About: Foreign Affairs Archives

France's defence minister criticised the European Union's foreign policy chief for attending the inauguration of Ukraine's president on 25 February, rather than chairing an EU meeting.

A burgeoning middle class and expanding green industries make India an attractive proposition for expanding European firms. However, understanding local business culture and laws is the difference between success and failure, Poul Jensen, director of the European Business and Technology Centre in India, told EURACTIV in an interview.

The discrete appointment of José Manuel Barroso's former chief of cabinet as EU Ambassador to Washington sparked protests and controversy over the way the future European External Action Service will be built.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had little to do with initial planning of the Netherlands' participation in the Iraq war, a 550-page report concluded on Tuesday (12 January).

"It seems that the strategic interests of most EU countries versus Russia are actually similar," write Adam Balcer, Adam Jasser and Pawe? ?wieboda of the Polish foundation 'Demos EUROPA' in a November paper analysing the task facing new EU High Representative Catherine Ashton in winning the confidence of Europe's citizens.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has said on several occasions that "the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam," observes European Policy Centre (EPC) founding chair Stanley Crossick in a recent post on Blogactiv.

"It is not possible […] to take an optimistic view of the trade relationship" between the EU and China, writes European Policy Centre founder Stanley Crossick in a May blog post reflecting on the High-Level Economic & Trade Dialogue (HED), which took place in Brussels on 7-8 May.

The EU's new foreign policy initiative, the Eastern Partnership (EaP), was written in "ambitious terms", but must show greater sensitivity to the intricacies of its target region, argues Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics (LSE) in a paper for the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).

"Afghanistan reveals Europe's incapacity to formulate coherent collective security strategies and dedicate the resources required to implement them," writes Fabrice Pothier, director of Carnegie Europe, in an April paper.

2009 "offers unique opportunities for a common EU foreign policy towards [Belarus], which faces financial and economic hardship," argues Patrick Gilroy of the University of Düsseldorf in a March paper.

The election of Barack Obama as US president will "seriously narrow the policy differences" between Europe and the US, write Daniel Korski, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), et al. in a December paper.

"China sees the European Union as a possible balance to the United States," argues Dingli Shen, deputy director and professor from the Centre of American Studies in Fudan University, in the autumn edition of Europe's World.

"Europe got the [US] president it wanted on 4th November," writes Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defence at the Centre for European Reform (CER), in a November commentary.

The war in Georgia divided the EU instead of uniting it, while differences between its members' positions will thwart the bloc's attempts to develop a common Russia policy, writes Tomas Valasek in an August paper for the Centre for European Reform (CER).

Russia's invasion of Georgia has shown the world that the US, the EU and NATO are all "paper tigers" in that region, writes former US ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro William D. Montgomery for Belgrade media service B92.

Despite the recent past being a "miserable time for political relations between Russia and both the EU and the US," the prospect of new leadership is expected to "transform the current state of affairs," writes Michael Emerson of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in a May 2008 paper.

The 2007 Joint EU-Africa Strategy has opened a "new chapter" in their relations "which now needs to be written", write John Kotsopoulos and Elizabeth Sidiropoulos for the European Policy Centre (EPC), ahead of the summit between the two continents on 8-9 December.

The two-day ASEM Summit (EU-Asia) ended with a pledge for the promotion of human rights by all 25 participating countries