This volume addresses and seeks to answer a number of questions on the current issues facing small states/powers in Europe. How can small European states survive and prosper within a multipolar world of great powers? What part should small states take in European integration? Are EU fiscal and monetary policies allowing for Keynesian economic stimulus when needed and are euro area convergence criteria viable as the world recovers from the COVID-19 crisis? Are small state alliances within the EU useful to counterbalance the influence of the larger EU member states? How far should EU and NATO expansion go? Should it include countries such as Ukraine? Can the EU rely on US leadership of NATO for its security? How should small states relate to great powers seeking to influence Europe, most notably the US, the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation? Do smaller states need to choose a single ally among the major powers? Using an interdisciplinary approach, the author discusses issues of economic policy, international relations and politics, economic and political integration, as well as the effects of global and regional institutions, and priorities in bilateral development cooperation, demonstrating how policies are shaped by the interaction between small states (small powers) and large states (great powers).

In this volume the author discusses issues of economic policy, international relations and politics, its integration, the effects of global and regional institutions, and priorities in bilateral development cooperation, demonstrating how policies are shaped by the interaction between small states and large states.

The volume examines one of the most sensitive issues in the contemporary diplomatic history of the eastern Mediterranean, namely, the nexus between Greece, Turkey, the Cyprus problem and NATO in the crucial period between 1973 and 1988. Beginning with the emergence of the Aegean dispute in 1973 and ending with the most comprehensive attempt to date to solve the Greek–Turkish conflict in the wake of the Davos rapprochement process in 1988. The analysis in this book goes back to developments that occurred in the first half of the 20th century.

This volume describes the unique development of Central Asia as defined by its landlocked geography. Particular attention is paid to the achievements and challenges of the region’s post-Soviet economic and political transformation, as well as to its relationship with the participants in the New Great Game – Russia, China and the West. Located as it is in the geographical centre of booming Asia, and with the opportunity to become a key logistics bridge connecting the world’s largest economies, Central Asia is well placed for rapid development. However, the region faces a range of complex problems that are explained and analysed in the volume. The Eurasian powers that encircle Central Asia look certain to become the engines of global economic growth, but how will this affect the region? Will Central Asia join the powerful locomotive of history, or will it remain on the sidelines?

The recent crises in global economy and in European integration have caused a considerable revival of interest in the Nordic Welfare Model. However, less attention has been given to the ways in which the nations that form Scandinavia or ‘Norden’ are connected through various forms of inter- and transnational cooperation. With contributions from a team of experts in the field, this volume analyses Nordic cooperation in a European perspective and argues that this special form of transnational cooperation has been crucial in the development of the Nordic Welfare Model. In addition, it also contends that the Nordic model of transnational cooperation is a relevant case study when pondering the present problems of European integration. This text will be of key interest to students, researchers and policy makers studying the Nordic Model and transnational cooperation and more generally to those interested in European studies, Scandinavian studies, welfare studies, international relations and regional integration.

The Euro Area, the Schengen Area, and Airbus - the 'Anglosphere', the Franco-German 'motor' and Nordic cooperation – each illustrates how differentiation has become a pervasive feature of European integration. Which Europe? offers an authoritative and comprehensive examination of differentiated integration in its functional and its territorial aspects. It focuses on its implications for both the practice and the theory of European integration. Is it strengthening or weakening the EU and its Member States? Are territorial identities being undermined or strengthened? Are new theories of integration required? In particular, this book looks at the relationship between the growth in use of differentiated integration and the widening of European Union membership, the broadening in its policy scope, and the deepening in integration.

This book analyzes the small Baltic States and their integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures from the perspective of the foreign policies of major powers - the United States, Russia, and major European powers and institutions - towards the region, or each of the Baltic States. While focusing primarily on the Post-Cold war period, it will also cover years of Baltic occupation, areas and matters related to their motivation and means to join the EU and NATO. Smallness, weaknesses and sensitivities as well as historic experiences of three Baltic States made the task to integrate with the Euro-Atlantic community urgent. This will be a valuable source of information for all interested in the Baltic States, foreign policies of major powers shaping events in the region, the surge of the Euro-Atlantic community and the Post-Cold War enlargement allowing small Baltic States to remedy their inherent security weaknesses.

Questions how a unified Germany will use its great power status Draws on numerous confidential interviews with key political actors and on unprecedented access to still classified material

The emergence of the idea of Baltic Sea unity and of Baltic cooperation seem to be the issues which unify the two big epoch-making periods, the end of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. In both periods, the Baltic Sea connection has been seen to offer a coordinate for remapping the location of the eastern Baltic nations, the Estonians and Latvians, in particular. Why has the Baltic Sea area played so important a role as a construct of the new Europe? This is the question examined in this study, which focuses on the period after the First World War when the disintegration of European multinational empires meant a shift in the international system from the hegemony of a few great powers to the heterogeneity of small states. As a part of this process, the concepts of sovereignty and national self-determination were redefined by the small states themselves so that they would manage to find their place in the world of the great powers. One expression of this transition period was a lively Baltic cooperation, which attained an exceptional pitch of intensity in the Europe of its time.

This is an annually updated presentation of each sovereign country in Nordic, Central and Southeastern Europe, past and present. It is broken down into individual chapters on each country dealing with its geography, people, history, political system, constitution, parliament, decentralization and states if a federation, parties, political leaders and elections. There are also sections on foreign and defense policy, economy, culture, future and a lengthy bibliography.