Europe Riots in Catalonia On October 14, riots broke out in the Spanish province of Catalonia. The large crowd of protesters blocked roads and railways in opposition to the state’s decision to imprison the former leaders of the Catalan government. The Supreme Court of Spain charged them in relation to illegal separatist activity.  The Spanish authorities were unable to stop ...

The increasing use of energy in the contemporary international system has made the countries located along the transmission route more important. The effort to transform the way in which more and more energy, especially oil and natural gas is increasingly transmitted to economic interests, adds to the political and security capability of countries. Considering the importance of this, countries are ...

The most important question for the European Union today is whether BREXIT signals the beginning of the end for the entire bloc, or will ultimately serve to discourage other countries from attempting to cut ties. BREXIT: a denial of democracy No one was more surprised by the result of the 2016 Referendum on BREXIT than the British people themselves. Up ...

US President Donald Trump threatened to release the Daesh militants if the European Union refused to take them.  “We have thousands of ISIS fighters that we want Europe to take and let’s see if they take them. And if they don’t take them, we’ll probably have to release them to Europe,” Mr. Trump said on the White House lawn on ...

1 – France’s ‘Black Vests’ The “Yellow Vests” in France have been replaced by a new protest movement, representing a new demographic: on July 12, 2019, 700 members of the “Black Vest” movement rushed and occupied the historic Pantheon in Paris. The ‘Gilets Noir’ is a movement of undocumented migrants, predominantly from North Africa whose central demand is resident status ...

Will the 9th European Parliament really be any different from its previous incarnations? Even though we already know its composition, it is hard to say as of yet. What was undoubtedly different, however, were the elections that led to its formation. Nationalists and Populists  The pre-election polls were very clear – the third most powerful force in the Parliament was ...

The European Union published its regular report on the situation Turkey. The Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Expansion, Johannes Hahn, stated that no new developments in the framework of the negotiation process with Ankara. According to Euronews, Hahn stressed worsening human rights in Turkey, regress in many areas such as the economic sphere, and said outright that “Turkey continues ...

Ayhan Zeytinoglu, the chairman of Economic Development Foundation (IKV) which specializes in EU – Turkey relations,  commented on the European Parliament report calling to suspend negotiations regarding Turkey’s EU membership bid, highlighting the EP’s “erratic approach” to Turkey. He also discussed the continued difficulties in Brexit negotiations in the House of Commons. According to Zeytinoglu, on March 13, the attention ...

After more than nine months of delay, the Europeans have announced the registration of their so-called economic package to convince Iran to stay in the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which was signed between Iran and the P5+1. The package which should have been called SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle for Iran) is now called INSTEX (Instrument in Support of ...

To illustrate everyday problems with immigration in the EU let’s look at three short news stories, all from the end of 2018: On the 19th of December, a Ukrainian immigrant on Warsaw street attacks a Pole with a knife. At the same time, the media sounds alarm bells telling Polish employers that their Ukrainian employees will soon set off for ...