Press

The enlargement of the EU is slowing down. Bulgaria and Romania have just joined, bringing the membership to 27, but in many EU countries there is little enthusiasm for extending the Union's boundaries further.

The enlargement of the European Union has lost momentum. Bulgaria and Romania will enter the EU in January, but there is then likely to be a long gap before any other country joins.

According to a British think-tank, the Centre for European Reform (CER), if EU membership negotiations were postponed, Turkey would look for a new alliance, perhaps in Russia.

Perhaps the most important challenge for EU foreign policy is to develop a more unified approach to Russia. The EU member-states have very similar interests in Russia.

The eurozone risks breaking up in the near future putting the entire EU single market into jeopardy unless member states – particularly Italy - undertake crucial economic reforms, according to a new report.
Entitled Will the eurozone crack?, the report by the London-based Centre for European Reform, argues that instead of...

The formation of a new government - four months after parliamentary elections - is good news for Ukraine. The coalition is broad-based: the party of President Victor Yushchenko, Our Ukraine, has strong roots in the rural west of the country; the Regions party, led by the new prime minister, Victor Yanukovich, dominates the east; and the Socialist party, the third member of the coalition, is popular among farmers in the centre.

The machinery of the European Union has recovered from the shock of the failed French and Dutch referenda, but not the heart that pumps it, says Aurore Wanlin.
When the French and the Dutch voted against the draft European Union constitution in May 2005, many thought this was an unprecedented crisis...

A new Europol threat assessment will focus efforts to tackle rising gang crime in the EU, writes Hugo Brady of the Centre for European reform.

The last two years have seen a rapprochement across the Atlantic. The elevation of new personnel – such as Condoleezza Rice to the State Department and Angela Merkel as German Chancellor – has helped to remove some of the bitterness that the Iraq confrontation had left behind.