The UK recently announced that they will hold a referendum on June 23rd to decide if they will stay in or depart from the European Union.[1] As the world scuttles to the bleachers to watch the show and place bets, the Catalonian region of Spain was only recently able to elect a Prime Minister and…
In light of the Syrian Civil War, the Refugee Crisis it created, and the chaos in the Ukraine, the European Debt Crisis has fallen off the public radar. Greece, although receiving the lion’s share of public criticism, is far from the only country in a dangerous economic situation, and Italy will be the next domino…
![Mourners gather at a makeshift memorial to victims of the November 2015 attacks in Paris [Photo Credit: AFP/BBC]](../../../wp-content/uploads/2015/11/picture-220x126.jpg)
The recent attacks in Paris sent shockwaves throughout the Western world. The largest terrorist attack on European soil since the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the incident has resulted in an outpouring of international support and the largest French airstrikes against ISIS yet. The attacks set off a flurry of arguments aimed at understanding what the…
United Nations climate talks are starting in Paris in a few days. As the host continent of this important international gathering of over 130 heads of states around the world, what should we expect of Europe? Will the climate talks be more effective than Copenhagen 2009, among other efforts? Historically, the EU has played a significant…
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, has sparked much controversy. Noticeably, instead of focusing on reducing tariffs, the TTIP proposes to align the U.S. and EU’s currently incompatible rules and regulations. Although opposition is voiced most loudly in several EU countries where…
![Migrants at a train station in Dortmund, Germany. [Photo Credit Times of Israel/AP Photo/Martin Meissner]](../../../wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Germany-Migrants_Horo-4-635x357-220x126.jpg)
Consider the word “crisis” in the modern world. Which would be the first geographical region that comes to your mind when you think about “crisis”? Maybe not Europe? At least, perhaps not until recent months, when the region became plagued with two major crises — the financial one caused by our Greek friends, and the…
A “Grexit” (Greek exit from the European Union), it seems, has been one of the trending topics for so long. With the general elections coming up in just over a week in the United Kingdom, it might be worth investigating another crucial question to the fate of the EU: What about a “Brexit” (British exit)?…
Greece’s already dismal debt crisis took another turn for the worse on April 16th with the news that Standard & Poor’s had once again downgraded Greece’s sovereign credit rating from a B-/B to a CCC+/C. The further downgrade, which puts Greece in the “imminent default” category of sovereign debt, reflects the fear that the indebted…
At its core, the European Union (EU) is a multilateral institution rooted in members’ common interests and consent. For this reason, Europeans often identify with ideas that correspond with their ideals, as exemplified by four key European allies’ (the U.K., Germany, France, and Italy) agreement to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), an…
Many Latin American economies are currently struggling due in part to falling oil and commodity prices. In spite of the economic difficulties affecting much of Latin America, countries such as China, Russia, and South Korea have continued to increase their investments and overall economic participation in the region. A great majority of the investment and…