Redesigning the EU’s Relations with Africa

Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash

Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash Africa’s needs are bottomless, but they should also be seen as lungs that could breathe new life into flagging European economies. Sadly, this far from original proposition has yet to reverse Europe’s retreat from Africa, writes Giles Merritt. EU policymakers would probably deny this and point to their new strategy for strengthening…

Europe’s Declining Influence in Africa

Photo by Thomas Bennie on Unsplash

Photo by Thomas Bennie on Unsplash Europe is retreating from Africa in what seems likely to be the greatest shift of all in the 21st century’s new era of tectonic geo-political change, writes Giles Merritt. It is five hundred years since Henry the Navigator’s explorers set up Portuguese trading posts that eventually led to European colonialism. Africa was…

Blame Game in the EU

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash Unless the opinion polls have got it very wrong, next month’s European elections will trigger a massively disruptive ‘Blame Game’ within the EU. Hurried realignments of longstanding political alliances and frantic searches for scapegoats threaten to change the face of the European Union in the eyes of the world as well as…

Defending Europe: Forget the big guns and aim for ‘smart’ warfare

UX Gun on Unsplash

Photo by UX Gun on Unsplash Giles Merritt, founder of Friends of Europe, warns that increased defence spending on ‘white elephant’ projects risks starving more innovative ones that could revolutionise military thinking.  Ukraine’s David may not have felled the Russian Goliath, but so far he’s stopped him in his tracks. The significance of how Ukraine unexpectedly stalemated Russia’s…