Rubrics » Bridging News
The Connection between the Three Seas Initiative and the Middle Corridor: An Italian Perspective
It is not a mystery. The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, intends not to renew the controversial memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative. After all, this deal has always been risky from a geopolitical point of view and it is good that the Prime Minister is about to take such a step. Indeed, we should not forget that China is listed among the major geopolitical threats to the West. On the other hand, Rome will face significant challenges. It is in fact possible that Italy will be hit by Chinese retaliation. Meloni is aware of this. Not surprisingly, in recent months she has significantly strengthened relations with the United States and India. It is for this reason that, looking ahead, the Prime Minister should consider joining the Three Seas Initiative. More
A Midsummer Night’s Chilling Dream
Climate changes and armed conflicts – as facets of, basically, the “non-human” physical nature and of the “dehumanised” human nature, respectively –, when fatally intertwined with each other, bring us closer to Apocalypse nightmares. The mental cohabitation between ecological anguishes and the anxieties of belligerence is the product of the Cold War era’s madness (as in MAD – mutual assured destruction). A doctrine of deterrence, MAD highlights the fact that every nuclear confrontation between superpowers can only end with the annihilation of both, regardless of who was at first on the offense and who was on the defence. Such an infamous possibility also had a climate-related dimension. Either the thermonuclear explosions will broil Earth’s fluids like a boiler (some sort of a “Heat Death”), or they would release a cloud of particles in the atmosphere, blocking the solar radiation (generating an “Ice Age”), the horrific result would be a residual human-inhabited area to oscillate agonizingly between scalding and drowning, between freezing and extreme hunger. Even though the industrial rivalry, including the peaceful kind, remains the main target of the accusations that it devours the environment and disrupts the climate, war, even the regular genre (though it has been recently becoming more and more hybrid in nature) imposes itself as a research subject in relation to climate risks. More
The Three Seas Initiative – One Year after the Riga Summit: Full Steam Ahead?
We are witnessing an increased political concreteness of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) as the September 2023 Summit in Bucharest is approaching. First of all, we should look at the goals of this Initiative. As mentioned in several other papers, this is first and foremost a regional Initiative established based on a shared sense of identity, interdependence and cooperation. Romania joined the platform without reservations from its beginning, organising in Bucharest in 2018 the third summit of this Initiative. More
Foible Taxation, the Main Cause of Public Deficit
As a ratio of GDP, in 2021 tax revenue (including net social contributions) accounted for 41.7% of GDP in the European Union (EU) and 42.2% of GDP in the euro area (EA-19). The ratio tax revenue to GDP was highest in Denmark (48.8%), France (47.0%) and Belgium (46.0%), followed by Austria (43.7%), Italy (43.6%), Sweden (43.5%) and Finland (43.1%); the lowest shares were recorded in Ireland (21.9%), Romania (27.3%), Bulgaria (30.7%), Latvia (30.8%), Malta (31.2%) and Lithuania (32.6%). This situation makes taxation the main cause of public deficit. With public revenues even as low as Bulgaria or Latvia, Romania wouldn’t be outside the maximum 3% of GDP requirement for deficit. More
Stories that Matter
The book that I’d like to introduce to you is “Escaping the Frame. Women in Famous Pictures tell their Stories” by Mary Bevan. It was published in 2021. It’s the perfect book for today’s readers always in a hurry, nevertheless looking for something thought provoking, engaging, visual, educational but also grounded in today’s realities which are often so challenging. Especially for women. No, this is not the standard feminist, activist book that you are already fed up with. Instead, the book I want to introduce to you is a collection of brief thoughts belonging to women who have become celebrated in the art of men, or women who were themselves artists, but whom we have not been used to listen to or to imagine that they have thoughts that might be worthy of our interest. More
Year 0 A.D. (after Vilnius)
The NATO Summit in Vilnius on 11-12 July 2023 produced some of the expected results. It reaffirmed the Alliance’s support for Ukraine, and continued the work to coordinate investment in the industrial capacity needed to supply Ukraine in this war of attrition and to ensure the Alliance’s ability to defend itself in the event of conflict. However, Ukraine has not received a clear invitation or roadmap to join NATO, following opposition from the US and Germany, who shy away from direct escalation with Russia and the assumption of a territorial defense obligation that would be triggered the second the accession treaty is signed. Most significant was President Erdogan’s surprise announcement of his approval of Sweden’s entry into the Alliance, shortly after the unrealistic demand he made of resuming Turkey’s EU accession talks. President Erdogan’s unpredictability is due both to his own agenda of advancing Turkey’s regional power and specific security interests and to the recent electoral reconfirmation of his mandate to “make Turkey great again.” It remains to be seen whether Sweden will receive confirmation in the autumn, as Erdogan has indicated. Also, the presence for the second year in a row of the AP4 group (Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand) indicates both the Indo-Pacific direction in which the US would prefer to take NATO and the growing role of the group, especially of South Korea, in the military supply of the Alliance, especially its European partners. More
Is the European Union Going Forward or Going Backwards?
The many crises that have hit the European Union during the last decade and a half have made many observers pessimistic about the future of the organisation. The deep economic crisis of the eurozone has been followed by a north-south political divide and the exit of Great Britain from the EU coincided with conflicts on the meaning of democracy with some notable eastern member states. The conclusion of a European Union going backwards is nevertheless premature. As in the past, great failures, such as the Constitutional Treaty, coincided with great steps forward. More
Edward Rozek: Bearing Witness
How do we develop the eyes to see and the ears to hear? The best teachers equip us to resist temptation and recognize deception. They enable us to develop the vision to discern truth and the voice to tell it. “Take everything with a grain of salt,” my father advised me more than once. As I went off to college in 1966, he urged me to get under the wing of Edward J. Rozek, a Polish emigré who fought first for Poland at the outset of the Second World War, then escaped his imprisoned country to serve as a reconnaissance officer under British command. Blinded in a tank explosion, he underwent several surgeries to remove shrapnel and restore his eyesight. More
Romania 2022 – Highest Share of People at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion in the EU
In 2022, the shares of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion varied across the EU countries, with highest values reported in Romania (34%), Bulgaria (32%), Greece and Spain (both 26%). On the other hand, the lowest shares were recorded in three states from the former Eastern Bloc: Czech Republic (12%), Slovenia (13%) and Poland (16%).95.3 million people in the EU (22% of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, i.e. lived in households experiencing at least one of the three poverty and social exclusion risks: risk of poverty, severe material and social deprivation, and/or living in a household with very low work intensity. The figure remained relatively stable compared with 2021 (95.4 million, 22% of the population). More
Cultural Zig Zag – Confluences
Françoise Gilot, a successful painter and memorialist, died on June 6 aged 101. And beyond her venerable age, the name of the artist has appeared in almost every important cultural publication in the world. Why am I mentioning her here? Because her story is, in a way, exemplary of the condition of the female artist, and beyond that because it created some connections for me with Urmuz.Let me briefly introduce who Gilot had been and what she represented for the world of art. Those who know something about her, because they are interested in the world of modern art, remember that she was Picasso’s lover despite a 40-year age difference. She lived with Picasso for 10 years and bore him two children, Paloma and Claude, and is the only woman to leave him, rebuild her life and, despite Picasso’s considerable efforts to block her, build a career for herself as a painter and writer whom many consider remarkable. In 2021, the portrait made of her daughter in 1965 and titled Paloma à la Guitare, sold for 1.3 million dollars. The Musée Estrine in Saint Remy de Provence [1] dedicated to modern art of the 20th and 21st centuries, dedicated a retrospective to her in 2021. In 2009, she became an officer of the French Legion of Honour. Françoise Gilot was an independent woman who wanted to step out of the shadow of powerful men, from her father to Picasso, and who fought to keep her own identity. In her bestselling book, Life with Picasso, co-written with art critic Carlton Lake in 1964, she recalls that a friend warned her before she entered into a relationship with Picasso that she was heading for catastrophe. “I told him he was probably right, but I felt it was the kind of catastrophe I didn’t want to avoid” [2]. And also in her memoir, she firmly says “I’m not just a creature, I’m a creator. I am not an object to be painted, I am a subject, I am a painter” [3]. More
The Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence Regulation
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be what Edison said about electricity - "it is a field of fields... that holds the secret to reorganizing the life of the world". Artificial intelligence, at all of its levels of complexity, is a technology with a radical impact on the global economy and security. AI solutions can be integrated into industrial robots as well as military robots, can become defenders as well as cyber attackers far more agile than human experts, can analyze information to uncover threats but also to violate the rights and the privacy of individuals, as well as to create discrimination or amplify social and political polarization. More than any other technology, artificial intelligence illustrates the dualism of emerging technologies and the need for cooperation, regulation and sustainable adoption of these technologies while maintaining the resilience and values of their respective societies. More
Italy’s Economic Saga
Italy is one of the biggest economies within the eurozone, yet its debt burden now stands as one of the largest globally, surpassing 140% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022. Italian debt spans multiple decades, with the country grappling with high levels of public debt since the 1980s, when the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at around 60%, steadily mounting after that. The problem has evolved into a chronic predicament, persistently afflicting the national economy. The country’s heavy debt burden has caused the government to face higher borrowing costs, compounding the difficulty of reducing the debt over time. This situation puts the Italian economy’s stability at risk, as the slightest adverse change in the global economy can disproportionally hamper the country’s ability to repay its debts. More
