The most shocking news in the Western Balkans lately, is the early release of the war crime criminal Biljana Plavsic. Mrs. Plavsic, former president of Republika Srpska, had served two thirds of her sentence in a Swedish prison. The decision was made by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former…
Read MoreEver since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, Britain has been doing its subtle and sometimes not so subtle best (viz. Thatcher) to weaken Europe, and reduce it to a large and floppy business club with no political balls of its own. Indeed, at the EEC’s inception,…
Read MoreSerbia has seen a highly decisive set of directions being formulated at the visit of the Russian President Medvedev in October 2009. These included a Serbian commitment to “a new security commitment in the region” that would rule out NATO as the only mechanism of collective security. While the details…
Read MoreOne of the numerous attempts seeking to solve the stalemate of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the summit held on 9 October 2009, at the Butmir military base, near Sarajevo. The initiators of this meeting were: the European commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt,…
Read MoreThe ISF Director, Dr Yiorghos Leventis, departs for Athens and Bratislava on Saturday 24 October 2009. In Athens, Dr Leventis will have consultations with Dr Charalambos Tsardanides, Director of the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER). Plans for future co-operation will be at the epicentre of the discussions. He will…
Read MoreThe Brutish Connexion In the darkest and dustiest corners of the human mind lurk such unfortunate traits as greed,active racism, cowardice, and even sheer barbarity. So it is with states and empires, most of which have their fair share of skeletons in the cupboard which, when opened, reveal such nasty…
Read MoreOne of the key successes in foreign policy is local knowledge, particularly in areas a state hopes to work in, where they are engaged in war or which they are occupying. Even local knowledge over cultures within one’s own borders is essential if national policies are to be successful. But…
Read MoreIn the history of Europe, “golden ages” have been few and far between, but always momentous in their ripple effects: the peak of the Roman empire, the Renaissance come to mind, to which the integration process of the last fifty years can confidently be added. Most of the time, human…
Read MoreAfter a hiatus of almost a decade strategic arms control is back on the agenda of the two former superpowers and might lead to a fundamental realignment of U.S.-Russian relationship in the twenty-first century. The first step towards this new rapprochement – as could have been expected – was taken…
Read MoreThe newest rhetoric with regard to the “resetting” of relations between Serbia and the US after the 1999 NATO bombing over Kosovo — the “resetting” that allegedly took place with the visit of the American Vice President Biden to Serbia earlier this year — is phrased as the quest for…
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