The Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Kosovo”, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and, sometimes, Croatia and Slovenia) is an area in Europe which tries (or so it says) to share European values and join the great “European family” represented by the EU, but it faces a series of challenges. This is not a first; just like the Balkans, the area of the Western Balkans is somewhat particular, an area which knew how to test the entire world, and not just once.

In an unstable geopolitical environment, where the international landscape is marked by growing tensions, the reformation process of the European Union after Brexit cannot ignore the way the Member States seek to relate themselves to the security and defence dimension.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland leaving the European Union and Euratom represents a major challenge to the EU member states and has complex economic, financial, social and political implications for the entire Community acquis.
Sergiu Mişcoiu, professor at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, offers us an overall picture regarding the perspectives and challenges related to the protection of the EU’s identity in the post-Brexit context, in the interview given to Vladimir Adrian Costea for the Geostrategic Pulse magazine.

Twice in the last decade, Orwell’s seminal dystopia 1984 topped best-sellers list. In 2013, after Edward Snowden leaked revelations about the NSA’s widespread surveillance operations, 1984 sales rose dramatically amid an explosion of references to the book’s totalitarian, tentacular entity, the “Big Brother” . It spiked again, by more than 9500%, in late 2017, when a White House aide casually evoked the existence of “alternative facts” when faced with her own previous erroneous statements.

The Versailles system of treaties between 1919 and 1920, following World War I, replaces imperialism with nationalism and practically ends the process – which lasted for the whole 19th century – of the formation of the modern European states. The first country to separate from the Ottoman Empire was Greece, after a long Russian-Ottoman war, which ended with the Adrianopolis Peace Treaty in 1829 and recognised the autonomy of the newly emerged state.

From the Editor

Valentin Naumescu, a professor at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and President of the think tank Initiative for European Democratic Culture, made an account of this year’s Munich International Security Conference, the most prestigious international security forum, while being interviewed by Vladimir Adrian Costea, for the Geostrategic Pulse.

In the beginning of the document which includes his peace plan, president Donald Trump states that throughout history there have been conceived several peace plans for the Palestinians and the Israelis, however, none of them took into account the actual situation. He claims his plan is different. Nothing could be further from the truth, though. Completely built from clichés and lies, the so called plan, just like the others before it, ignores the national aspirations and rights of the Palestinians. Even though Donald Trump claims the plan is realistic and achievable, it favours one side only - the Israeli.

We shall wrongly understand the political meaning of Brexit if we fail to make reference to the timeline of the Brussels-London negotiations, and to the economic, social and political evolutions specific to the United Kingdom. An overall analysis of the evolution of the United Kingdom towards its withdrawal from the EU and Euratom helps us understand the contrast between the initial concept of a lesser Europe and the dire need to cooperate after Brexit.

In the wake of last month’s (December 2019) “Normandy” summit (see EDM, December 11, 12, 2019), and awaiting the same forum’s April 2020 top-level meeting, Ukrainian officials are airing proposals to revise the Kremlin-imposed Minsk “accords” of 2014 and 2015. The “accords,” designed to legalize Russia’s control of the Donetsk-Luhansk territory and to disrupt Ukraine farther afield, remain unimplemented to date thanks to the previous Ukrainian government’s successful maneuvering and stalling. That work has made it possible for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration now to call for revising the Minsk “accords.”