Catégorie : PE in english Page 6 of 11

Une sélection d’articles traduits en anglais, et en accès libre

The European Union: Caught between the United States and China

de

On 26/01/2023

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of: Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, « L’Union européenne, entre États-Unis et Chine », published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 86, Issue 3, 2021.

Au premier plan, couverture du volume 3/2021 de Politique Étrangère. En fond, drapeau de l'Union Européenne sur un bâtiment.

The European Union (EU) has long aspired to a stronger and more coherent foreign and security policy. With the Lisbon Treaty, it upgraded the position of High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and created a new diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS) to help it achieve this objective. Although progress has been made in a number of areas, including in defense cooperation, the EU is still far from having a unified, coherent and effective external policy, while the departure of the United Kingdom has diminished its economic, political and military weight.
However, as the international environment has drastically changed, awareness of the need for Europe to be able to act more autonomously and decisively has risen substantially in recent years. The instability in the EU’s neighborhood has been aggravated by Russia’s aggressive policies, while the challenges resulting from China’s rise became increasingly apparent. At the same time, American unilateralism under President Trump severely undermined confidence in the transatlantic alliance.

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Climate and International Trade: The Clash of Powers

de

On 19/01/2023

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of: Carole Mathieu, « Climat et commerce international : le choc des puissances », published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 86, Issue 3, 2021.

Couverture de la revue Politique Étrangère n° 3/2021, présentant l'article "Climate and International Trade: The Clash of Powers" de Carole Mathieu, sur une image de fond représentant une carte du monde plate entourée de billets de différentes devises.

Since Joe Biden’s election there has been a sense of optimism around international climate negotiations. The hope of finding a multilateral solution will be revived in a few months’ time at the important COP26 summit in Glasgow, which should mark the end of another cycle of amendments to the 2030 commitments. In record time, the United States has not only rejoined the Paris climate agreement, but it has also presented the rest of the world with a plan to reduce its national emissions by 50–52% from their 2005 levels by 2030. That announcement came on April 22, 2021, during a major virtual summit organized by the White House. It was motivated by two goals: to demonstrate the credibility of the United States’ commitment to climate action, and to increase the diplomatic pressure on other large emitters, chief among them China, to follow the same path.
Nevertheless, the figures are not encouraging. In 2020, the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic caused the biggest drop in CO2 emissions (6%) since the Second World War, but that decline has been reversed since the resumption of trade and activity. Predictions for 2021 suggest a rebound of 5%, reflecting the lack of lasting structural change. To find reasons for hope, we must turn to the evolution of official discourse. At the end of 2019, European countries were more or less the only ones to have promised to achieve climate neutrality by 2050; that goal has now been adopted by two-thirds of the global economy, including the United States and China (by 2060)…

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Moving Towards the End of 20 Years of War on Terror?

de

On 12/01/2023

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of : Elie Tenenbaum, « Vers la fin de vingt ans de guerre contre le terrorisme ? », published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 86, Issue 3, 2021.

“Our objective was clear. The cause was just.” These were the words chosen by President Joe Biden on April 14, 2021, to describe the war unleashed twenty years earlier by one of his predecessors, George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, despite the clarity of the objective and the justice of the cause, the newly inaugurated president was here to announce a galling withdrawal, one that looked suspiciously like defeat: “I’m now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan […]. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. […] It’s time to end America’s longest war.”

In the months that followed, the effective withdrawal of US armed forces, scheduled to conclude on the poignantly symbolic date of September 11, 2021, would set in motion the collapse of the Afghan government, carried by Washington and the international community for two long decades, as a Taliban tidal wave swept the country—the same Taliban that had supposedly been roundly defeated by the end of 2001 in Operation Enduring Freedom. Between the eve of Joe Biden’s address on April 14 and mid-July, the number of Afghan districts under Taliban control grew from 77 to 222, encompassing almost 60 percent of the country’s territory. The insurrection had a similarly decisive influence in 112 other districts, leaving a mere 73 in the hands of a prostrate government that now only controlled the major cities.

Beyond the Afghan theater, it is in fact the entire “global war on terror,” first declared in 2001, that now seems to stand at a critical juncture…

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Europe, Power and Finance

de

On 05/01/2023

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of : Sylvie Goulard, « L’Europe, la puissance et la finance », published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 86, Issue 2, 2021.

The world is rapidly changing, and Europe is striving to find its place. In the debates over European sovereignty, the issues frequently revolve around diplomacy, defence and occasionally industrial policy, but only rarely finance. The most noteworthy advance in European construction was undoubtedly the single currency, but the European Union (EU) could make much better use of its strengths in the financial area. It took the global financial crisis for common regulatory rules governing finance to be adopted and for their control to be entrusted to European supervisory authorities. Even today, the domestic financial services market remains fragmented and the euro’s geopolitical role unfulfilled. Yet the strategic nature of the financial stakes is evidenced by several factors.
 
First, financing innovation is essential to remain internationally competitive. The climate transition alone requires massive investments, without which it will be impossible to achieve the target of reducing CO2 emissions to zero by 2050. Bridging the technology gap also requires substantial capital, in this case with a special twist: not only is finance indispensable for innovation, but innovation transforms finance. Tech companies, on the strength of their customer data, are also entering the payments market (e.g. Facebook with its Diem/Libra project).
 
Alongside these structural changes, cyclical factors also come into play. The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments to provide unprecedented and massive financial support…

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