Europe Center Commentary & Analysis

Hitting Russia’s Economy: What Obama and EU Must Do Wednesday in Brussels

By Frances G. Burwell

President Obama and his European Union colleagues will gather Wednesday in the most important meeting so far for Western governments as they decide how to respond to Russia’s egregious, illegal seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. US and European sanctions so far have targeted individuals among Moscow’s elite, rather than the broader Russian economy. At the […]

Ukraine Nears Civil War

By New Atlanticist

US, EU Must Sanction Kyiv Authorities, Wilson Says The newly violent confrontation in Kyiv between the government and protesters has shoved Ukraine’s three-month-old crisis into a new, more dangerous phase that poses increased risk of a civil war, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Adrian Karatnycky says. The attack by police on Tuesday against demonstrators demanding a […]

Dungan Comments on Hollande State Visit

Nicholas Dungan, a nonresident senior fellow with the Council’s Program on Transatlantic Relations, was interviewed recently about French President François Hollande’s visit to the United States. In the remarks below, Dungan illuminates the interplay of French and American politics, the impact of Syria on the transatlantic relationship, and how this state visit is viewed from both an […]

Ukraine: A Dire Scenario

By Adrian Karatnycky

“Ukraine’s fate will be decided in the coming weeks. If a dictatorship triumphs in Kyiv, it will markedly set back Europe’s hopes of a significantly enlarged European democratic space.” Every Sunday for the past eight weeks, several hundred thousand Ukrainians have gathered in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) to protest government policies. Initially, in late […]

Ukraine on the Edge

By Sabine Freizer

Need for Dialogue on Institutional Reform Too many of the statements being made by foreign officials on the political crisis growing in Ukraine over the past three weeks have described it as a clash between pro-Western values and Russian imperialism. But talking about values will not provide a solution to the dispute. Instead all parties […]

The Bosnian Census and the Future of the Dayton Peace Agreement

By Sarah Bedenbaugh

For the first time since Bosnia and Herzegovina gained independence from Yugoslavia, the country is conducting a national census.  In most countries, census-taking is an automatic, rather tedious method of record-keeping carried out at varying intervals.  In Bosnia, however, the census has stirred up deep-rooted ethnic tensions once more, and brings up fundamental questions about […]

Global Rule of Law Business Principles

The Atlantic Council and LexisNexis® Legal & Professional formally presented the initial draft of the Global Rule of Law Business Principles to the United Nations Secretary-General at a special event in NYC just before the beginning of the UN General Assembly. The United Nations Global Compact will work to develop a truly global approach for […]

UN Global Compact to Adopt “Global Rule of Law Business Principles”

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional—a Reed Elsevier business and a leading global provider of content and technology solutions— and the Atlantic Council formally presented the initial draft of the Global Rule of Law Business Principles to the United Nations Secretary-General at a special event Thursday night in NYC. The United Nations Global Compact will work to […]

Obama in Stockholm: A Missed European Opportunity

By Fran Burwell

Don’t get me wrong — Sweden has been an exceptional partner to the United States. Although technically not an ally, Swedish soldiers have stood with ours in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and the Swedish air force played a serious role in enforcing the no-fly-zone during the Libyan revolution. Sweden is also a strong supporter of a […]