Europe wants to be a major player in the negotiations for a new global financial architecture. This will have to involve a stronger and reformed IMF with a substantial redistribution of power in its governance structure. We know that European countries are grossly over-represented at the IMF executive board, while intra-EU coordination leaves much to [...]
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is known for his spontaneous and unpredictable character. In several occasions, he has behaved in ways which have surprised even his closest advisors. The recent “Davos crisis” with Israel is the prime example of this. On 23 May, Erdogan relapsed. He succeeded in stirring domestic and international attention with [...]
Up until the June 12th election in Iran, most observers outside that country thought there was a good chance that former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi would unseat President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A week before the election, most experts believed it would certainly be close, perhaps there would be a run-off between the two, but few, [...]
On June 4, 2009, President Barrack Obama made a remarkable speech invoking all different kind of responses from all around the world. The President made quotations from the Quran, Bible and Torah, encouraging conciliation of civilisations.
The Bush period brought strong anti-Americanism waves to the Middle East. It seems that Obama is very willing to reverse [...]
The global economic and financial crises reached south-east Europe in the fourth quarter of 2008. All countries in the region registered a sharp output decline, with Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria particularly affected.
According to revised forecasts by the European Bank for Reconsruction and Development, Bulgaria’s economy will shrink by 3 per cent in 2009. This is [...]
I landed in Islamabad on a hot noon of July 2007. My arrival there sadly coincided with a -not so often until then- suicide bombing at the city center that took the lives of 13 people, mostly policemen. On the same evening, on my way towards the beautiful Margalla Hills from which one can enjoy [...]
VP Biden’s speech at the State dinner in Belgrade last week included a reference to Serbia’s leading role as a regional stabilizer. Newspaper articles in the US used phrases like “new relations” and a “new page”. “Serbia Welcomes Biden on Balkan Tour” stated The New York Times.
To many in DC this was a surprise. [...]
In an ironically symbolic picture from last December’s riots in Athens, the poster of Greece’s National Tourism Organisation appeared behind a shattered window, featuring the slogan: “Greece: The True Experience!”
Five years ago, with euphoria over Greece’s entry to the eurozone still fresh, urban infrastructure expanding, a galloping growth rate and a new-found pride from the [...]
Since the onset of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, the global economic environment continued to worsen in the first quarter of this year but now appears to be slightly easing in the second quarter. The Balkans is among the regions most adversely affected, reflecting dramatic gross domestic product contraction, sizable fiscal deficits [...]
About a year and a half ago, my colleague Thanos Maroukis and I conducted a study on Greece’s Muslim immigrants and their potential for turning to radicalism and violence. We found no signs of radicalisation. And no violent radicalization for that matter either. We did note though that Muslim immigrant communities in Greece are ‘growing’ [...]
