The 2016 summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, the Alliance) will begin in Warsaw on 8 July. The meeting of NATO heads of state is expected to address issues, which are seen as essential for the security environment in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in view of Russia’s perceived aggressive posture in the region. Some of those will include eastward force deployment in … Read more…
For all Russia-watchers, oil and natural gas usually dominate the media discourse on Russia’s energy policies and the role they play in the country’s foreign policy deliberations. From the European perspective, this is entirely understandable, keeping in mind the paramount importance of Russia as a supplier of the blue fuel for a major part of the continent. I have myself many times written on the … Read more…
Whatever the end of the quagmire in the Middle East will be, it can be confidently claimed that the Kurdish problem is now looming larger than ever in the politics of the region. In Syria, the YPG, armed groups under the local Kurdish party PYD, are among the most solid and reliable forces fighting against radical jihadists; in Iraq, the prospects of possible independence exert … Read more…
It is common knowledge that more than two decades ago the European continent was mainly divided between two rival geopolitical blocs – “Western”, mostly the EU and the North-Atlantic club, and “Eastern”, dominated militarily and economically by the USSR. This Eastern Bloc occupied a geographical space spreading from the flatland of the Great East European Plain along the Baltic coast in the north to the Black … Read more…
The new government in Poland and its attitude towards Germany and the European Union, the refugee crisis and the related decisions taken by the EU and Angela Merkel as well as the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia are the current challenges for Polish-German relations. The relationship between the two countries has so deteriorated just 50 years after one … Read more…
There is no official document that shows the South Stream gas pipeline project has been cancelled, it has been “frozen” and could be re-activated if such need would arise, Pavel Zavalny, chairman of the energy policy commission in the Russian Duma, said in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio on Monday. The Ukrainian gas transit infrastructure is will be getting more and more unreliable in … Read more…
By Wojciech Jakóbik. Poles boast that upon completion of the LNG terminal construction in Świnoujście will provide one hundred percent independence from Russian gas supplies. If Russia will not cooperate, then Poland will bring the raw material from another direction, using reverse flow services or the LNG terminal. However, the problem lies in the fact that Warsaw has already revealed the plan that could undermine the … Read more…