Global & International

Multinationals have taken advantage of tax benefits for a long time. Leading the fight against multinationals, Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the European Commission and DG-Competition Commissioner, has been referred to as “Silicon Valley’s dragon slayer”. The idea that large companies can finally be held accountable by Vestager has gained her a worldwide reputation as a […]

Today’s political reality of populist movements, geopolitical competition and disinformation has inspired an emerging scholarship on politicisation in EU external policy. Yet most of these recent contributions on EU external policy focus on politicisation processes within the EU. Comparatively, little research has been done on how actors based in and/or representing third countries contribute to […]

In the past four years the European Union has become an increasingly important actor in the field of defence. One key development, the establishment of a European Defence Fund (EDF) with a budget of 7.953 billion EUR for defence research and development for the period 2021–2027, has generated much interest in academic and policy circles. […]

Priya Vijaykumar Poojary The current political shifts in the form of increasing populism, the resurgence of nationalism, structural racism, and the pandemic are altering global political environments. These shifts are occurring in tangent with the internationalization of higher education as we witness new regional higher educational models (both intra- and inter) and increasing cross-border academic […]

In order to condemn the violence of the regime and to support the people opposing Lukashenko, the EU has put in place a two-level strategy which employs standard hard power instruments in regards to the leadership and a strategy inspired by the EUGS in regards to Belarussians. The approach toward Lukashenko is threefold, with different […]

In the immediate aftermath of the election of Joe Biden the European Commission proposed ‘A new transatlantic agenda’. This ambitious plan emphasizes that together the EU and the US ‘have the reach to set regulations and standards that are replicated across the world’. This very much sounds like a revival of the major priority of […]

By Michal Onderco & Reinout A van der Veer Last week, the European Union agreed to impose new sanctions on Russia in response to the attempt to poison the opposition activist Alexei Navalny and his jailing upon return to Russia. Immediately afterwards, Russia threatened to respond in kind. This development is not new. In recent […]

The most emblematic example of how sport is used as an icebreaker in international relations is no doubt the visit, between 10 and 17 April 1971, of nine American table tennis players to the People’s Republic of China, an event known worldwide as ‘ping pong diplomacy’. A lot has been said and written about this […]

On 25 November 2020, in a surprising move away from its previous positions, the European Parliament voted in favour of making European Union (EU) aid conditional to developing countries’ compliance with migration management measures. This is only the most recent episode in a decade-long process whereby European policy-makers link migration and development policies. As part […]

On 23rd September 2020, the EU published the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ that aims to be ‘[a] fresh start on migration in Europe’.  The Pact contains various commitments and timelines for action ranging from proposed reforms on existing asylum procedures rules to a proposed new Screening Regulation and a proposed Asylum and Migration […]