The current reaction of the West to provocative threats by Russia is both prompt and concrete, but for political statements to reach the desired effect, they must be supplemented by substantial practical steps.
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Vladimir Putin has been declared a world pariah. This pariah aims to “conquer Europe”, primarily by financial and economic means. But European leaders remain vague in their statements and actions against the Kremlin, while Europe’s businessmen continue to buy Russian raw materials and thereby finance anti-European propaganda. This vicious circle needs to end.
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees the issue of ethnic minorities (民族 问题) as an existential threat to the integrity of the country that, according to Xi Jinping, like the Taiwan issue, cannot be postponed indefinitely.
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In late 2020, Belarus inaugurated the Astravyets Nuclear Power Plant (Astravyets NPP). This facility – funded by the Russian government and built by the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom – is one that Lithuania considers a threat to its national security. The project has already been causing frictions in the Baltic region that are yet to be resolved; the situation is emblematic of why and how Moscow is advancing its interests by exploiting the nuclear energy aspirations of various countries in Europe.
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With opposition leaders now either imprisoned or fled, president Aleksander Lukashenko of Belarus is facing some tough choices in both the domestic- and foreign-policy theatres. Having lost the support of many Belarusians, infuriating the West and demonstrating weakness to Russia, Lukashenko’s chances of pulling off a peaceful transition of power akin to the “Kazakh scenario” seem challenging.
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2020 was a shocking year for the European Union’s eastern partners: the Belarusian authorities have been using systematic violence against peaceful protesters for five months; Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of the year; Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have tried to stay more or less on the reform path; and all six were severely ravaged by the coronavirus. At the same time, both the EU and the partner countries have been discussing the development of the Eastern Partnership in its second decade.
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We were lucky that it was Germany’s turn to seek a common position among the 27 countries of the European Union in the second half of 2020, leaving behind a year of an entirely new kind of crisis in the history of the Union with few political wounds. By comparison, the Estonian presidency of the European Council in 2017, confused by the Brexit turmoil, seems like a walk in the park.
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A day or two after the storming of the Capitol in Washington, some of the political debate turned to whether it was right that a private company should be the one silencing president Donald Trump. He lost his Twitter account, and soon most other social media had cancelled his accounts.
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The heavily criticised EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investments (CAI) finds itself on the axis of the European Union, China and the US. This constitutes an uncomfortable triangle for the three Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, also known as the 3B. The EU-China deal provides a worrying case study about the indirect effects the EU’s foreign policy may have on its member states.
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The EU’s approach to a post-Brexit security partnership with the UK is intended to address common concerns, such as the fight against terrorism and the spread of cross-border organised crime. A continuing mutual interest in enhanced operational co-operation in internal security and cross-border law enforcement, means that separate EU-UK agreements will need to be developed.
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