Beyond the EU Thinking Europe Outside the Union

The seventh President of the US Andrew Jackson once said that all the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.

Presidential elections in Belarus will be held this Sunday, and there is no need to hold your breath. Belarusians already know that Lukashenko, the President of Belarus since 1994, is going to win. There are two reasons for this.

Sustainable Development Goals represent the United Nations’ post-2015 response to the new, as well as the old but persisting social, economic and environmental challenges the world faces today.

On the 28th of April 2014, Moldova became the first Eastern Partnership (EaP) country granted with a visa free regime to Schengen area. This allows Moldovan citizens holding a biometric passport to travel to Schengen countries up to 90 days within any 180-day period without a visa. I propose here to analyse the details of this achievement.

The wide-ranging experience of the “Big-Bang” enlargement provided initial impetus for extended cooperation with EU’s neighbouring countries and has progressively transformed in “European Neighbourhood Policy” (ENP). After launching an intensive and increasingly integrating program, aiming to avoid new divisions in Europe and boost tremendously compound transformation process in the EU’s Southern and Eastern neighbours, harsh discussions are open which tend to bemoan that the scope of existing ENP is not able to assign instrumental leverages for significant developments in partner countries.

There is no negative intrinsic value to ethnical diversity that would make it a cause of conflict. Otherwise, every ethnically diverse society would be expected to be in conflict, while the reality suggests that for each case of ethnic rivarly, there are many other cases of different ethnic groups coexisting peacefully.