Globalaffairs

Issue 20/April-June 2010
By Glen Ruffle

On 11th May 2010, the 53rd Prime Minister in Britain’s history, David Cameron, took power. Yet it was not in the way that nearly every other took power before him. Under the First Past the Post electoral system, Britain is usually given one strong party that wins and allows clear and strong leadership.

However, this time, despite an electoral system that helps produce winners, there was no single, victorious party. The Conservatives, 13 years in opposition, almost achieved the magic 326 seats to make a majority, but fell 20 short. This meant they could try and govern as a minority, constantly risking losing every vote, or try to forge an alliance to govern as a majority.

The outcome has seen a most unusual alliance emerge. The right-wing Conservatives, anti-European, market-orientated and socially traditional, have teamed up with the Liberal Democrats, the most pro-European party, which talks of social regulation and a liberal society.

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Issue 18/December- January 2010
By Daniel Puglisi

One day Silvio Berlusconi will be a name in Italian school history books alongside a timeline from beginning to end. His rule, which began for the first time in 1994 will be attributed the title of Berlusconism and university students will write final year theses upon him. His biography will be that of contemporary Italy.

As of 2009, after three separate national election victories he stands as the Italian Republic’s longest serving Prime Minister (1). Interruptions from government collapse, technocratic caretaker administrations and ineffective appearances by the Italian political left have featured in between. To date the billionaire media tycoon-net worth estimated at $6billion and football club owner turned right wing politician has in total only held his premiership for a little over 6 years (2). Yet such is the fragmentary nature of Italian politics that this is an impressive achievement; to date the country has had more than 60 governments since 1945 (3).

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Issue 17/ October-November 2009
By Niruban Balachandran

On the 2nd of October, the majority of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland voted “Yes” on the Treaty of Lisbon in a nationwide referendum, enabling the 27-nation European Union (EU) to play a more powerful role in international affairs. The Treaty’s creation of a full-time EU presidential post, a foreign policy chief and a diplomatic service will, for the first time in the EU’s history, allow for a singular representative on the global stage that will stand for a unified foreign policy for all 27 nations in the bloc.

The Treaty of Lisbon is intended to upgrade Brussels’ functioning by streamlining its decision-making and voting systems, since the previous system was an outdated throwback to the time when the EU consisted of only 15 nations. The Treaty will also replace the rotating-presidency system with a full-time 2 ½ year term presidency, empowering the EU Parliament with a broader legislative space of multiple new policy areas (including asylum issues and criminal justice), enacting the 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights as legally binding for the first time, and finally, creating the equivalent of the EU’s own foreign minister and diplomatic service. (1)

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Issue 16/ August-September 2009
by Andrea Bonzanni

At a summit in Ankara on 13 July, the Nabucco consortium stroke an unexpected yet very important deal, securing gas supplies from Iraq and convincing Turkey to give up its project of buying 15% of the gas transiting on Turkish territory. The reaction of European media and the international networks has been mixed and it fluctuates with indecisiveness between the jubilant comments of politicians (Barroso declared that the project is now “inevitable, rather than just probable”) and the calmer statements of industry analysts.

Launched in 2002 by five gas companies (OMV of Austria, MOL of Hungary, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria, Transgaz of Romania and BOTAŞ of Turkey) [1] and officially backed by the European Union and the United States, the project has surely accomplished a giant leap forward and its completion has never been closer. However, as the declared objective of the pipeline running from Eastern Turkey to the Baumgarten hub in Austria is to reduce European dependence on Russian gas and to finally guarantee security of energy supplies, a lot more must be done and the construction of Nabucco may not even be the priority.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
By Andrea Bonzanni

When Silvio Berlusconi and his People of Freedom (PDL) won his third non-consecutive term in office on 14 April 2008, Italian immigrants knew their life would get harder. Making Italian cities safer, along with the usual promise of a conspicuous tax cut, was an ace-in-the-hole during his electoral campaign. Italians generally feel unsecure and threatened by the fast growing foreign population and everybody was aware that Mr Berlusconi’s announced security policies were but a blow on immigrants.

Mr Berlusconi, taking full advantage of his well-known control on Italian broadcasts, was also able to launch a strong media campaign, which underlined daily misbehaviours and crimes of immigrants. Initially used as a weapon to point out the weakness and ineffectiveness of centre-left administrations at the national and local level, the campaign was so successful that kept fuelling fear and hatred in Italian society, augmenting demands for harsh policies [1].

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Issue 14/April-May 2009
By Enrico Labriola

What Naples lacks in these times is hope. In recent times it seems that news coming from the South biggest city has to be only painfully dramatic. The Camorra’s war with its daily bulletin of murders, the garbage problem on the streets and squares of Naples and its nearby cities, and the appalling situation of Naples suburbs are all caused by one main problem: the Camorra (you can call it Naples mafia), with its pervasive system and huge business. It is hard to imagine how the regular system substitution for the criminal one could create a new diabolic social pact founded on intimidation, violence and corruption, and how it could become powerful day by day, in the silence or complicity of the authorities, and with the cooperation or indifference of many inhabitants. The main thing to understand is that the Camorra is founded on making business. Money (and the power derived from it) is the main goal of the 200 families that controls Naples neighborhoods and the surrounding cities. Money from all the activities that you can imagine, from the dirtiest to the more respectable one: you can extract money from drug trafficking and extortion, from prostitution and black market, from irregular work and manipulation of public contracts, from ‘taxes’ on businesses and need of protection, from money laundering and garbage trafficking, from arms and homes selling, from fairs, pensions, children and oldsters, hospitals and department stores, and the list could continue filling pages and pages.

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Issue 13/ February-March 2009
By Sebastian Tapia

Each winter seems to be tougher than the previous one. And this boreal winter is not the exception to this rule. Today, eastern Europeans homes have adequate heating systems, most of them depending on natural gas. However, a few days ago, the cold sweeping across the region couldn’t be fought, since there was no gas.

Gazprom, the biggest Russian energy company, had announced that it would stop the gas supply to Ukraine by January 1st 2009, if the debt wasn’t settled. And that threat was real, just like in 2006. Again it seemed the Eurasian giant was behaving like a bully, pressing on a “young democracy” to get a higher price on gas. However, the situation was quite different.

Russia’s need to increase the price on gas for former members of the Soviet Union does not come from the economical sphere, but from the political one. To get the support of the European Union to enter the World Trade Organization, Russia needs to level internal gas prices to market prices before 2010 (1). Hence, it will level the export prices to market prices.

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Issue 13/ February-March 2009
By Glen Ruffle

The dispute over gas that saw much of Europe deprived of energy at the start of 2009 will only harm Ukraine, as both the EU and Russia are in strong positions for the long-term future.

It seems to have become a Christmas tradition that, as Eastern Europe enters another new year, Russia turns off the gas. It is a yearly reminder that the tentacles of Soviet power still stretch into Europe, and with the press of a button, Russia can still bring half of the European Union to a stand still.

Some people have recently begun to question how strong Russia is. Noting that the price of gas and oil has tumbled recently, and that the Russian economy is largely built on the supply of and revenue from these two products, they have suggested that Russia is in for trouble.

Undoubtedly the ruble is over valued, and undoubtedly the Russian economy is based too much on oil and gas, but equally undoubtedly, the hard physical evidence is that Russia has the third largest financial reserves on planet earth (compare that with the billions of Euros of debt Europe is in) and the physical and military capabilities to force people to listen and obey it. This is not a state that is to be laughed at. Just ask Georgia.

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Issue 12/December-January 2009
By Glen Ruffle

The EU and Russia have both taken steps that will undermine the long term future of NATO. As the need for NATO decreases, so the presence of the United States in Europe will be undermined and the multipolar world will arrive quicker.

It all began in April 2008, when NATO ministers met and agreed that eventually, Georgia and the Ukraine would join the alliance. The much sought after MAP (Membership Action Plan), the actual timetable for membership, was not granted to these states, but they at least had firm plans in place to work with NATO and receive aid.

The next major development was in August. From what it is possible to gather from the OSCE, the Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, pulled the trigger first in a tense situation that had built up in South Ossetia. Separatist forces had for a long time been receiving aid and help from Russia, and when Saakashvili decided to try and crush them by force, he bit off much more than he could chew. Presumably he thought the West would help and be able to stop Russia, but geography worked against him. The West was helpless and Georgia was, and still is, at the mercy of Russia.

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Issue 11/October-November 2008
By Johannes Olschner

With the opening of hostilities in Georgia on 7 August, the PR agencies of the opposing sides went into overdrive. With this, a new front was opened in the war between Georgia and Russia, and the size and sophistication of Tbilisi’s PR operation soon became apparent. President Mikhail Saakashvili is alleged to have paid a Brussels PR agency €500,000 to brush up Tbilisi’s pro-Western image, emphasising its desire for NATO accession and democratic credentials. But there are many question marks hanging over possible membership. It is a country with few oil and natural gas reserves, has a small and weak military, is unstable and corrupt, and is not quite so democracy and civil liberties friendly as many in the West are led to believe. Moreover, support for this state is doing much damage to already strained Russo-Western relations. So why is NATO (and Washington in particular) so keen to bring Georgia into the Euro-Atlantic Alliance?

Giorgi Badridze, Acting Head of the Georgian embassy in London, claims that what Georgia has to offer NATO is a modern military; it has, he says, a small, well-equipped and well-trained military, “the most modern army of the states of the former Soviet Union”. But with NATO’s member countries at the forefront of military technology, Georgia’s relative modernity relies on assistance from NATO countries. As James Nixey, manager of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House in London states, “Georgia wouldn’t add anything in terms of military capacity”.

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