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As the top-down, United-Nations driven target setting approach to international climate through the Kyoto Protocol approach has increasingly been called into question, many have begun to highlight the advantage of bottom-up approaches. Whereas the top-down approach is analogous to divvying up a pie among different countries, the bottom-up approach means that each country contributes some […]

The increasing number of migrants that are crossing the Strait of Sicily is upsetting.  In the first two months of 2015, almost 8000 arrived in Italy which is a rise of 43 percent compared to the previous year. Human traffickers are taking more and more advantage of the critical situation in North Africa. They use […]

The use of knowledge has become increasingly important in policy-making for tackling important societal challenges such as climate change. As a result, the role of scientific evidence has grown as well. Particularly, the role of environmentally-related scientific knowledge has becomes more important. A significant example of this development is the 2011 100% Renewables Report of […]

On 6 May 2005, the day after the UK general election, the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) had much to be concerned about. Despite fielding 558 national candidates, UKIP had no seats in the UK Parliament and had won only nine seats on local councils. Ten years later, things have changed. UKIP currently holds 370 […]

The renewed outburst of large-scale violence in Ukraine has propelled the conflict to the headlines once again. These events should come as no surprise. Even before the recent flaring up of hostilities, the Minsk ceasefire was extremely precarious, with over 1,300 deadly victims between September and January. Yet as late as 10 January, Merkel refused […]

In the current high season of EU-bashing, whoever stands for whatever election seems to be well advised to either join the chorus of Eurosceptics or avoid the topic altogether. It is all the more surprising – one is tempted to say: refreshing – that Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister (1995-1997), has […]

It has been little over a week since its electoral victory and SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) has already begun to back down from some of its most radical positions. Prior to the election, SYRIZA claimed that they would negotiate the forgiveness of the better part of Greece’s debt. Now Greek Finance Minister Yanis […]

NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered his Annual Report, referring to 2014 as a ‘black year’ for European security, and announcing a number of measure that are to make the Alliance more secure. One of these included the creation of NATO Command Centres in the Baltic and Central Eastern Europe. These are a result of […]

Less than a week after SYRIZA’s (Coalition of the Radical Left) electoral victory, uncertainty regarding the newly formed Greek government’s economic policy has increased. In a statement emailed to Bloomberg News, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said: ‘we need time to breathe and create our own medium-term recovery programme’. Mr. Tsipras’ statement followed his Finance […]

The fact that SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) won last Sunday’s national elections in Greece was not a surprise. It had been leading opinion polls for months. The fact that the radical left SYRIZA formed a coalition government with the right wing ANEL (Independent Greeks) within hours of its electoral victory was not particularly […]