Research

At 4.30am on Saturday 23rd June, after 36 hours of wrangling, EU leaders agreed on a deal to revive parts of the failed EU constitutional treaty.

Behind the scenes, Angela Merkel has striven to get agreement on a mandate for treaty change ahead of this week’s EU summit. She has by now dealt with concerns of most of the key players in the debate – France, the Netherlands and the UK.

I have recently come back from Turkey, where the mood is a mixture of relief, hope and anxiety: relief that the army has remained in the barracks; hope that the early election in July will result in a workable compromise between the AKP and the secularists; and anxiety that the crisis that started in April has done lasting damage to Turkish society and its political system.

Washington’s holiday from strategic debates is over. In the years immediately after September 11th, feelings of solidarity with a president at war prevented serious discussions on the merits of US foreign policy.

Gordon Brown becomes prime minister at a pivotal moment for the European Union. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have emerged as powerful European leaders.

There shall be no war, at least not now. On Sunday, President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich agreed to hold early elections in September. In doing so, they halted the country’s slide toward violence, which began with Yushchenko’s dissolution of the Ukrainian parliament in April and culminated this weekend with a standoff between Interior Ministry troops (loyal to Yushchenko) and traffic police (controlled by Yanukovich). But even if the Sunday agreement holds – and law-makers from the prime minister’s side already dispute it – Ukraine has become an uglier place for it. In the end, it was political and military muscle that settled the differences. A conflict may have been averted but Ukraine’s tentative steps to build democracy based on rules and institutions were dealt a severe blow.

If Britain blocks Germany's plans to forge an agreement on a new EU treaty, the consequences would be grim, according to this policy brief published by the Centre for European Reform and Business for New Europe.

W.B. Yeats lamented a Europe where, in politics at least, “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. As Tony Blair bows out as UK prime minister, British pro-Europeans will identify with his sentiments.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) is an organisation of increasing strategic importance. It brings together Russia, China and four Central Asian states.