Newsletters

The Council of Europe is facing a crisis of credibility today, so deep that it appears to paralyse those in charge of the institution.

Without migration Kosovo has no medium term economic future.

There is no reason to expect sports organisations to condemn a regime for human rights abuses that is praised by the leading clubs of European democracies: the Council of Europe and the European Union.

What is needed in discussions of corruption in the Balkans and Turkey is depth, not shallowness, and statements based on serious analysis, not preconceptions. The European Commission has the tool to ensure this. It only has to use it.

The vision of a Europe in 2017 with more visa free travel, fewer Balkan asylum claims, better police cooperation and better respect for human rights is realistic. 

We look at similarities between Yannis Boutaris (born in 1942), mayor of Thessaloniki, and Alexis Tsipras (born in 1974), Greece's new prime minister. Both are charismatic, unconventional, proudly secular and ready to defy taboos.

The biggest challenge for leaders in Bosnia in 2015 will be to carry out reforms in the face of strong illusions about the causes of the Bosnian development crisis.

Azerbaijan's dissidents are receiving global recognition but remain in jail. And so far the Council of Europe has barely reacted to their imprisonment.

Rankings are dangerous when the results are misleading and when gaming the ranking becomes more important than focusing on what really matters for genuine reforms

Unprecedented waves of political arrests in Azerbaijan and Russia are the result of a deliberate policy to crash all independent voices

Drawing on decades of experience human rights defenders are sounding an alarm bell. Will it be a wake-up call for European institutions?

We believe Leyla Yunus would be an excellent winner of the 2014 prize, on behalf of the community of beleaguered human rights defenders in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has made a mockery of the Council of Europe and its role in defending the European Convention on Human Rights

Any person caught up in a political trial in Turkey enters the world of Kafka's famous novel. This is what happened to Mehmet Orgen, a captain in the Turkish navy.

In the past five years opposition to enlargement has deepened in every single EU member state. Can it still be a win-win policy?

A wave of arrests has exposed the weakness and capture of international institutions such as the Council of Europe. It is also challenging the international human rights movement.

With its focus on manufacturing and exports, Timisoara weathered the economic crisis much better than less industrial areas of South East Europe. Instead of collapsing, its industrial sector restructured.

We do want to encourage leaders in democratic Europe to defend the core values which the current regime in Baku rejects

The world remains a geopolitical jungle. It is worth, however, remembering today how easily the great European enlargement could not have happened.

Ilham Aliyev is winning. His concerted campaign to undermine European democratic standards and the institutions that uphold them is working.