Globsec Magazine 2/2017

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE

NEW WORLD ORDER Stephen Walt Interview

Erosion of trust and the need to Defend Democracy in the Digital Domain

by Daniel Milo

NATO between European unity and Russian assertivity

by Brooks Tigner

Earthquake in the European politics

by Arnold Kammel

2/2017

In this issue

Editorial

| 4

Soňa Trojanová Editor-in-Chief

Headlines

| 8

Interview

16

NATO between European unity and Russian assertivity

Stephen Walt

| 10

In Depth

Erosion of trust and the need to Defend Democracy in the Digital Domain

NATO between European unity and Russian assertivity

Is the Populist International coming to lead Europe?

| 24

24

Earthquake in the European politics

Op-ed

Earthquake in the European politics by Arnold Kammel

EU’s Eastern Partnership Initiative

Development: from Riga to the Estonian Presidency

Terrorists and Social Media

| 32

EU Insight

Future of Europe: EU29 instead of EU27?

Romania´s Civic Revolution by Mihai Sebe

| 36

30

Terrorists and Social Media

Visegrad News

| 38 Quiz

| 40

Calendar

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Future of Europe: EU29 instead of EU27?

We live in times when the pace of change is rising rapidly.

Due to globalization, all the corners of the world are increasingly interconnected; the internet is spreading more information than our imagination can accommodate; people are connected all around the world through various apps and social networks and at any time of the day, we are almost instantly informed about events on the other side of the planet. Simply put, the world is getting under the skin.

This does not go without repercussions. The world is still not ready for such a high level of interconnection, which comes with considerable risks. Initially, globalization had led to worldwide growth of political interdependence, with people becoming more aware of economic, ethnic or racial differences and inequalities that call for resolution.

But experts from around the world now believe that a serious political weakness is beginning to show its face.

To our concern, the new global reality shows national states experiencing less and less freedom of action as they become more interconnected. As a response, the relatively recent wave of nationalism thus continues shaping a large part of the current world politics. Various conspiracy theories daily find shelter within the minds of social network users and many experts warn the world against the danger of internet terrorism as it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from fabrication.

Our opinions and views are being influenced by broadcasting through media technology more than ever before.

This directly affects how topics related to migration, terrorism and the issues of economic instability in many countries are discussed, and as we know, it is these

topics that largely influence people’s political decisionmaking (as they clearly did in the case of US presidential election or the Brexit referendum). At this very moment, the European Union is dealing with a loss of an important strategic partner. Europe finds itself in a strong political tension after Brexit and just before the French elections.

The world order is disturbed, and the impact of this situation exemplifies well beyond European borders.

Prevailing radicalism and deliberate misinformation are causes of many a political struggle in the world. Current trends indicate a world at the crossroads, and perhaps even the most serious crisis in the history of modernity.

Dear readers, allow me to welcome you on the pages of this special edition of the Globsec magazine. This time, we thematically revolve around the notion of a “New World Order” and as you will surely observe, the issue’s ‘Contents’ page closely resembles the list of topics of this year’s Globsec conference. I am thus honored on behalf of our entire editorial board to present you the work of some of the most esteemed experts in the field. Remember to keep up with Globsec magazine on Facebook! ■

HEADLINES

HEADLINES

A new EU-Turkey dispute The joint EUTurkey landmark agreement curbing the flow of migrants and refugees into the European Union was agreed upon by the Union’s heads of states and Turkish government.

A Turkish man holds up a national flag outside the Dutch consulate in Istanbul. (AP Photo/ EmrahGurel)

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However, Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Ömer Çelik claimed on 15 March that this agreement must be reviewed. According to Mr. Çelik, the reached agreements are no longer relevant considering that Turkey has fulfilled all of its promises towards the EU and has not been treated equally in return.

An agreement between Ankara and Brussels on the deportation of migrants from Greece to Turkey came into force at the end of 2015. As a part of this agreement, Turkey received funding to equip its migration camps and would come closer to seizing its prospective opportunity to join the EU. Minister Çelik stated that as a result of the transaction, the flow of migrants to the EU countries on the “Balkan route” was successfully stopped, yet there has been no progress on the side of Brussels regarding the easing of the visa regime for Turkish citizens.

Another reason for the revision of the agreement was the diplomatic conflict that flared up between Turkey and the Netherlands on 11 March, after the Dutch authorities refused to receive Turkish Foreign Minister MevlutCavusoglu in Rotterdam for taking part in speeches in support of the constitutional reform in Turkey, invoking security concerns. ■

President Donald Trump meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Shaping the US-EU relations

Chancellor Merkel and President Trump have held their first joint press conference at the White House on Friday, 17 March.

Among the most prominent issues that have been discussed were the questions of NATO, immigration and global trade.

Trump confirmed support and loyalty of the United States to the NATO alliance, but he also pressed the chancellor to increase Germany’s defence budget up to 2% of country’s GDP to be directed towards defence spending. He stressed Germany’s obligation to pay its fair share for the cost of defence.

Mr Trump also noted that the trade relations between Washington and Berlin are not exactly ideal. Merkel expressed her hope that the United States and the European Union could resume negotiations on a trade agreement. In this vein, Trump emphasized that a prospective trade policy would have to be fair and that the parties in agreement would have to avoid isolationism.

Touching upon the topic of Russia during the talks, the sides noted that all parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine must comply with the Minsk agreements.

As for the topic of immigration, Merkel touched upon it only lightly, agreeing with the US president on the importance of fighting illegal immigration and radical threats. She confirmed the necessity to strengthen external borders, but also invoked our obligation to help people inside their own warravaged countries before they turn into refugees. ■

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HEADLINES

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the free-market VVD party smiles after exit poll results of the parliamentary elections were announced in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Patrick Post)

Mark Rutte, who has served as Dutch Prime Minister since 2010, was considered the most likely candidate to form the country’s next government. The leader of Freedom Party, Dutch nationalist politician Geert Wilders was the closest competitor to the current PM.

UK’s Prime Minister claimed that even though the postBrexit Britain will significantly tighten its border control, it is in country’s interest to prevent emergence of unnecessary difficulties to those migrants who shall continue contributing to the development of the Kingdom.

At a debate with Wilders, Prime Minister Rutte criticized his opponent’s support for Holland’s withdrawal from the EU. Placing Britain as an example, he maintained that a “Nexit” (as he dubbed Holland’s potential departure from the Union) would only lead the country to chaos.

At her meeting with Conservative Party activists in Cardiff, Theresa May maintained that in order to enact country’s focus on monitoring its borders, it will be necessary to create a migration system that would be fully controllable by the state and serve the national interests.

Before the elections, Geert Wilders promised that in the event of his victory, he would stall all the immigration from Muslim countries, close all the mosques on Dutch territory and prohibit the circulation of Koran.

May claims that the issue of monitoring the migration flow with respect to the rights of both EU and UK’s citizens will remain the main goal throughout the procedure of Brexit, which began in late March. The PM further underlined the importance of reaching fair agreements concerning the freedom of movement across the borders. The withdrawal talks will have to establish mechanisms for admission of labour migrants coming both in and out of the country. In other words, the parties in negotiations will be obliged to create a new, constructive and positive partnership.

Dutch parliamentary elections The general parliamentary elections were held in the Netherlands on Wednesday, 15 March. The elections put 150 representatives into the seats of Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives).

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Brexit begins

Mark’s Rutteright-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy won the parliamentary elections, obtaining 31 parliamentary seats. The trio of Wilder’s nationalist Party of Freedom, who promised to “de-Islamize” Europe, the “Christian Democratic Appeal” and “Democrats-66” will occupy 19 seats each.

At 82%, the 2017 voter turnout was the highest in the last 30 years. ■

Finally, Theresa May also rejected the idea of another ​​ referendum on independence of Scotland, maintaining that it would be an inappropriate time for such a referendum to take place as country negotiates its withdrawal conditions with the EU. ■

HEADLINES

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly session of Prime Ministers Questions in parliament in London. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)-

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INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW

Interview with Stephen Walt

By Lucia Husenicova

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he served as Academic Dean from 2002 to 2006.

He previously taught at Princeton and at the University of Chicago, where he was Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and Deputy Dean of Social Sciences. He is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, co-chair of the editorial board of International Security, and co-editor of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs book series. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005 and received the International Studies Association’s Distinguished Senior Scholar award in 2014. His books include The Origins of Alliances, which received the 1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award, and Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, which was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber International Affairs Book Award and the Arthur Ross Book Prize. His most recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (coauthored with John J. Mearsheimer) was a New York Times best-seller and has been translated into more than twenty foreign languages. His weekly Foreign Policy column can be found at foreignpolicy.com/voices/walt.

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We live in rather complicated and chaotic times, when nationalist tendencies are rising all over the world, concepts of national sovereignty and identity are brought up to the centre of attention by many politicians, and protectionism is an important political slogan for many.

I wonder how will these tendencies displayed in the US presidential election, as well as in the campaigns that are currently underway in many European countries, influence processes and development trends in international relations. How do you see the world in 2017? What are its key features and where are we headed?

There is no question that nationalism and identity issues influenced much of world politics in 2016. If democratic nations continue to face economic problems, I believe those tendencies will continue. The US election and the BREXIT vote have alerted many citizens to these dangers, however, and the outcome of the recent Dutch election suggests that many people still want to preserve key elements of the post-World War II liberal order. Whether they will succeed, however, is far from certain.

In connection to the first question, what future does the liberal part of the world have? Liberal democracy and its principles are being put into question by many, including the current US president and candidates for higher offices in Western Europe, not to mention some of Central European leaders. We are now openly talking about the crisis of democracy, and even though we know that this is not a new issue, we still haven’t found a solution. What can be done in this situation?

In today’s world, the only other country with potential to dominate its own region is China.

The United States is in a unique position. It still has the wealth and power to be the single most influential country on the planet, even if it is no longer in quite the position of primacy it enjoyed after the Cold War had ended. But that same power, wealth, and geopolitical security also gives the United States the option of withdrawing from global leadership—at least in part.

President Trump sometimes sounds like he intends to do that, but at other times he seems to want to retain America’s familiar role as “leader of the free world.” My point is that there is no longer an obvious or “natural” role for the US in today’s global order, and the role it ultimately plays will depend primarily on the outcome of political struggles inside the United States, and maybe even inside the White House itself.

The post-1945 “liberal world order” was never global, and it proved to be more fragile than many believed at the end of the Cold War. Ruling elites in the US and Europe failed to ensure that the benefits of a liberal order were apparent to everyone in their societies, and not just to the most privileged. In retrospect, the combination of the Iraq and Afghan wars, the creation of the Euro, and the financial crisis of 2008 all cast doubt on the wisdom of Western elites and encouraged the emergence of xenophobic or nationalist forces. Governing elites also underestimated the persistence of nationalism, which remains the most powerful political ideology in the world today. As soon as globalization failed to deliver all that was promised, many people quickly reverted to more traditional forms of identity.

Let’s move the discussion to the issue of the US and its overall foreign policy. You write about the need to adopt a new grand strategy for some time ahead; could you summarize for us what its key features should be and what global trends does it need to reflect upon?

Lately, the debate concerning the world order has been stirring again. You recently reacted, rather critically, to Michal Anton’s thoughts on liberal world order. To follow up on that discussion, what do you believe is the future of current liberal world order, and what is the role of nonliberal powers such as Russia and China within it?

Liberal orders have many virtues, and even non-liberal powers like Russia and China depend on an open (i.e., “liberal”) world economy. Furthermore, in today’s world it is both impossible and impractical to try to prevent the movement of people from different regions, and especially the movement of people from the Middle East and Africa into Europe. This may be limited in certain ways, but it is not going to stop. The challenge for all societies, therefore, is to learn to accommodate and assimilate different groups into coherent and politically stable whole. This process can be very difficult, especially when economic conditions are not bright, but the alternatives are much worse.

Where does the EU stand in the debate on the new world order? What role significant role, if any, can it assume?

If the EU can overcome its current malaise, it could be a very influential actor on the world stage. In fact, that role is what many Europeans expected back in the 1990s.

Europe has a large and well-educated population, considerable wealth, a long history, and substantial economic power. Unfortunately, it is still hamstrung by internal divisions and dysfunctional institutions. As long as that is the case, the EU will be less influential than it could be.

And finally, the US stand at the outset of this world order, supporting the institutions, rules and principles that guide it. The question arises: what would the role of the US be in the future of the liberal order?

I favour a strategy that is sometimes called “offshore balancing.” In this strategy, the United States would strive to remain the dominant power in the Western hemisphere, because this minimizes direct threats to the US homeland. It also seeks to prevent any other power from achieving a similar position of dominance in its own region, because a hegemonic power in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East might be able to use that power in ways that could threaten the United States, and might even project power closer to the United States itself. In short, offshore balancing calls for the United States to be the dominant power in the Western hemisphere, but to help maintain a balance of power everywhere else.

In today’s world, the only other country with potential to dominate its own region is China. It is therefore in the US interest to help its Asian allies preserve a regional balance of power so that China cannot coerce or intimidate them. There are no potentially dominant powers in Europe or the Middle East, so the United States does not need to do very much in either region.

Instead, it can let local actors maintain the balance of power in these places, while standing ready to intervene if the balance of power ever breaks down. Offshore balancing is not isolationism, because the US would remain engaged with the world economically and diplomatically, but it would limit U.S. military involvement to regions where the balance of power was jeopardized.

Has the new US administration and the president himself a chance and will to change the US foreign policy? From the information we are getting now it is complicated to read what is going on within the administration, with president tweeting and other officials speaking in more diplomatic and reserved manner.

It is still too early to determine the ultimate course of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. My sense is that there is a deep struggle going on within the administration itself, between those who favour a radical shift in US policy and those who want the United States to maintain its long-standing leadership role. Republicans in the US Congress are divided on this issue as well, but most of the US foreign policy “establishment” opposes a major change in US strategy. I do not know who will win this battle, but the present level of uncertainty is not good for us and not good for the rest of the world either. ■

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In the information noise and all the small details flooding our daily newsfeeds, some very important facts and trends are lost. What might look from the outside as a spontaneous and natural mood change throughout western societies is actually happening due to several driving factors.

The return of Russian superpower ambitions using a full spectrum of hybrid warfare to achieve its strategic goals and the erosion of trust affecting all established structures and institutions from political parties and media to NGOs and corporations are covered quite extensively. However, three additional factors deserve particular attention: the technological change resulting from the massive spread of Internet, use of big data for individualised political marketing affecting the democratic processes, and the change of media consumption habits and the resulting media model as such.

A new jet black iPhone 7, right, versus iPhone 6 at the Apple Store in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

Erosion of trust and the need to Defend Democracy in the Digital Domain Daniel Milo Head of Strategic Communication Programme GLOBSEC Policy Institute The world is at a historic crossroad and the events that are now happening in Europe and across the Atlantic will affect everyone, whether they realize it or not. Series of events that dominated the headlines and public debate in the past year - the migration crisis, Brexit, or election of Donald Trump for president of the USA - shook the foundations of mechanisms and institutions maintaining stability and security of Europe and the world as we know it. The causes, impacts and possibilities of future development of the current situation have been covered in hundreds of analyses, and it seems that the “wind of change” is blowing in the entire western hemisphere.

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Large groups of voters can be swayed, and even mobilised, by biased, tabloidstyle, fabricated online content, using social media as a force multiplier.

Technological change The first driving factor is the technology revolution related to the massive spread of internet access. Expansion of the Internet coverage combined with availability of devices (low-cost smartphones) and social networking has radically changed the way of communication between political leaders and their voters. It also fundamentally altered the possibilities for mobilizing and connecting people around themes or interests. When this process began, everyone hoped that immediate mass access to knowledge accumulated by generations of mankind will lead to more informed citizens and better decisions of all. Today we are talking of post-factual reality, fake news and relativisation or even denial of the existence of objective reality.

However, it seems that fundamental changes in the digital domain and the acceleration of news and information sharing cycle has been detrimental to democratic political processes and important parts of democratic systems. The outcome of the Brexit referendum and the US presidential elections confirmed that large groups of voters can be swayed, and even mobilised, by biased, tabloid-style, fabricated online content, using social media as a force multiplier. It is undeniable that social media bubbles and the ever-increasing spread of fake news are having a corrosive effect on our societies.

The spread of anti-establishment, populist, antiEuropean, anti-democratic narratives and attitudes dovetails well with rising support for far-right and far-left political actors, who are trying to overthrow the rulesbased international order and to trade democracy for authoritarianism.

Psychometrics and individualised political marketing The second factor, which only gradually becomes apparent is the use of big data and online profiles for political marketing, customized according to personal characteristics of individuals. “Until the 2016 US presidential elections, political campaigns were based on demographic concepts and candidates attempted to reach a comprehensive electoral groups defined by gender, ethnicity, religion, or region,” said Alexander Nix, a man with significant influence, yet almost unknown to the public. He is the architect behind the success of Brexit, as well as victory of Donald Trump. His company developed unique technology that combines personality analysis (Psychometrics) with the individualization of political messages on social networks.

What seemed a few years ago as a science fiction, became reality in Brexit and the US presidential elections. Cambridge Analytica have developed and successfully tested in practice a method that allows to predict the personality of each and every individual in the United States. This is possible as much of our personal data is available for sale and may be used to establish a basic personality profile of any user. This is then linked to data on voters lists for the Republican or the Democratic Party and those from Facebook and other social networks. The resulting profile is incredibly detailed and allows for precisely targeted advertising, including political messages. Cambridge Analytica became famous after supporting campaign to promote Brexit and later that year was hired by Donald Trump. Among its clients are Eurosceptic political forces in Italy or the National Front in France.

Fundamental change in media consumption habits and crisis of traditional media The third factor which led us to the current crisis (although, of course, the list is much longer) is the massive change in the way people receive information. Hierarchical model – we (media professionals) create the content, and you (the public) consume it - is increasingly being challenged and replaced by online media. According to the survey by the Pew Research Center 44% of Americans access the news through Facebook. Facebook thus became the defacto media with a market share of 44 percent. According to GLOBSEC Trends opinion poll data, 26% of Czechs, 17% of Slovaks and 16% of Hungarians use so-called alternative media as their primary source of information.

Content displayed on a personal Facebook news feed differs individually and emerges as a result of complex algorithms that support our existing opinions (based on past preferences) by picking stories consistent with them. The result can be seen in the so-called “filter bubbles” that enclose us in virtual bubbles into which penetrate only those messages, comments and statuses that largely agree with how we perceive the world. In practice, this leads to a situation where we are less exposed to different ideas, unless we deliberately seek them out. At the same time, discussions in cyberspace degenerated into

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In the world of social media, where people like and share the headlines and do not read long texts, where emotional video wins over an evidence-based analysis, it is the populists and extremists who thrive.

This photo shows a sign outside Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

A man takes a French national newspaper reporting on the winners of the first round of the French presidential election, centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, on a newsstand in Paris (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

personal attacks where online lynch squads are mobilised to attack their ideological opponents.

If we add the decline of the traditional media, which are struggling to survive and the boom of so-called fake news based on lies and misrepresentation of reality, the outcome is polarization of society never before seen in the modern history. In the world of social media, where people like and share the headlines and do not read long texts, where emotional video wins over an evidence-based analysis, it is the populists and extremists who thrive. They seized all the opportunities of this new reality and used the social media and fake news to make their case for rearrangement of the society according to their perverted ideas.

Defending Democracy in the Digital Domain The social media giants such as Google and Facebook wield enormous power, but are largely unaware of how their tools and platforms are being abused by antidemocratic political actors. It is commendable that some steps have been taken by these companies, but they are not sufficient to neutralise all such efforts. Democratic societies and their institutions are only beginning to fully appreciate the scope and breadth of the threat. Europe is in dire need of a clear set of measures to counter this potentially lethal danger which can undermine the

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foundations of democracy. This will require innovative technological solutions, strong government action, and a unified political will.

Therefore, the GLOBSEC Policy Institute is launching the “Defending Democracy in Digital Domain (D4) Initiative”, which will bring together IT and communication experts, social media company representatives, and public decision-makers to develop recommendations and solutions that address this issue.

Main output of the D4 initiative would be a series of datadriven analyses and policy recommendations, authored by a group of renowned experts, political representatives, and IT executives, providing a well-argued, evidence-based solutions to address the corrosive impact of disinformation and fake news upon democratic processes and stability of democratic societies.

With the launch of the D4 initiative we aim to develop a set of innovative ideas and measures, created in close cooperation with all the involved parties, striving to protect the digital domain from those who try to abuse its freedoms to undermine the fundamental values of democracy and its processes. ■

The migration crisis, Brexit or election of Donald Trump for president of the USA shook the foundations of mechanisms and institutions maintaining stability and security of Europe and the world as we know it.

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In a world shaped by conspiracy theories, populist leaders can hide behind blame-game and reject responsibility for just about anything.

Is the

Populist International

coming to lead Europe?

Police scuffle with Afghan migrants as they block the entrance of the Hellenikon migrant camp during the visit of Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas, in southern Athens. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Zsuzsanna Szelényi Member of Parliament, Hungary

Immigration is the centrepiece of right-wing populism Globalisation is an enormously complex process and it should not come as a surprise that with the unprecedented immigration flow of 2015, the perception of insecurity overshadowed the spirit of cooperation.

For historical reasons, populism became virulent first in Central and Eastern Europe. Unlike in Western Europe, trust in the resilience of political institutions is weak in postcommunist countries. The shock of the regime change has made people more sceptical in this region. Insecurity and scepticism drove citizens to seek something tangible. This is what populists seem to be able to offer — loyalty. As Ivan Krastev writes, ‘populist parties promise to re-establish the national and ideological constraints that were removed by globalisation. They promise to re-establish the bond between the elites and the people. ‘ And this seems to appeal to many Europeans.

Populism is so rewarding that right-wing populists further generate the sentiment of insecurity. Uproarious antiestablishment propaganda, ethnocentric nationalism, antiEuropean narratives, anti-globalism, protectionism, and

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racism are the usual narratives of populist forces. But it is immigration that has become the centrepiece in right-wing populism. Immigration symbolises all the threats people consider dangerous to their identity: ethnicity, culture and religion. This adds to the existential fear caused by the aging European society. Thus, anti-immigration politics is the ultimate source of populist identity politics. In this environment people are open for conspiracy theories as it is extremely difficult to judge the real extent of the threat globalisation means for our life. The feeling of belonging seems to offer more security. However, this kinship is not for everyone, only for those who are alike. And immigrants are different. Extremist populists are interested in generating conflict by fear-mongering and by demonising their opponents. This, however, is very dangerous.

Decline of democracy?

By today, the distrust in institutions, multinational corporations, political parties and leaders is critical.

Nothing illustrates this better than the recent massdemonstrations on the streets of Budapest and Warsaw,

which are able to express the anger of people but do not meet the political efforts of the opposition political parties.

Thus, no political alternative is produced. So far, few demonstrations managed to successfully prevent illiberal political action by Fidesz or PiS. The abundance of conspiracy theories is another phenomenon of the crisis of democracy. In a world shaped by conspiracy theories, populist leaders can hide behind blame-game and reject responsibility for just about anything. Conspiracy theories also disempower people. No matter how nonsensical it is to link the Central European University to the migration crisis, the Hungarian government links the two and uses this theory to expand its control over civic organizations, media outlets and universities. Right-wing populists manage to enhance systemic control over every segment of the society deeply undermining the pluralist democratic practice.

While there are significant differences between the political cultures and political structures among the European countries, in the environment of general insecurity and distrust no country is immune from the strengthening of right-wing populism and thus an anti-liberal political turn.

New strategic alliances are needed In order to reclaim control over political processes, viable alternatives must be developed to address right-wing populism. Liberal democratic values need to be revisited and reframed in this new political reality and this process needs to be more sensitive to people’s justifiable fears. It is crucial to develop new strategic alliances across Europe and across traditional party lines. There is no way forward for partisan politics when the future of democracy and the European Union is at stake. Without shared values, sheer power politics will rule the political arena, and that is the worst-case scenario for Central and Eastern European countries. Power politics pushes our countries to the periphery of Europe where we can only be shipwrecked on the thunderous sea of great powers. No, only a new and unified European Union can safeguard our security, well-being and culture.

If we can’t manage this, it will be the emerging Populist International, which will shape our future. ■

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NATO between European Unity and Russian Assertivity Brooks Tigner EU/NATO Affairs correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly and chief policy analyst at SECURITY EUROPE

Global security is in a mess. An arc of tension stretches from eastern Asia (China, North Korea) through Central Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan) and the Middle East (too many places to list) to North Africa. And then there’s Russia.

The transatlantic community has never faced so many diverse challenges at the same time as now, not even during the Cold War. Yes, the Cuban missile crisis (and how many decades ago was that?) was the mother of all existential crises for the world. And yes, there were the Cold War’s proxy-war fires in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. But, looking back, they were very local.

Western capitals now see a megalomaniac in Pyongyang with long-range nuclear strike ambitions, uncertainties about just who controls the nuclear button in an unstable Pakistan, a congenitally corrupt Afghanistan with its toxic mix of international terrorist groups, a global Islamic jihadist network hellbent on a nihilist destabilisation of the West, lamentably bad relations with Moscow and, not least of all, unfathomable masses of refugees and immigrants with their eyes on Europe and North America.

In this security maelstrom, the transatlantic community of NATO and the EU has no choice but to prevail, to shore up the international order and its concepts of law and democracy. It won’t be the UN to husband these challenges despite all its good intentions: its Security Council will be paralysed by one actor or another, depending on the topic. And it certainly won’t be Russia under its current leadership: Moscow is stoking tensions left and right.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meets with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence, outside Moscow, Russia (AlexeiDruzhinin/Sputnik, KremlinPoolPhotovia AP)

No, it will take the West’s diplomatic pressure and military muscle to prevent flashpoints from fire-balling into cataclysms.

This makes the collective security tenets and responsibilities of NATO and the EU all the more important.

NATO’s ground-breaking pledges at its Warsaw summit in July 2016 – to reinforce its eastern borders against Russian sabre-rattling, to coordinate far more closely with the EU across a wide range of security-related tasks, to devise a southern strategy for the alliance – were the right things to do.

But can these two partners map out and enact those tasks quickly enough? Are they flexible enough for that?

Above all, would NATO and the EU really be willing to apply significant defensive and, if necessary, even some offensive muscle if the circumstances of a situation demanded it?

I wish I could unequivocally say “yes”. But, after 25 years of covering both organisations’ security agendas and ambitions and, in view of the current state of politics in Europe, I’m a bit worried.

NATO and the EU have a lot of homework to do, be it in terms of policy or things physical.

NATO’s military command structure is still too bloated and rigid. The vast majority of the allies’ defence expenditure falls short of NATO’s 2-percent-of-GDP spending guideline

The transatlantic community has never faced so many diverse challenges at the same time as now, not even during the Cold War.

– and not a few European allies have no intention of respecting it. Meanwhile, NATO’s ability to quickly deploy large amounts of troops and materiel by land across its territory is simply not there: the allies are working to reverse this logistical non-operability but it will take years to resolve.

On the EU’s side, the picture is worse. Its 10-year-old “arsenal” of battlegroups is a paper tiger, as the 28 national capitals within the EU’s Council review and debate at a geological pace whether to widen by a microgram the scope of their inter-governmental pot of money, known as the Athena Mechanism, to enable a common-share cost of troop deployment. Athena’s been debated on and off for the past decade, with the next maybe-we’ll-take-adecision point coming up in December 2017.

From that cascades my general conclusion that the EU’s common security and defence policy (CSDP) won’t amount to much for a long time.

Not only will Brexit remove one of Europe’s two largest military powers from the EU’s policy options, but the other power – France – is paralyzed by endless navel-gazing, not to mention worries about what a possible rightwing President Marine Le Pen would do with France’s membership in the EU. Even if le Pen is defeated, it is highly unlikely that Paris, or any other capital, will transfer to Brussels even the minimum necessary sovereignty to create a truly effective CSDP.

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IN DEPTH

IN DEPTH

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference after a meeting of the NATO-Russia council at NATO headquarters in Brussels (AP Photo/VirginiaMayo)

The EU and NATO will have to pour much more money into the cyber/internet training to identify and neutralise Russia’s attempts to stir up civil unrest and undermine Western democracies.

Meanwhile, politicians in Berlin state flat out that there is no way they are going to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defence because that would create a politically and historically unacceptable German juggernaut at the centre of Europe. This means that the United States will continue to call the shots within NATO and for Europe’s security.

That also means that any talk of “strategic autonomy” for the EU will remain just that – talk – for a long time as well.

For NATO, this also means using sterner words about Russia – but also about Turkey. The alliance has remained ominously silent about the Turkish bull in its china shop.

The country’s “failed” military coup of July 2016 is now widely seen as a rigged event for Erdoğan to jail any and all of his opponents, quash press freedoms and suppress the country’s minority groups.From NATO there has been nothing on this but bland finger-wagging.

So, as Lenin once put it, “what is to be done?”

And now with the victory of his 16 April referendum to consolidate evermore power in his hands, Erdoğan is well on the way to constructing a dictatorship. Will NATO address this openly and honestly in public? I doubt it.

That will not be good for the alliance’s reputation.

On the physical side, the most urgent thing the 28 EU nations must do for the security of their citizens is to shore up their common external borders by giving the EU’s border agency, Frontex, even more powers than it already has. The Middle East will remain a source of instability and refugee flows for years to come, while there is no assurance that Turkey’s President Recep Erdoğan will not flood Europe again with immigrants from the region.

Europe’s border security is an existential challenge.

For NATO, there is not a lot it can do to speed up things to reform its command structure or make its rapid-reaction pathways across its territory more interoperable or get its member states to hike their defence spending. On a more positive note, however, once the allies agree on such goals, they’re good at reaching them, though it nearly always takes longer than officially declared.

All these actions assume, however, that no crisis grows big enough to derail them. NATO and the EU need to do two things to make sure that doesn’t happen.

The first entails their credibility. To continue setting an example to the world as law-and-democracy based organisations, both need to get their rhetorical houses in order.

Europe’s border security is an existential challenge.

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For the EU, this means getting tougher about Russia. The EU’s foreign and security policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has brought a welcome breath of fresh air, energy and foreign policy finesse to the position compared to her predecessor but on the issue of Russia, she falls short.

Mogherini has failed to criticize Russia in sufficiently lacerating terms for its despicable actions in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. Yes, she has supported sanctions against Moscow, but her rhetoric continues to be soft-pedalled.

Words count in our totally plugged-in world.

Second – and this is also related to rhetorics – NATO and the EU have no choice but to become far bigger, faster and more convincing in their efforts to counter Russia’s hybrid warfare, and particularly its digital and propaganda campaigns.

Joint EU-NATO guidelines and position papers about “strategic communications” are necessary, but they are not enough. The two will have to pour much more money into the cyber/internet training to identify and neutralise Russia’s attempts to stir up civil unrest and undermine Western democracies.

Finland has just inaugurated its NATO-affiliated hybrid warfare centre, for example. That’s a good step forward.

But it ought to be replicated all across Europe. NATO and the EU need hands physically on the keyboards – whether within their own organisations or external to them – to match those in Moscow to counter the latter’s hybrid distortions, lie by lie, rumour by rumour, digital manoeuvre by digital manoeuvre.

Due to its czarist and Soviet past Moscow has the greater experience in distorting information, plus the easier task of circulating lies and rumours versus proving the truth.

Failing to commit the requisite resources to confront this, however, will hand the hybrid information victory to Russia, with all the inherent risks of seeing crises spin out of NATO and the EU’s control – whether on their home territories or abroad. ■

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IN DEPTH

Weapons AI is Increasingly Replacing, not Augmenting, Human Decision making A survey of existing and planned smart weapons finds that artificial intelligence is increasingly used not just to help humans make better choices faster, but to replace them entirely.

Patrick Tucker Author, Technology Editor, Defense One

U.S. Navy officials prepare to signal to a shooter its aircraft is ready to launch from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), a missile cruiser and a nuclear-powered submarine during Exercise Malabar 2015. (AP Photo/Arun Sankar K.)

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IN DEPTH

The Pentagon’s oft-repeated line on artificial intelligence is this: we need much more of it, and quickly, in order to help humans and machines work better alongside one another. But a survey of existing weapons finds that the U.S. military more commonly uses AI not to help but to replace human operators, and, increasingly, human decision making.

The report from the Elon Musk-funded Future of Life Institute does not forecast Terminators capable of highlevel reasoning. At their smartest, our most advanced artificially intelligent weapons are still operating at the level of insects … armed with very real and dangerous stingers.

So where does AI exist most commonly on military weapons? The study, which looked at weapons in military arsenals around the world, found 284 current systems that include some degree of it, primarily standoff weapons that can find their own way to a target from miles away. Another example would be Aegis warships that can automatically fire defensive missiles at incoming threats.

“This matches the overall theme – autonomy is currently not being developed to fight alongside humans on the battlefield, but to displace them. This trend, especially for UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], gets stronger when examining the weapons in development. Thus despite calls for ‘centaur warfighting,’ or human-machine teaming, by the US Defense Department, what we see in weapons systems is that if the capability is present, the system is fielded in the stay [meaning instead of] of humans rather than with them,” notes Heather M. Roff, the author of the report.

Roff found that the most common AI feature on a weapon was homing: “the capability of a weapons system to direct itself to follow an identified target, whether indicated by an outside agent or by the weapons system itself.” It’s been around for decades; many more recent AI capabilities spring from it.

On the the other end of the technology spectrum is certain drones’ ability to loiter over an area, compare objects on the ground against a database of images, and mark a target when a match comes up — all without human guidance.

Roff writes that these capabilities, which she calls autonomous loitering and target image and signal discrimination, represent “a new frontier of autonomy, where the weapon does not have a specific target but a set of potential targets in an image library or target library (for certain signatures like radar), and it waits in the engagement zone until an appropriate target is detected.

This technology is on a low number of deployed systems, but is a heavy component of systems in development.”

For an indication of where AI on drones is headed look to cutting-edge experimental machines like Dassault’s nEUROn, BAE’s Taranis, and Northrop Grumman’s X-47B. Unlike General Atomics’ Predator and Reaper drones, which the military armed to take out terrorist targets in places like Afghanistan, these more advanced drones are designed for war with countries that can actually shoot back. The so-called anti-access / area denial challenge, or A2AD, requires aircraft that use stealth to slip in under enemy radar and then operate on their own over enemy territory. It’s the key thing pushing autonomy in weapons to the next level.

“This is primarily due to the type of task the stealth combat UAV is designed to achieve: defeating integrated enemy air defense systems. In those scenarios, a UAV will likely be without communications and in a contested and denied environment. The system will need to be able to communications share with other deployed systems in the area opportunistically, as well as engage and replan when necessary,” Roff writes.

At the recent Air Force Association conference outside Washington, D.C., Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work called greater autonomy essential to U.S. military technological dominance. Citing a report from the Defense Science Board, he said, “There is one thing that

The capability of a weapons system to direct itself to follow an identified target, whether indicated by an outside agent or by the weapons system itself.

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IN DEPTH

Photo shows a U.S. Navy helicopter approaching to land on the deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt as the USS Normady sails nearby during Exercise Malabar 2015.

(AP Photo/Arun Sankar K., File)

IN DEPTH

There is one thing that will improve the performance of the battle network more than any other. And you must win the competition because you are in it whether you like it or not.

And that is exploiting advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy. That will allow the joint force to assemble and operate human machine battle networks of even greater power.

will improve the performance of the battle network more than any other. And you must win the competition because you are in it whether you like it or not. And that is exploiting advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy. That will allow the joint force to assemble and operate human machine battle networks of even greater power.”

But even if the U.S. military “wins the competition” by producing the best autonomic systems, other nations may yet put AI to unexpected and even destabilizing effect.

“It should be noted that the technological incorporation of autonomy will not necessarily come only from the world’s strongest powers, and the balancing effect that may have will not likely be stabilizing. Regional powers with greater abilities in autonomous weapons development, such as Israel, may destabilize a region through their use or through their export to other nations,” says Roff.

activity, like high-frequency trading, it’s moved to the machines. William Roper, the head of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, discussed his concerns about that acceleration at the recent Defense One Technology Summit.

“When you think about the day-trading world of stock markets, where it’s really machines that are doing it, what happens when that goes to warfare?” Roper asked. “It’s a whole level of conflict that hasn’t existed. It’s one that’s scary to think about what other countries might do that don’t have the same level of scruples as the U.S.” It’s also scary to think about what the United States might do if its leaders woke up in a war where they were losing to those countries. ■

That’s not the only reason more smarts on more weapons could be destabilizing. Machines make decisions faster than humans. On the battlefield of the future, the fastest machines, those that make the best decisions with the least amount of human input, offer the largest advantage.

Today, the United States continues to affirm that it isn’t interested in removing the human decision-maker from “the loop” in offensive operations like drone strikes (at least not completely). That moral stand might begin to look like a strategic disadvantage against an adversary that can fire much faster, conduct more operations, hit more targets in a smaller amount of time by removing the human from loop.

The observe, orient, decide, and act cycle, sometimes called the OODA loop, is today in the hands of humanity when it comes to warfare. But in other areas of human

This article is published with the author’s permission from the Defence One eBook „AI, Autonomy, and the Future Battlefield“ and you can find it at following webpage: www.defenseone.com

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OP-ED

OP-ED

Earthquake in the European politics – on what scale?

Social Democratic Party, SPD, chairman and top candidate in the upcoming general elections Martin Schulz (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Arnold Kammel Director, Austrian institute for European and security policy

60 years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the year 2017 is going to be crucial for the European Union and the European integration process. So far there are at least the presidential and parliamentary elections in France and Germany, general elections in the Netherlands, Norway and the Czech Republic, presidential elections in Hungary and Slovenia and local elections in Portugal. Britain is still in the turmoil of its Brexit decision and there are local elections in the United Kingdom that could be dominated by the referendum’s aftermath.

Especially the general elections in three of the EU founding member states can dramatically change the political geography of Europe in 2017. The outcomes of the elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany will affect the future of Europe’s integration logic and shape the future of the Union. In all these three founding countries of the European project, radical, anti-establishment, populist and nationalist forces on both extremes of the political spectrum are using the current anti-politics and anti-establishment climate for their claims to re-think the membership in international fora, such as the EU and NATO. This has led to a pan-European trend triggered by deep, structural, complex problems the EU and its member states are facing, as its population lacks trust in the problem-solving capacity of the European institutions and thus call for stronger nationalistic approaches. The danger of a more regressive, closed and inward looking Europe, where core values, orientations, norms, and principles are undermined, has not been overcome.

The three elections: one positively done, two more to go

Men walk past campaign posters of independent centrist presidential candidate for the presidential election Emmanuel Macron in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

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Despite all the fear and rumours, at least the first out of the three crucial elections did not follow the expected trend. Against the backdrop of heavy internal debates of whether or not to allowing Turkish ministers to promote the change in their electoral system abroad, the elections in the Netherlands turned out to be a positive test case of counter arguing the populistic trends in politics. However, although the electoral victory of Prime Minister Rutte was clearer than anticipated, it should not be neglected that the anti-establishment and far right party PVV of Geert Wilders ended the race second, winning still some mandates. In

The general elections in three of the EU founding member states can dramatically change the political geography of Europe in 2017.

general, strongly pro-EU parties did well in the election, and Wilders’ passionate opposition to the EU may actually have held him back. There is plenty of Euroscepticism in the Netherlands, but the country is mostly loyal since the Dutch are statistically among the most EU friendly people.

It is thus encouraging that the PVV did not do better; however, the anti-European and anti-elitist phenomenon has not disappeared in the Netherlands.

When looking closer at the upcoming French elections, they seem to become a four-way contest between the independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, the far-right Marine Le-Pen, the conservative Francois Fillon and the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon. As it stands, one of the two candidates for the second round of the elections will most probably be Madame Le-Pen and although the exit polls clearly foresee no victory for her in the second round, the topic of “Frexit” will remain on the agenda.

In Germany, the return of Martin Schulz as Chairman of the social democratic party has opened a new window for the traditional parties, as the main political confrontation will now be between the centre-right and the centre-left and their prime candidates Angela Merkel and Schulz.

The culmination of the political contest is therefore leaving only limited room and media attention for the antiestablishment parties such as Die Linke and the Alternative

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OP-ED

A man poses as crying fire brand anti-Islam law maker Geert Wilders, left, during a small demonstration outside parliament, rear, in The Hague, Netherlands (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

OP-ED

The integration process desperately needs a new positive narrative.

EU’s Eastern Partnership Initiative Development: from Riga to the Estonian Presidency Ján Cingel European Neighbourhood Programme, GLOBSEC Policy Institute

für Deutschland (AfD). However, the possible option of having Die Linke in government as part of a red-red-green coalition also raises substantial questions about the future path of European integration and Germany’s role,particularly within NATO.

Consequences for Europe While support for traditional parties is ebbing across Europe, the rise of anti-establishment, nationalistic and populist parties has evolved from a trend into reality. The combination of massive internal and external challenges has underlined the lack of proper problem-solving capacity of the EU, and has further paired with a lack of solidarity and trust among the EU member states. Therefore, it is no surprise, that despite all its achievements, the integration process desperately needs a new positive narrative.

European governments and EU institutions must together find a way to effectively deal with the negative forces of globalisation and its tensions with sovereign democracy. They need to deliver on their core tasks, providing security and safety to its citizens in a comprehensive manner.

Without strategic foresight and a convincing narrative on why European integration positively matters for the member states and their citizens, mainstream politics cannot be sustained for long.

Therefore, the 2017 elections are not expected to bring an earthquake in European politics. However, the erosions of the traditional political systems might derail the future path of Europe. ■

When the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) Programme was launched 8 years ago, the situation in the EU and its neighbourhood was very different from the current one. The main focus of the EaP at the beginning was to promote transition, reforms and stabilisation of the EU’s neighbourhood through the future prospective of the EU integration for those countries that have such aspirations, but at the same time offering tools and mechanisms for developing closer relations and cooperation with those neighbouring countries that do not strive for the EU membership.

The EU should abandon the “Russia first, EaP second” approach.

Fast forward to 2017, the situation is much more fragile with two hot and a number of frozen conflicts in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood; slowdown of reforms and transition processes even in “best pupils” partner countries; EU’s internal challenges such as Brexit, migration crisis, and the rise of euro-scepticism; all the way to more confrontational Russian engagement in the region. All this caused that the EU’s enlargement process was shifted to the second line, and more careful and pragmatic approach was introduced to develop the relations with the EaP countries.

This does not mean, however, that the whole EaP process would be dormant - a lot has been done and achieved since the last EaP Summit in Riga in May 2015. With another Baltic country’s EU Presidency in Estonia, hopes are higher

European Union foreign ministers and Eastern Partnership foreign ministers pose together for a group photo of EU foreign ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

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OP-ED

for further development of the EaP policies. After number of Presidencies that were focusing mostly on the Southern neighbourhood due to the migration crisis, the Estonian Presidency offers momentum for stepping up the effort within the EaP policies. The overall approach is, however, oriented on implementation of existing commitments and not on formulating new ones.

The joint staff working document entitled “Eastern Partnership – Focusing on key priorities and deliverables” (SWD 2016/467) is a good example and it seems to provide a balanced and pragmatic roadmap with easy-totrack progress approach delineated in 20 key areas where goals are to be reached in cooperation with (interested) EaP countries by 2020. It breaks down the already agreed commitments of the EU and partner countries from Riga into clearly identified sets of activities. The main motivation behind this is to focus on cooperation and more practical actions, which will deliver some tangible benefits to partner states (and their societies) and, just as importantly, improve the EU’s visibility.

The problem of this small-step approach is that it does not address key challenges the EU must cope with in regard torelations with the EaP partners – political (such as oligarchic power structures), geopolitical (e.g. activities of external actors including Russia), security (regional conflicts) and economic (limited resources for assisting the transformation). Therefore, the real impact of these activities, though very positive and justified, will probably not lead to substantial changes in the relations with the EaP countries.

OP-ED

There is a need to redefine the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbours in long term, including the vision of relations with each of the EaP countries.

Genuine more for more principle

Strategic communication

Those interested in deeper cooperation or even integration with the EU should be supported, provided they deliver on needed reforms. Some of events in the EU countries, such as the Dutch ”NO vote” in the referendum about Ukraine’s AA/DCFTA, or delays on part of several EU countries in Georgia’s Visa liberalisation process, contributed to a growing disappointment with the EU in many of the EaP countries and that in turn led to decreasing of their engagement in genuine implementation of reforms needed for their integration into the Union. Moldova – once called the best pupil in the EaP class – is a good example of how losing this motivation could affect the internal politics. Therefore, EU should be ready to offer even the membership perspective (i.e. candidate’s status) to those countries, who really implement reforms and adopt the needed acquis communautaire.

EU is very active in the EaP countries on various levels of support as well as in its investments, but its visibility as one of the dominant donors is weak. The overall image of the EU is furthermore tainted by the anti-EU disinformation campaign supported by Russia as well as internal crisis in the Union itself. This perception combined with a lack of clearly defined goals of integration weakens partners’ involvement in a real transformation along with the European model. Therefore, the EU should invest more into its strategic communication – both in terms of sharing more information about itself, internal processes and challenges, but also in terms of countering malicious propaganda, myths, as well as the simple lack of detailed knowledge abounding in all Eastern partner countries.

The Russian factor

Common flagship initiatives

Although Russia will remain the most important external challenge for the EaP, the EU should abandon the “Russia first, EaP second” approach. That is, not to subject all the EaP policies to reflections about what Russia might think about them, which has been the prevailing approach up until now. The practical application of this new approach could be in granting the candidate’s status only to those partner countries, that are truly committed to European reforms and values.

Initiatives that would involve EU and EaP countries funded from combination of various sources - that is not only by European institutions, but also including private donors and commercial sources of capital -which would address the most challenging issues in these countries, such as SMEs development, youth unemployment, education, rural development, and supportinfrastructural, ecological and energy-related projects. ■

Some major developments are already being expected ahead of the next EaP Summit, that will take place in Brussels in November 2017. These should include further progress in the implementation of the Association Agreements (AAs) and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and newly signed “Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement“(CEPA). The Summit and the Estonian Presidency bring about good momentum for more conceptual changes in the EaP Initiative, which may incorporate the following:

Change of narrative There is a need to redefine the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbours in long term, including the vision of relations with each of the EaP countries. Clearly with such diverse countries, one-fits-all principle can hardly work in all strategic areas. This new “political narrative“ should reflect on developments in the EU and in the partner countries that have occurred since EaP’s launch in 2009.

It should also assess current ambitions and potential to implement political goals. This process should involve less “teacher to student” approach in order to establish a more genuine dialogue and partnership with the interested EaP countries.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, gestures while speaking with European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini during arrivals at the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga.

(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

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OP-ED

OP-ED

Modern terrorism is turning social media into a powerful antisocial platform of hate, destruction, suicide and mass murder.

Photo shows WhatsApp and Facebook app icons on a smartphone. (AP Photo/PatrickSison, File)

Terrorists and Social Media Gabriel Weimann Full Professor of Communication at the University of Haifa, Israel

Social media have long since become the primary means for terrorist groups to launch psychological warfare campaigns, to spread propaganda, to indoctrinate and recruit, to teach and train and to raise funds.The growing attraction of social media for modern terrorists relies on the combined impact of several trends: the expansion of online social media and their advantages for terrorists, the virtual interactivity that terrorist propaganda and recruitment are using especially with the targeting of specific audiences (“narrowcasting”) and the emergence of “Lone Wolf” terrorist, whose virtual pack is found in the terrorist social media. ISIS managed to recruit thousands of foreign fighters, many of them from Western societies. A sizable portion of those were radicalized and recruited on Western online social media. Modern terrorism is turning social media into a powerful anti-social platform of hate, destruction, suicide and mass murder.

Terrorist use of the Internet and online platforms is not new: As soon as the late 1990s, terrorist groups used the Internet, mainly websites and forums. Following the 9/11 events and the antiterrorism campaign that followed, many terrorist groups moved to cyberspace, establishing thousands of websites that promoted their messages and activities. These terrorist sites were targeted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, counterterrorism services, and activists, who monitored the sites, attacked some of them, and forced their operators to seek new online alternatives. The migration to social media followed. The main motivation to use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram and other social media was properly outlined by the terrorists themselves in a Jihadi online forum calling for “Facebook Invasion”: This [Facebook] is a

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great idea, and better than the forums. Instead of waiting for people to [come to you so you can] inform them, you go to them and teach them! …[I] mean, if you have a group of 5,000 people, with the press of a button you [can] send them a standardized message. I entreat you, by God, to begin registering for Facebook as soon as you [finish] reading this post”.

Social media differentiates from traditional/conventional media in many aspects such as interactivity, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence. They are comparatively inexpensive and easily accessible. They enable anyone to upload, download, share and access information. Social media depend on new communication technologies such as mobile and web-based networks to create highly interactive platforms. The global spread of cellular phone with online access to social media made these platforms so widely accessed and used, even in the poorest places in the world. There are 3.5 billion internet users, equallingalmost half of global penetration, 2.31 billion social media users, delivering 31% global penetration, 3.79 billion unique mobile users, representing 51% global penetration and over 2 billion mobile social media users. In 2018, it is estimated that there will be around 2.67 billion social media users around the globe. There are 7.22 billion mobile devices in the world and most of them use at least one social networking channel. Social networking is one of the most popular online activities and Facebook is the most popular online network based on active usage. There are more than 1.6 billion monthly active Facebook users, accounting for almost half of internet users worldwide. The most active online users are between 18 and 32 years with an average of 7.43 hours online every day.

These trends were noticed also by modern terrorists who quickly learned how to harness the new social media for their purposes. Increasingly, terrorist groups and their sympathizers have shifted their online presence from websites, chatrooms and forums to newer platforms: the social media. Today, all terrorist groups are present on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram and other online platforms. Terrorists are encouraging their audiences, followers and operatives to join social media and use them. Maybe the most successful was the Sunni terrorist group ISIS, which launched a multi-platform online campaign, covering the entire range of social media. Since the summer of 2014, ISIS has opened numerous social media accounts for distributing its video, audio and images via various channels and in many languages, thereby avoiding online censorship. As part of these intensive propaganda efforts, it has launched Al-Hayat Media, a new media branch specifically targeting Western and non-Arabic speaking audiences. ISIS has developed an effective online propaganda machinery. On various social media platforms, ISIS has released numerous videos, photos, texts and music promoting different sides of the militant group. On one hand, there is the face of cruel, bloody terror, displaying beheadings and burnings of hostages; on the other we find more humane and friendly videos of ISIS fighters posing with Nutella jars and kittens.

But social media are not the most advanced and challenging form of terrorist presence in cyberspace. Social media, useful and beneficial as they may be forterrorists, also involve risks for them: they can be monitored, tracked and found. Many of the terrorist websites and social media on the so-called Surface Web are monitored by counterterrorism agencies and are often shut down or hacked.

That led to a recent terrorist migration to the Dark Web. The deepest layers of the Internet, a segment known as the Dark Web, contain material that has been intentionally concealed. The Dark Web servers appealto users for whom anonymity is essential, since they not only provide protection from unauthorized access, but also usually include encryption to prevent monitoring. The Dark Web is quite attractive for terrorist groups: While they may lose a broad audience that is available on the Surface Web, they can exploit the obscurity of the Dark Web to further their goals. ■

A passenger checks cellphone before a flight. (AP Photo/ MattSlocum, File)

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EU INSIGHT

EU INSIGHT

Future of Europe: EU29 instead of EU27?

Spanish but keep being among the EU. If we stay out, we will work hard on getting in again” says Ramon MulleratFigueras, a Catalan businessman.

Finally, the map of the European Union will eventually change. If Scotland secedes in compliance with the relevant legal arrangements, the EU will be happy to give a new birth to the European project. But the “self-declared” independent Catalonia would not attract any support from other EU countries. Considering Kosovo’s case, five EU countries still do not recognize its unilateral declaration of independence.

Although Kosovo managed to establish constructive (yet still unofficial) working relations, even with some of the countries avoiding its formal diplomatic recognition, the continued resistance of Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Spain and Slovakia clearly demonstrates the presence of a reserved stance visà-vis the embracement of political secessionism in Europe – especially if it bears potential to complicate domestic political affairs.

Scenarios for Scotland and Catalonia after Brexit Kinga Brudzińska Senior Research Fellow and Institutional Funding Coordinator

Although the prospects for a successful secessionist political movement are considerably higher today in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe, one must remember that the latest ScotCen survey noted that both the Scottish independence and the anti-EU sentiment are record-high. Unlike Catalonia, Scotland’s path towards independence does not automatically imply a clear path towards a consecutive EU membership, let alone a successful membership bid. While this phenomenon might not primarily derail Nicola Sturgeon´s ambitions to hold a second independence referendum, it certainly can impact its overall outcome and complicate an eventual follow-on referendum on (independent) Scotland joining the EU.

Tomáš A.Nagy Research Fellow

UK’s Prime Minister opens space for pursuing a less harsh kind of Brexit, which would eventually ease the tensions between Scotland and the British cabinet.

The separatist movement in Spain invites comparison with the recent developments in Scotland. Analysts worldwide are asking whether these two regions could become independent and eventually form new parts of the European Union. Despite some similarities between these movements (such as in their methods and goals), they are strikingly different. Two important characteristics set them pointedly apart – their legal settings and the number of supporters.

Legally, Scotland’s separation from the UK is feasible as there is no provision in British legal system and constitutional setting that formally prevents Scotland from seeking political independence,provided there is sufficient political will both in London and Edinburgh. In contrary, the Spanish Constitution from 1978 guarantees the indissoluble unity of the country and would require the review to make any changes. Therefore, the“right to decide” favoured by Catalonia is not recognized

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neither by national nor international law. In Scotland, the independence is essentially a “fifty-fifty” matter as the issue of a potential independence splits the population in a very close parity. Pro-independence sentiment remains strong in Catalonia but has only 37,1% of supporters, according the Centre for Public Opinion.

Expanding the EU after Brexit would send a strong signal that the Union is still an attractive project. However, it won’t happen. Enlarging the Union via the breakup of one of its member states could open a Pandora’s box of secessions.

Such a step would be also contradictory to the Treaty of the European Union, in which the Article 4 protects territorial integrity of its member states. In Scotland, the political process will, in short term, likely drive towards either a continuous independence push or a sustained process of gradually increasing devolution – i.e. greater decisionmaking powers to be heading towards Holyrood from Westminster. For Catalonia, which has more self-government than almost any other part of Europe, there is little room for further devolution. Eventually, Madrid could recognise that Catalonia is a nation within Spain, or the Catalan language.

Catalan regional government’s does not give up and pledge to hold a binding referendum on independence in September. ■

What do the movements denote for the EU and what does Brexit mean for them?

Brexit delays separatist claims for both regions. As the EU and its member states will be busy with the exit talks, they will not risk dealing simultaneously with the separatists or admitting a new country to the club. Additionally, in the disunited EU, Madrid and London will push for the unity even further. It is unlikely that Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), could organize a second independence referendum before the EU-UK negotiations draw clear contours of Brexit. Importantly, UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May´s decision to call snap elections in order to solidify her political authority within her own party brings about space for pursuing a less harsh kind of Brexit, which would eventually ease the tensions between Scotland and the British cabinet. However, whether PM May will use her increased political leverage to seek a Brexit setting that would please Scottish concerns remains to be seen. For Catalonia, Brexit will not help change Madrid’s stance on independence as one could hope at the beginning, after it softened its stance on Scotland’s joining the EU (resulting from the dispute over Gibraltar). Quite contrarily - to ease tensions and win over public opinion, both the King and the government are now more proactive. For example, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, promised the region an investment of €4.2 billion by 2020.

As no European Union member state has ever broken apart, the EU should work on the ways to respond. Sooner or later, be it Scotland or Catalonia, new, independent countries will emerge, and the EU should be ready for it.

Even though they would be subject to “Barroso doctrine,” which barsthe fast track to membership, their separatist movements are not discouraged. “Our goal is to stop being

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, with lawmaker Angus Robertson an SNP member of the UK Parliament, speak to the media outside the Palace of Westminster in London. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Expanding the EU after Brexit would send a strong signal that the Union is still an attractive project.

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE 33

EU INSIGHT

EU INSIGHT

Romania’s Civic Revolution Mihai Sebe

Expert, European Institute of Romania, Romanian researcher in Political Sciences specialised in European and Romanian Politics

Protesters shout anti-government slogans during a rally in Bucharest, Romania (AP Photo/VadimGhirda)

Although Romania has become the region’s benchmark in the anti-corruption fight, reaching a good practice model still requires some fine-tuning.

Added to this background of anti-corruption monitoring is Romania’s Euro-optimism and trust in the European institutions (52%)– a level higher than the European average (36%)2.

We must also remember what has become a trademark for Romanian civic protests – the fact that they have become a constant social manifestation since 2012, with a value based motivation rather than an economic one.

How did it all begin? The protests burst out after a failed attempt of government to introduce a legislative piece that would decriminalize official misconduct under certain conditions. This happened on the background of a strong opposition of the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis and that of the professional associations.

Why perception matters and being legal is sometimes not enough. Even though it drew its legitimacy from the need to update the Penal Code with the decisions of the Constitutional Court, the new legislative was to be passed in a rush and without any consistent debate, which caused the uproar leading up to the protests. Simply put, the message this conduct sent out was that the government officials were simply looking for a quick way to get away with what they have done in the past (or were about to do in the near future), breaching the rules of good governance.

The peculiarities of the civic protests. What sets these civic protests apart is their non-violent character and the lack of an assumed leadership.An interesting characteristic was also the presence of young people and of persons up to the age of fifty. The majority of participants had prior protest experiences (67%), which provided for an effective protest know-how.Showcasing the power of social media, 75% of the protesters used Facebook as a main communication tool regarding the protests.3 What was the immediate outcome? Facing the growing pressure, the government withdrewits support for the controversial legislative piece and let the way open for the Parliament debates on the topic. This shows that the collective wisdom of all the parties put together can indeed lead to a quick and politically acceptable agreement, whereupon any required legislative amendments are adopted through a democratic, comprehensive and credible consultation process involving all the relevant actors.

The shape of things to come. The novelty of these protests and their importance reside in the use of the cybernetic space as a stage for their spontaneous evolution, based on the virtual support and the absence of clear leadership.

Romania’s civic dissatisfaction was perceived as the first major pro-EU and pro-Western upheaval in the post-Brexit Europe in a region knownbetter for frequent democratic transgressions rather than as a pro-liberal hub.

Why does this matter? It matters because the protest came in some of the most troubling moments for the liberal democracy. TheEuropean Uniondesperately needed a motivational story, an inspiration for a confused civic

body. Thus the civic protests that came from a region of Europe too often associated with populist tendencies were perceived as a shining beacon of democratic hope.

How did we get here? In order to better understand the civic character of these protests we need to remember that since joining the European Union in 2007, Romania, just like Bulgaria, has been under a constant monitorisation through the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM)1.

1 See more about the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Bulgaria and Romania on the European Commission website at https://ec.europa.eu/info/effective-justice/rule-law/ assistance-bulgaria-and-romania-under-cvm/cooperation-and-verification-mechanism-bulgaria-and-romania_en Last visited on 18 April 2017.

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A hypothesis which needs to be further researched and validated is that a new type of political governance is about to emerge in Romania, a sort of Third Wave Politics, in the way Alvin Toffler predicted them. Up to now the government had the legitimacy of the votes obtained at the beginning of the electoral cycle (“rule-by-periodic polling at the elections booth”) and this legitimacy was perceived as a de factodecisive argument for any decision. Now

Showcasing the power of social media, 75% of the protesters used Facebook as a main communication tool regarding the protests. we see that this no longer seems to work and that any decision needs to be validated by the citizens, even those who didn’t vote for the government in place. Tomorrow’s electorate is now on the streets and people who until recently did not pay any attention to the intricacies of political system now seem to have rediscovered their civic duties.These Third Wave electors are fluid, often driven by emotion and/or principles, and have the tendency to reject the old playbook of political rules in force.

We thushave,in nuce, a new type of society in Romania, a Society 2.0. It is not a reality that can win elections, but it does show the way toward a possible, yet not definitive future, where the combination of new technologies and social networks with the collective and individual emotion would shape the political landscape. This emerging society must not conflict with the older generations or the public authorities; we need to find the right proportions and bring back the balance. The challenges of the future (such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Internet of Things, e-governance, etc.) can only be faced in a collective effort to maintain the balance between much needed social equilibrium and the valorisation of future opportunities.

This new-found energy and desire to challenge what is perceived as an obsolete status-quo can be tackled and put to good use at the European level in order to redefine the future of Europe and confront its real problems: poverty, lack of security and individual perspectives, perceived democratic deficit, etc. Moreover, this renewed civic activism and passion for Europe might just be the antidote to the surge of populism and self-harming nationalism and regionalism. The future has the quality of coming upon us whether we like it or not. All we can do is be prepared to shape it positively as autonomous people. ■

2 Eurobarometer 86, December 2016,available online at http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/STANDARD/surveyKy/2137 Last visited on 18 April 2017.

3 Dan Jurcan, „Protest în era digitală” [“Digital Era Protest”] in Sinteze, no. 38, March – April 2017, available online at http://revistasinteza.ro/ Last visited on 18 April 2017. i The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the official position of any institutions with which he is affiliated or collaborates with.

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE 35

VISEGRAD NEWS

VISEGRAD NEWS

US Embassy Charge d’Affaires David Kostelancik bows his head in front of the Victims’ Memorial Wall during a commemoration marking the Memorial Day of the Hungarian Holocaust victims in the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP) European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici, right, talks with Italy’s Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, left, Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna, 2nd right, and Slovakia’s Finance Minister Peter Kazimir during a round table meeting of eurozone finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Hungary has not yet shaken off its Nazi past

Slovakia among EU countries at greatest risk after Brexit

This year sees the 70th anniversary of Miklós Horthy’s death. That he did not suffer the fate of many of Hitler’s other East European collaborators (the Allies refused to hand him over to the Hungarians, allowing him to go into exile) has aided the efforts of those who have been working since the fall of Communism to rehabilitate his reputation. That effort has gathered momentum since the election of the nationalist government of Viktor Orbán in 2010. His cabinet has tolerated the unveiling of statues and plaques to the admiral, while the state-funded Veritas Institute for Historical Research, which was established three years ago with the aim to re-examine, among other topics, the “achievements” of the Horthy era, has provided an intellectual façade to the exercise. That Horthy — who assumed the title of “regent” in 1920 after the collapse of AustriaHungary and ruled the country for the following 24 years — was an antisemite is beyond dispute. It is certainly true that prior to the occupation Horthy had twice refused personal requests from Hitler to deport Hungary’s Jews to Germany, making the country at least in comparison to its neighbours something of a safe haven. The true point of contention between his critics and apologists however rests rather in Horthy’s actions during the Holocaust.

Slovakia is among those EU member states that stand to lose the most in the wake of the United Kingdom’s departure from the Union, the KPMG consultancy informed the TASR newswire. Slovakia’s exports to the UK make up over 5 percent of the nation’s GDP. Only four other EU-member countries – Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Belgium – have a higher exports-to-GDP ratio towards the UK. Moreover, Slovakia comes second in terms of the proportion of its total exports to the UK (3.27 percent), as only Ireland ranks higher. All EU countries are expected to sign bilateral agreements with the UK in the next two years after the Brexit procedure was officially launched earlier on 29 March. Details on a range of issues, including bilateral trade and free movement of people and capital, will need to be thrashed out. KPMG expects a number of industries to be hit hard by Brexit, notably Germany’s automotive production, as one in seven cars produced there ends up in the UK. Fourteen percent of exports of French wines were imported into the UK in 2015, as were 10 percent of Belgian chocolate exports, 26 percent of Danish sausage exports and 15 percent of Greek cheese exports.

28.03.2017, www.thejc.com

29.03.2017, spectator.sme.sk

Polish President Andrzej Duda, center, and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, third left, attend a meeting in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Czech Republic’s President Milos Zeman holds a statement for media in Prague, Czech Republic. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Prague last in CE to ratify convention against human trafficking

Poland expects to sign a deal for Patriot systems by late 2017

The Council of Europe’s (CE) convention on the fight against human trafficking will take place in the Czech Republic on 1 July, as announced by the Foreign Ministry reacting to CE head Thorbjorn Jagland hailing completion of the Czech ratification process. Prague is the last of the CE’s 47 members to have ratified the convention, which is legally binding.

Jagland welcomed that from now on the Czech Republic will apply the same standards in this respect as the remaining 46 EC countries to prevent the trafficking in people, protect the victims and prosecute the offenders. The ministry said that Prague signed the convention in May 2016, and both houses of Czech parliament approved it last December, followed by President Milos Zeman’s signature on January 31, 2017. To complete the process, the convention still needed to be counter-signed by the Prime Minister and then delivered to the CE headquarters. In the recent years, the Czech Republic has translated a European Union directive against trafficking of EU citizens into its legislation. In 2014, the Czech police registered 67 victims of human trafficking, which presents a 10 percent increase in comparison to 2013.

Out of the registered cases, those of sexual and labour exploitation were the most frequent.

Poland expects to sign a deal worth up to $7.6 billion with US firm Raytheon to buy eight Patriot missile defence systems by the end of the year. Warsaw sees the deal as central to a thorough modernization of its armed forces by 2023. Poland has sped up the efforts to overhaul its military following Russia’s annexation of Crimean Peninsula in 2014 as well as in response to Moscow’s renewed military and political assertiveness in the region. The contract still requires approval from the US Congress, as it involves a purchase of advanced military technology for which special permission must be obtained. The Patriot mobile missile defence interceptors are designed to detect, track and engage unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cruise missiles and short-range or tactical ballistic missiles. Poland should receive the first of the Patriot systems within two years of signing the contract. All the units would come with the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), designed to give commanders a better perspective of their operating environment to make better informed decisions. Starting with the delivery of the third system, the Patriots will also be equipped with 360-degree surveillance radars.

31.03.2017, praguemonitor.com

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31.03.2017, reuters.com

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE 37

QUIZ

QUIZ

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May meets European Council president Donald Tusk, inside 10 Downing Street, London, ahead of Brexittalks (AP Photo/ DanKitwood, Pool)

Quiz 1.

__________has emerged as the least corrupt country in the world for a fourth consecutive year, according to the nongovernmental organisation Transparency International. a) b) c) d)

Sweden Denmark Finland United States

2. Financial services and tech industry are hit the hardest by cyber-attacks. Cyber security attacks have wiped at least __________ off the value of shares in recent years.Analyzed data showed 65 cyber security breaches labelled as “severe” and “catastrophic” out of a total of 315 breach events since 2013. a) b) c) d)

$52 billion $30 billion $48 billion $10 billion

a) b) c) d)

3. The two leading French presidential candidates, _________, the leader of the centre party, and the leader of the National Front Marine Le Pen are set to dispute the French presidency in the second round of the election, as French voters seem increasingly more divided and disappointed with politics the closer they are to the election day. Vincent Juvyns, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, said that “This is the most uncertain election in the history of the 5th Republic,” a) b) c) d)

Benoît Hamon François Fillon Jean-Luc Mélenchon Emmanuel Macron

Xi Jinping TsaiIng-wen Ma Ying-jeou Lin Chuan

5. The Dutch election on Wednesday March 15, 2017 had been billed as a test for populism in Europe after last’s year British vote to leave the European Union and the election of US President Donald Trump.With 95 percent of votes counted, _________ VVD Party won 33 of parliament’s 150 seats. Populist party PVV was second with 20, as the CDA and centrist Democrats 66 tied at third place with 19 seats each. a) b) c) d)

Geerd Wilders´s Mark Ruttes´s Angela Merkel´s Viktor Orban´s

LuizInácio Lula da Silva Dilma Rousseff Michel Temer Juan Manuel Santos

8. Vladimir Putin met with US secretary of state Rex Tillerson in ________. This is thought to be the first meeting between the Russian president and a Trump cabinet official. Though Donald Trump has spoken with Putin on phone before, the meeting is considered the first between Putin and Trump’s administration since the new US president took office in January. a) b) c) d)

Washigton, D.C. Moscow Minsk Kiev

9. In the Turkish referendum, voters are being asked to decide whether to transform country’s constituency from parliamentary to presidential republic.A “Yes” vote would institutionalize a de facto one-man rule with Turkey’s powerful yet divisive premier at the helm, while a “No” vote would reject Erdogan’s enduring wish for drastic reform.

Erdogan has been ruling as the 12th president of Turkey for _______ . a) b) c) d)

Supporters of the “NO” vote campaign shout slogans and they wave Turkish and “NO” flags as they gather in the streets ahead of Sunday’s referendum, in Istanbul (AP Photo/PetrosKaradjias)

March 27, 2017 March 20, 2017 March 29, 2017 February 28, 2017

7. Former Brazilian President __________ spoke in self-defence in New York against a massive corruption scandal and an economic crisis that crippled Latin America’s largest country. Brazil had been an economic stalwart in the region just a few years before president’s impeachment, buoyed by surging oil prices. The collapse in the crude market, coupled with a corruption scandal in state-run Petrobrasled to millions of Brazilians flooding the streets in protest of leader’s presidency. a) b) c) d)

4. With the legislature’s approval of an amendment to the country’s Animal Protection Act, Taiwan seems to be first country in Asia to ban the possession, sale, purchase, and consumption of cat and dog meat. This approval still needs to be signed by Taiwan’s president _________. a) b) c) d)

6. Theresa May has informed the European council that she will trigger article 50 on Wednesday___________, but European sources have made clear that Britain could be forced to wait until June to embark on formal talks.

4years 3 years 2 years 5 years

10. Several NATO Allies and European Union members came together in ______on 11 April 2017, formally agreeing to establish a European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. At a ceremony attended by Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini, officials from NATO and the European Union welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for the Centre, which will open later in 2017. a) b) c) d)

Stockholm Oslo Helsinki Brusel 1.b, 2. a, 3.d, 4. b, 5. b, 6. c, 7. b, 8. b, 9. b, 10. c

38 GLOBSEC MAGAZINE

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE 39

CALENDAR

REDACTION

Calendar

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE

Issue 2/2017 Publication date: 25 May 2017

Discount: Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kažimir and EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Pierre Moscovici during the 5th International GLOBSEC Tatra Summit 2016 on Energy, Finance, migration and terrorism, Bratislava. (Foto: SITA/Marko Erd)

MAY 4 May

26-28 May

Mid-term local and mayoral elections will take place on 4 May in the UK. Voters will deliver their verdicts on the major political parties next month in the first major round of elections since the EU referendum. The elections will also prove a crucial test for UKIP’s embattled leader Paul Nuttall.

Though they may not change much, they can definitely provide an important bellwether of support for Theresa May’s government.

Bratislava will become the centre of international policymaking for the 12th time. Hundreds of high-profile politicians and experts will meet at the GLOBSEC 2017 Bratislava Forum. The forum will feature a large number of discussions to produce effective solutions to overcome global challenges.

Editor-in-Chief

Soňa Trojanová

Project Coordinator

Ivana Slobodníková, Martina Šinkovičová

Language Corrections

Tomáš Grenzner

Graphic Design

T-double

Photography

SITA, TASR

Editorial Soňa Trojanová Headlines

Taisiia Bolshakova

Interview

Lucia Husenicová

In Depth

Lukáš Dravecký, Michaela Marečková, Patrik Štefaňák

EU Insight

Michaela Marečková

Op-ed Viola Martonová Visegrad News

Anna Przybyll

Quiz Michaela Marečková Calendar

Counting of votes gets underway in the Copeland special election at White haven, northern England (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)

Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser, left, listens to Finnish counterpart Timo Soini during their joint press conference in Helsinki (MarkkuUlander/Lehtikuvavia AP)

JUNE

JULY

11-18 June

July-December

The legislative elections to establish the 15th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic are scheduled on 11 and 18 June 2017. It is safe to say that the elections measure up to (if not surpass) any higher-profile presidential contest in their overall significance.

Estonia will be taking over the baton of the EU Presidency from Malta, and handing it over to Bulgaria six months later. Three consecutive holders of the Presidency agree on the necessary areas of focus on the European level.

The Estonian presidency programme should be based in particular on the work plans of the EU institutions and Estonia’s EU policy.

40 GLOBSEC MAGAZINE

Patrik Štefaňák

GLOBSEC Academy Centre Kuzmányho 3, 974 01 Banská Bystrica Mobile: 00421 / 948 120 537 Tel./Fax.: 00421 / 2 544 106 09

The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and their publication does not constitute an endorsement by the Globsec magazine The editorial board of the Globsec magazine reserves the right to shorten and revise articles when necessary.

GLOBSEC MAGAZINE 41

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