The Belgian EU Presidency Setting Europe Back into Action and Laying the Future Institutional Groundwork

Belgium took over the Presidency of the EU on 1 July 2010 from Spain and began it in the midst of a national political crisis. Belgium took over the Presidency of the EU on 1 July 2010 from Spain and began it in the midst of a national political crisis. Following the examples of the Danish (1993), Italian (1996) and Czech (2009) Presidencies, it is Belgium’s turn to preside over the Union with a government in resignation. The Presidency comes in a context of European economic, financial and social crises and at the end of a transitional period for the implementation of the new Lisbon Treaty. In this difficult context, will Belgium be able to confront the double challenge of managing the EU Presidency in this crucial period while at the same time overhauling its own national constitutional foundations

EU-Russia Energy Relations: Aggregation and Aggravation

Reliance on energy resources is inextricably linked to energy security. Whether dependent upon energy imports or exports, all states, regions and companies strive to reduce the risks associated with resource dependence by linking energy with their own security. Ensuring access to energy resources involves negotiating with a variety of external actors. As a result, energy is deeply connected to the external affairs of political and commercial actors alike. Within this terrain Russia and the EU emerge as very different energy actors. Indeed, the two are polar opposites in their ability to tackle the geo-economic asymmetry of importers and exporters, the structural unevenness in market versus governmental authority over energy resources and the geopolitical imbalances arising from differing perceptions of energy's role in foreign and security policy. This article examines the rise and fall of the EU–Russia Energy Dialogue. Launched in 2000 as a sector-specific forum with the capacity to engineer change in a host of other areas, the dialogue is now all but defunct, the victim of increased diplomatic fallout between the EU and Russia over political and energy issues. An overview of the key policy papers of the EU–Russia Energy Dialogue illustrates that the generic demands of energy security take on particularist orientations depending on the geo-economic and geopolitical circumstances of a given energy actor. Dialogue documents illustrate that the two sides ultimately understand energy security in very different ways. Now a viable component part of Russian national and foreign policy in its post-Cold War reconstruction, energy security is perceived by the EU in a rather more holistic way, and remains an unwieldy policy instrument