My obsession with the EU was a large part of the reason why I decided to major in International Relations. The intricacies of how a group of states could unite in a way that sacrifices so much individual sovereignty, despite the devastating damage they inflicted upon one another less than 50 years prior to the bloc’s founding and had throughout so much of the continent’s history, was something I could not wrap my head around.
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Belgium’s largest-ever criminal trial began December 5 as the country seeks to bring to justice the perpetrators of the March 22, 2016, Brussels suicide bombings, NPR reports.
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Russia is strategically using oil as a means of countering the Western cap, by refusing to sell oil to the countries that proposed the price cap. Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, recently tweeted “From this year, Europe will live without Russian oil,” says CBS News.
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Germany, along with the greater European Union, has promised to boost its lending to major energy firms as rising energy prices threaten to extend their crushing grip on the industry. According to Reuters, the European Commission has targeted specific paths to reduce electricity consumption along with placing a revenue cap on non-gas fueled plants.
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The ongoing energy crisis that started in Europe has rapidly reverberated across the globe, and the United States is not immune from its influences. However, while Energy Wire reports on Americans deep rooted concerns over gas prices and the domestic political impact it may have, U.S. oil production means the country is more involved in the crisis than some assume.
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The European Union and the United States are both experiencing increasingly deadly migration crises at their southern borders. From 2000 to 2020, cases of missing or dead migrants are estimated at over 39,000 people in the Mediterranean and around 7,000 people along the U.S.-Mexico border, although humanitarian agencies believe the actual number is much higher.
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BBC News says The Northern Ireland Protocol, a clause of the Brexit deal, was designed to prevent border checks between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the European Union. This was done to help keep open trade along the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and to protect the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998. For this to happen, Northern Ireland must continue to follow EU product standards rather than UK product standards, resulting in the need for customs checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
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Across the European Union, natural gas prices are peaking at levels not seen in the past twenty years, causing growing concern by energy policy experts for the implications across Europe. With COVID-19 lockdowns drawing to a close across Scandinavia and Western Europe, the imminent surge in demand for natural gas as winter nears is placing many EU states in a precarious domestic and strategic position, reports The New York Times.
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The effects of climate change pose a threat to the global economy that varies in scale and severity. As drought endangers agricultural production in the Sahel and rising sea levels put the financial centers of East Asia at risk of flooding, different countries have developed strategies to combat climate change while ensuring the economic well-being of their people.
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On Friday March 29, United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May was unable to secure the votes needed for a Brexit deal.
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