As violent unrest and ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan worsen, there is one notable absentee from the crisis: the European Union. At least 120 people have been killed, and the specter of a refugees crisis now seems more likely than not. EU Foreign Minister, Catherine Ashton, is currently preoccupied with the creation of the EU’s newly authorized foreign service—the 6,000-strong diplomatic corps that will be known as the European External Action Service (EEAS). The Lisbon Treaty also endowed the EU with other foreign policy responsibilities, stating that it would use civilian …
TBILISI — What should NATO do about Georgia? This question must inevitably lead to the question of what NATO should do about Russia? Since Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Georgia on Aug. 7, the West has failed to find an adequate answer to either question. Although Russian troops have this week left Georgia proper, they remain deeply entrenched in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, including “new” areas such as Abkhazia’s Kodori Gorge and the South Ossetian town of Akhalgori where they weren’t present before Aug. 7 The Baltic States remain …
TBILISI — Discussions at the fifth annual European Resource Bank today turned to the question of how to implement radical reforms, and what we can learn from previous success stories such as Estonia. A panel titled, “Reforms need more than sound economics,” expressed the view that legislators of new democracies need to put forward a moral vision when undertaking serious reforms, and further to that, they need to bankrupt the previously dominating communist ideology. Communism and socialism have dominated the social, political, cultural and philosophical space in large parts of …
TBILISI – It isn’t hard to see why Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze is a free marketer. A graduate of American private education and a citizen of the United Kingdom, the ethnic Georgian prime minister invoked Margaret Thatcher’s legacy as an example for today’s legislators to follow in confronting economic challenge when speaking at the fifth annual European Resource Bank. Gurgenidze put forward a compelling summary of his government’s reform agenda and its incredible achievements to date. He was slightly nuanced in his views on defense and security, but told …
TBILISI — Arriving in this city and driving down George W. Bush Street, you’d be hard pushed to identify Georgia as a country that recently underwent a short but brutal war. Of course the war never reached Tbilisi, but ordinary Georgians are seemingly untouched by Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion on August 7. As the global conservative movement congregates in Tbilisi for the fifth annual European Resource Bank, including former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar and State Chancelor of Georgia, Kahka Bendukidze, the Georgian think tank New Economic School has …
