Empire, but that has not stopped him from taking a page from Stalin’s playbook. Since he began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on February 24th 2022, the Russian political and military leadership have been accused of a number of war crimes. These include, but are not […]

28 March 2023

Dimitar Lilkov

Rick Slootweg

True Strategic Autonomy Requires Improved Domestic Supply 

Achieving a successful clean energy transition while retaining control over necessary critical resources cannot happen if EU Member States continue to avoid the inconvenient discussion on the importance of domestic production. This week the European Commission is set to unveil the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act to provide a framework to tackle the issue of resource dependencies […]

17 March 2023

Tomi Huhtanen

The EU’s Interests Today Require Stronger Ties With the Global South

In a June 2022 interview, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated “Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”, when discussing the war in Ukraine. Much could be said in response, for instance reminding the fact that the EU […]

07 March 2023

Eoin Drea

The Windsor Framework Shows that Germany is Key to a British Recovery

Much of the analysis of the recent Windsor Framework between Britain and the EU naturally focuses on the specifics of the accord. From the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to the extent of customs checks at Northern Ireland ports, the compromises on both sides are compared against the previous years of fraught […]

03 March 2023

Garvan Walshe

Why Ukraine Belongs in Europe

It’s been a year since war came back to Europe. Not terrorism, or counter-insurgency or undeclared proxy fighting. Not hybrid- or cyber- or another kind of hyphenated conflict, but a full scale war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine. Don’t forgive the horror — the civilians murdered with their hands tied behind their backs in […]

27 February 2023

Klaus Welle

When the War in Ukraine Ends…

A version of this text was originally published in French in Le Point. The Russian war against Ukraine will end, as did every war before it. The current intensity of Russia’s war effort is not sustainable. About half of its heavy armaments have already been destroyed or captured by their Ukrainian adversary after the first […]

24 February 2023

Gavin Synnott

Russia’s War Against Ukraine is at a Pivotal Junction – It’s Time for the EU to Decide if it’s all in

As the war in Ukraine approaches its disheartening one-year mark, much has changed in terms of its outlook and our own perceptions. While leading experts predicted a swift capitulation of the government, Ukraine’s quintessential bend-but-don’t-break resilience has given rise to hope and opportunities. But this has come at a tremendous cost. Since the launch of […]

16 February 2023

Garvan Walshe

The Opposite of War Fatigue – how European Support for Ukraine Keeps Getting Stronger

It’s like two exceedingly polite gentlemen (or for those with long memories, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat) insisting the other goes through the door first. ‘After you,’ says the US to Europeans when asked if it will send tanks to Ukraine. ‘No, after you,’ replies Germany.  In the end, like Arafat and Barak, the tanks […]

17 January 2023

Peter Hefele

EU-Central Asia: An Underdeveloped Relationship

For many Europeans, the clear positioning of Central Asian countries against Russia’s war on Ukraine during the last Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in September 2022 in Tashkent came as a surprise. Hadn’t those former Soviet republics been under Moscow’s tight military and economic control, even after 1991 and the collapse of the communist empire? […]

15 December 2022

Mikuláš Dzurinda

Tipping the Scales in Ukraine Requires a United European Army

The euphoria over the liberation of Kherson, along with hundreds of Ukrainian towns and villages, has been dampened by the fear of winter setting in. The Kremlin has decided to let freezing temperatures break the Ukrainians, rather than using bullets. Russia is focused on destroying power stations and energy grids. Millions of Ukrainians are already […]

13 December 2022

Vladimir Milov

Tapping Europe’s Offshore Energy Potential: A Way to Enhance Security of Supply

In light of European efforts to find alternatives to natural gas supplies from Russia, one major potential alternative source is often overlooked in policy debates. Namely, indigenous natural gas production from offshore fields. In recent years, many EU member states have snubbed offshore gas production development, driven mostly by climate concerns. Many Western European nations […]

08 December 2022

Niklas Nováky

With the new Ukraine Mission, EU Military Training Becomes More Geopolitical

On 17 October, the EU agreed to set up a Military Assistance Mission (EUMAM) in support of Ukraine. It is a response to a request from Ukraine, which has sought EU support for months to help train its armed forces. EUMAM will bring the Union’s military training activities into a new, more geopolitical territory. Ukraine originally […]

21 October 2022

Dimitar Lilkov

Fixing Gas Prices Won’t Solve the EU’s Energy Crisis

It is easy to get lost in all the recent developments on the energy front. After a full month of formal, informal, and emergency meetings, EU leaders have adopted a set of measures that address some challenges, while remaining divided on other thorny issues. Taxes and Caps What has been agreed so far is the […]

18 October 2022

Eoin Drea

Easy Money has Warped the Economics of Power

It used to be that politicians in power understood the economic constraints under which they operated. James Carville, an advisor to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, summed up this unavoidable relationship when noting that “I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody”. The context for Carville’s comments – […]

28 September 2022

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Hi, we are the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the official think tank of the European People’s Party.
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