Categories
CSS Blog

The Western Balkans within Europe

This graphic maps the Western Balkans in Europe focusing on their GDP. With the exceptions of Croatia and Slovenia, the Western Balkans are unable to achieve growth rates that enable it to catch up with EU averages. The average GDP per capita for the six countries is half that of Central European countries and only one quarter of that of Western Europe.

For insights on the Western Balkans between the EU, NATO, Russia & China, read more of Henrik Larsen’s CSS Analyses in Security Policy here.

Categories
CSS Blog

Eurasia’s Trade Partners

 

This graphic illustrates the total values of Eurasian countries’ trade with China, the EU, Russia and the rest of the world – including imports and exports – between October 2018 and September 2019.

For an insight into the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on Eurasia, read Benno Zogg’s chapter in Strategic Trends 2020, which can be found here.

Categories
Coronavirus CSS Blog

Lifting Border-closures in Europe: More Coordination, Less National Go-it-Alones

Image courtesy of author

This blog belongs to the CSS’ coronavirus blog series, which forms a part of the center’s analysis of the security policy implications of the coronavirus crisis. See the CSS special theme page on the coronavirus for more.

Managing the supply of essential goods and the flow of seasonal workers during the corona crisis is challenging many European states.  A coordinated approach towards lifting border closures is required. At this stage, gradually opening borders between mildly affected neighboring regions could mean that Schengen could co-exist with the coronavirus.

Categories
Coronavirus CSS Blog

EU Foreign Direct Investment Screening: Protecting Strategic Assets and Technology During the Corona Crisis

Image courtesy of François Genon/Unsplash

This blog belongs to the CSS’ coronavirus blog series, which forms a part of the center’s analysis of the security policy implications of the coronavirus crisis. See the CSS special theme page on the coronavirus for more.

The criticality of medical goods and volatility of European economies resulting from the corona crisis increase the risk of opportunistic acquisitions of strategic assets and technology via foreign direct investments (FDI). The EU Commission and Member States are stepping up the protection of European economies to contain the fallout of the crisis.

PESCO: Two Years Later

Image courtesy of European Parliament/Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) on 23 January 2020.

Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), launched by the EU in December 2017, has grown quickly. Yet, its role in developing European defence capacity may turn out to be marginal if a compromise is not found on the issue of the participation of non-EU states in PESCO projects and on the size of the European Defence Fund (EDF). PESCO’s importance may be diminished by advances by big, European defence initiatives led outside the EU’s legal framework.