About: Michael Emerson

The Leave.EU campaign starts with factual errors and disinformation

The new organization advocating a ‘leave’ vote in the UK's referendum on its EU membership has launched a website with a series of FAQs, which will rapidly give itself a reputation for factual errors and disinformation. Michael Emerson provides examples.

Why Northern Kazakhstan will not follow Eastern Donbass

Similarly to Ukraine, post-Soviet Kazakhstan is also asserting its national identity, but the absence of EU ambition toward Astana and its participation in the Eurasian Union preserves the country from a Donbass-type scenario, writes Michael Emerson

Putin: The morally depraved degradation of a strong state leader

The time has come to end diplomatic euphemisms in describing Putin’s regime, writes Micherl Emerson.

What the British government should conclude from its own researches on the EU

The British government financed a massive study called ‘Balance of Competences Review’ to evaluate the country’s EU membership, but strangely, it abstained from drawing conclusions from this effort, writes Michael Emerson.

Is there reason to hope for Minsk II?

The last Minsk agreement on eastern Ukraine failed to bring peace. The latest looks similar — but the context has changed, writes Michael Emerson.

How Tolstoy might have portrayed the legacies of Yanukovich and Putin

The Kremlin has privileged politico-military-territorial objectives in Ukraine, while ignoring the economic consequences, and this begins to look like a strategic miscalculation, or Tolstoy’s “ill-directed will of one individual, and usurpation of power”, writes Michael Emerson.

Ratification, capitulation, and postponement, all at the same time in Kyiv

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had to accept an armistice with Russia, whose heavy support for the rebels in Donetsk and Lugansk had dramatically turned the tables of the war, writes Michael Emerson.

Russia’s economic interests and the EU’s DCFTA with Ukrain?

All the noises about possible concern to Russia from the signing of the trade agreement with Ukraine are basically a non-story. Besides, this agreement could fit perfectly well into the bigger story of 'Lisbon to Vladivostok', which is at the higher level of strategic interests, writes Michael Emerson. 

The UK has no interest in bringing back competences

There is a huge contradiction between Britain's Eurosceptic populism, and the evidence it claims supports repatriating EU powers, writes Michael Emerson.

How to save Ukraine at the 11th hour

Ukraine is disintegrating before our very eyes, but it could still be saved, writes Michael Emerson.

Kyiv – in memoriam; Brussels – think big; Moscow – big rethink

Within days the EU will have to decide what it can offer to help a new democratic and reformist administration survive enormous financial and economic as well as political challenges. Therefore the EU now has to think big and fast, writes Michael Emerson.

UK should use competence review as a constructive exercise

With the first few chapters of the UK's balance of competences review published over the summer, there have already been accusations of bias from eurosceptics who fear that the initiative is tainted. But the work has been carried out thoroughly and if politicians engage constructively with its findings the review will represent a constructive opportunity, writes Michael Emerson.

Russia in Europe and the West

Russia's ratification of European Court of Human Rights reform and debates about its strategic security relationship with NATO suggest that there could be a new turn in Moscow's relations with Europe and the transatlantic community, writes Michael Emerson, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in an April commentary.

Recalibrating EU Policy towards the Western Balkans

"The time is now ripe for a new stage in the pre-accession process for the Western Balkans to begin," argues Michael Emerson, research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in an October policy brief.

Post-mortem on Europe’s first war of the 21st century

Last month's war between Russia and Georgia has "shattered any remaining illusions over the frontiers of the normative map of Europe," according to Michael Emerson of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

Strategic dialogue with Russia needed

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.

Making sense of Sarkozy’s Union for the Mediterranean

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's initiative on the Mediterranean should be seen as "an opportunity to rationalise and revitalise" the EU's present policy towards the Mediterranean, which is stuck "in a condition of laborious lethargy", writes Michael Emerson from the Centre for European Studies (CEPS).

Kosovo merits ‘special status as part of the EU’

Kosovo should be awarded a "special status" that the EU alone can offer, writes Michael Emerson for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).