On extreme natural disasters the rational interpretation of events has prevailed in the West during the past two centuries. Yet in the Islamic world such supernatural phenomena are interpreted metaphysically, i.e through the presence and action of God in the life of men. The recent floods in Pakistan are of particular interest, for they are [...]
Almost six months after the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, and with the institution of the European External Action Service (EAES) still in its infancy, the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) issued (June 2010) its 7th report entitled “A Strategy for EU Foreign Policy”. The Report (which can be found on the [...]
European Seminar, Sounio, Greece, 11 June 2010
David A. Vines, (Prof.), University of Oxford
The establishment of a stable and viable EU foreign policy has always been a desideratum amongst its member states. In spite of the repeated efforts from the EU administration to establish a coherent EU profile on various aspects of political, economic and social areas of its member states, foreign policy remains the weakest area in [...]
In a strange move, the Portuguese President of the Republic recommended recently that all Portuguese nationals should spend their holidays in the country, instead of going abroad. The minister of the Economy did not like the idea, commenting that he wished that politicians abroad did not make similar statements because, if they did, and if [...]
The financial crisis has finally catalyzed an awareness of the Greek economy’s long-standing problems, including development, modernization, corruption and clientelistic relations within the political parties. It is clear that the crisis will also have long term consequences for Greece’s security and foreign relations. In this respect, Erdogan’s visit to Athens on May 14-15 gave rise [...]
When Prime Minister Zapatero announced a few weeks ago their plan to reduce the Spanish budget deficit, he said that the main problems of the Spanish economy are a 20% of unemployment rate and an 11.2% rate of public deficit. He was wrong again. Deficit and unemployment are not the problems but their consequences.
This financial [...]
The fear of contagion has spread over Europe. Many see Greece as the potential first domino to fall in a scenario that runs as follows: the Greek austerity measures do not suffice, the debt crisis deepens, and the risk of a sovereign default spreads to other European economies. As the Greek domino falls, countries like [...]
It was already in the early 1990s when Nikiforos Diamandouros and Nikos Mouzelis, two eminent Greek scholars, were writing about the conflict between two dominant political cultures in Greece: the ‘underdog’ culture (notably a pre-democratic culture favouring clientelistic networks of power, bearing a strong imprint of the Orthodox Church and its anti-Western world view, with [...]
