European Institute

Euphoria in financial markets can burn off as fast as fireworks, an explosive flare-up and then, poof, gone. Many investors are wondering if the unprecedented initiatives by the European Central Bank, including negative interest rates, may be just like that, a cascade of fleeting embers. Others, though, think the restructuring underway as a consequence of “quantitative easing” has established the groundwork for sustainable recovery and growth within the European Union, albeit a trajectory of fits and starts buffeted by the global economy’s “gathering storm.” 

In a journalistic life that began as teenager I have covered some mega stories: from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Kennedy assassination to Watergate and 9/11 among others. Perhaps, then, it is not a surprise that one story had slipped out of my memory chamber, only to be revived by Brexit.

Stacks of books and memoirs on the post-9/11 Afghan war have appeared in both the United States and United Kingdom. Unfortunately few of them make the trip across the ocean, denying readers different perspectives on a conflict that brought heavy casualties to several allied nations, not to mention tens of  thousands of Afghans. 

‘Once upon a time’ is the way fairy tales begin. Ben Mezrich calls his tale “a dramatic narrative account” that runs from 1994 to 2013, tracing the rise, fall and death of oligarch Boris Berezovsky, interwoven with his partners, friends, and henchmen. They include the dour Georgian fixer-cum-advisor Badri Patarkatsishvili; his brilliant business partner Roman Abramovich; and former KGB and FSB (Federal Security Service) officer Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko who refused to kill Berezovsky as ordered and fled to London where he was poisoned to death in 2006 by radioactive polonium 210.

At a moment when much of the western world seems impotently indifferent to the destruction of a country – Syria – it is startling to be reminded yet again that thousands of Americans and Europeans risked their lives and futures in another country’s civil war. To Spain, between 1936 and 1938, came approximately 2,800 from the United States who formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, as well as tens of thousands more from Britain, Poland and France, all volunteers in what they saw as a battle against fascism. In far higher proportion than the Spanish defenders of the Republic they came to help, they died on the battlefields with no markers on that soil. Of those an estimated 750 were American.

In this important book, “If it is midnight in Europe,” published in French, Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs since 2014, anticipates the ways by which Europe will avoid being destroyed by various waves of nationalism and populism in its member countries. He warns against undermining the European project and conveys a sense of urgency.

Less than 24 hours after his Conservative Party won an unexpected electoral victory, in which Britain's role in Europe played virtually no part, David Cameron found himself confronted on every side with questions about his European policy.

Not one of the major parties put Britain's membership of the European Union anywhere near the centre of its election campaign. It was scarcely discussed. The one party that made a British exit from the EU central to its appeal to voters, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), won only one seat in the new 650-member parliament (despite gaining nearly 14 per cent of the vote, a peculiarity of Britain's voting system).

But the minute the vote was in and Cameron, to his surprise and the blushes of the pollsters, found himself with an overall parliamentary majority of 12, the question was out there in front of the Prime Minister and the nation: what now with his pre-election pledge of a referendum before the end of 2017 on whether Britain should stay in or come out of the European Union?

Separatists from Quebec to Flanders are still reeling from Scotland’s September 18th referendum in which voters chose to remain in Britain. The spillover effect from a successful Scottish push for independence, which would have provided a fillip to other like-minded movements around the world, never occurred. Secessionists in Catalonia in Northeastern Spain, home to sixteen percent of Spain’s population and nearly a fifth of its economic output, nonetheless persevere in their efforts to leave Spain.

Voters have spoken, but has anything changed? The November 9th “consultation” on Catalonia’s relationship with Spain went ahead, much to the dismay of the Spanish Government and Constitutional Court. Over eighty-percent voiced support for secession from Spain, yet the turnout was a mere thirty-five percent.

To the east of the confines of the current Ukrainian crisis, another geopolitical rivalry over former Soviet Republics is taking shape. China has been making quiet but significant moves to establish a “new” silk road through the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

Chinese investments in Europe doubled in 2014, to a record $18 billion. Six million people travelled between the EU countries and China. Bilateral cooperation moved to a new level when President XI Jinping proposed building a “China-EU partnership.” Already over 70 percent of the initiatives of the 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation discussed between Beijing and Brussels have been launched.

Ebola afflicts Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea – the worst outbreak on record, according to the World Health Organization. Nigerian Islamists kidnap scores of school girls. Homicidal incursions by Somalian terrorists damage Kenya’s tourist trade. Rebels seeking to impose seventh-century mores on Mali are checked only when French troops arrive.

To casual consumers of news from sub-Saharan Africa, the most visible headlines blend into a dystopian loop. It is less horrendous than the Rwandan genocide, the AIDS pandemic, and the atrocities surrounding blood diamonds, all in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, but awful enough.

Minds, great or small, can often operate in the same direction. The other day, my eyes were on a passage in a major new book on future global connections that cited Berlin as Europe's most future-ready city. At the same time, my ears had tuned into an NPR report on the 10,000 British living in Berlin, worrying about the personal and political consequences of a British departure from the European Union.

When Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness greeted Queen Elizabeth on a visit to Belfast earlier this week, the atmosphere in the room was oddly warm, bordering on jovial. “Are you well?” asked the Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister McGuinness. Now in his mid-sixties and white-haired, he is remembered by many as the youthful, curly red-haired, fierce Irishman at the helm of the staunchly republican, nationalist Sinn Fein party and its militant wing, the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Greece faces another summer of deadlines for enormous debt repayments. Fifteen different obligations, totaling more than €15 billion ($16.78 billion), are due between June and mid-September, with Treasury bill holders owed the largest amounts, a combined €12.4 billion ($13.86 billion). Treasuries had been Greece’s main source of short-term funding until Europe and the IMF provided credit through a series of bailout programs.