▲Viktor Orban, at a rally near the Romanian border in May 2017 [Károly Árvai/Hungarian government].

ANALYSIS / Elena López-Doriga

On April 8, 2018, parliamentary elections were held in Hungary for the renewal of the 199 members of the National Assembly, the only chamber of the Hungarian Parliament. The high turnout of 68.13% exceeded that of the 2010 elections, when 64.36% of the electoral roll turned out to vote, a record high not seen since 2002. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in power since 2010, secured a fourth term, the third in a row, as his party, Fidesz, and its ally, the Christian Democratic People's Party, won 134 of the 199 seats. Orban, the longest-serving European leader as head of government after Angela Merkel, has in some respects become as influential a leader as the German chancellor.

These electoral data -the high turnout and the broad support achieved by a leader not well regarded by all in Brussels- raise some questions. Why has there been so much social mobilization at the time of voting? Why is the result of these elections in the spotlight of the European Union?

Historical background

Hungary is a country located in Central Europe bordering Austria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The second largest river in Europe, the Danube, crosses the entire country and divides the capital of Budapest into two different territories (Buda and Pest).

Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. This event was longed for by Hungarians as they saw it as an advance in their democracy, a step forward for the country's development and a rapprochement with the admired West. It was the desire to make a change of course in their history, since, after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the country lived under two totalitarian regimes since World War II: first under the rule of the Arrow Cross Party (fascist, pro-German and anti-Semitic), during which 80,000 people were deported to Auschwitz, and later by the occupation of the Soviet Union and its post-war policies. In those times individual freedoms and freedom of speech ceased to exist, arbitrary imprisonment became commonplace, and the Hungarian secret police carried out series of purges both within and outside the Party hierarchies. Thus, Hungarian society suffered great repression from the beginning of World War II in 1945, which did not stop until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

In economic terms, the transition from communism to capitalism was very hard for vast social sectors. From a centralized Economics with highly protected sectors and heavy agricultural subsidies, a particularly severe adjustment plan was adopted by the government elected in March 1990 in the first free elections.

Accession to the European Union symbolized a turning point in Hungary's history, in a process of incorporation to the West that was previously marked by entrance in NATO in 1999. Becoming part of the EU was the step towards the democracy that Hungary desired, and this broad social consensus was evidenced by the majority support that the accession obtained - 83% of the votes - in the referendum of 2003.

Hungary in the European Union

Becoming a new EU member had a positive impact on Hungary's Economics , leading to an obvious development and providing competitive advantages for foreign companies establishing a permanent presence in the country. But despite these appreciable advances and the enthusiasm shown by Hungary upon accession to the EU, the picture has changed a lot since then, so that Euroskepticism has spread markedly among Hungarians. In recent years, a strong disagreement with the Brussels policies adopted during the 2015 refugee crisis has emerged in the domestic public opinion.

That year, Brussels decided to relocate the 120,000 refugees who had arrived in Hungary (from Syria, who were moving along the Balkan route to Germany and Austria) and Italy (mostly from North Africa). To distribute the refugees, quotas were established, setting the issue number of refugees that each country should take in based on its size and GDP. The quota policy was challenged by the group Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Romania. Hungary erected a fence several hundred kilometers long on its southern border and refused to accept the reception quotas.

This attitude of closing borders and refusing to take in refugees was criticized by the leaders of the Union, who went so far as to threaten these countries with sanctions. The difficulty of a consensus led to the signing in 2016 of a agreement with Turkey so that this country would retain the flow of Syrian refugees. In 2017 the quotas for the distribution through the EU of the refugees who had previously arrived expired, without fill in thus the relocation initially raised. Although the moment of greatest political confrontation on this issue in the EU has passed, the refugee crisis has created a great divergence between the two targeted blocs, eroding the supposedly common European project .

In light of this status, Hungary's parliamentary elections on April 8, 2018 were particularly important, as the citizens of that country were going to have the opportunity to pronounce themselves on the ongoing pulse between Budapest and Brussels.

The main candidates

Going into the election, the front-runner was the coalition of the conservative Fidesz party and the Christian Democratic People's Party, with 54-year-old Viktor Orbán as candidate. Orbán first came to prominence in 1989 when, at the age of 26, he defied the communist regime and began to champion liberal principles, making him a symbol of Hungarians' aspirations to break free from totalitarianism and embrace Western values. However, his return to power in 2010, after a first term in office between 1998 and 2002, was marked by a shift towards a conservative tendency, characterized by greater control over the Economics, the media and the judiciary. Orban claims to be an advocate of an "illiberal democracy": a system in which, although the Constitution may formally limit the powers of the Government, in internship certain freedoms such as freedom of speech or thought are restricted. Orban often puts to test the red lines of the EU by presenting himself as a defender of a "Christian Europe" and detractor of irregular immigration.

The party that intended to pose the main electoral challenge to Fidesz, taking away a good part of its voters, was surprisingly one located even further to the right: Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary), founded in 2003 and considered one of the most powerful extreme right-wing political organizations in the European Union. For years, this party did not hide its xenophobic, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, nationalist and radically opposed to the prevailing political system in the EU, betting on a Hungary outside it. However, from 2013 onwards he moderated his language. While Orban was adopting an increasingly radical line, the leader of Jobbik, Gábor Vona, was tempering the positions of his party to present it as a conservative option, alternative to Fidesz, capable of attracting votes from the center. Gyöngyösi, one of the party's nationalist leaders, said: "We are the party of the 21st century, while Fidesz is from the last century and represents the old. The division between left and right no longer makes sense, it is part of the past, of the old politics".

On the other side of the political spectrum, a list formed by the Socialist Party(MSZP) and the center-left environmentalist party Parbeszed ("Dialogue"), headed by a leader of the latter, Gargely Karacsony, was running in the elections. The left-wing candidate had broad support from the MSZP, but not from his former colleagues in the environmentalist LMP party, from which he split five years ago, which could lead to a split vote.

The election campaign

During the campaign there was speculation about a possible loss of votes for Fidesz due to a series of corruption scandals involving government officials accused of embezzling European aid money. Jobbik and other groups of civil service examination took advantage of this status to promote themselves as anti-corruption parties, focusing a good part of their campaign on this issue and advocating for an improvement of public services, especially healthcare. 

However, the most prominent topic of the election campaign was not corruption, the malfunctioning of the public health system or low wages, but immigration. The Orbán government had refused to accept the refugee quotas imposed by the EU from Brussels, arguing that taking in migrants is a matter of domestic policy in which foreign organizations should not intervene. He insisted that Hungary has the right to refuse to receive immigrants, especially if they are Muslims, reiterating his rejection of multiculturalism, which he considers a mere illusion. Orbán was of the opinion that the refugees arriving at Hungary's gates were not fighting for their lives, but were economic migrants in search of a better life. Therefore, Orbán's political campaign was a clear message: Illegal immigrants in Hungary: yes or no? Who should decide about Hungary's future, the Hungarians or Brussels?

Reducing the electoral call to one question had the main effect of a broad social mobilization. According to civil service examination, Orbán used the topic of migration to draw popular attention away from widespread corruption.

Another point core topic in Fidesz's political campaign was the constant accusations against George Soros, whom Orbán identified as the main enemy of the State. Soros is an American billionaire, of Jewish-Hungarian origin, who through his Open Society Foundation (OSF) finances various NGOs dedicated to promote liberal, progressive and multicultural values in different parts of the world. In 1989 Soros funded Viktor Orban to study in England, and in 2010 he donated $1 million to his government to help with environmental cleanup after a chemical accident. But Soros' reputation in Hungary took a hit during the 2015 migration crisis. His advocacy of human attention to refugees ran up against Orban's attitude. During the campaign, the latter accused Soros of using OSF to "flood" Europe with a million migrants a year and undermine the continent's "Christian culture."

In addition, prior to the elections, Fidesz passed an amendment to the Hungarian higher Education law, which sets new conditions for foreign universities in Hungary, something that has been seen as a direct attack on the Central European University of Budapest. The Soros-funded institution is highly regarded for promoting critical thinking, liberal values and academic freedom. The new legislation threatens university autonomy, the free hiring of professors and the international character of degrees.

The European Commission showed its differences with the Orbán government on several of the issues that occupied the electoral campaign. Thus, it expressed its dissatisfaction with the new university law, considering that it is not compatible with the fundamental freedoms of the EU internal market, as it "would violate the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment". He also criticized that Orbán had not complied with the refugee quota, despite the ruling of the Court of Justice, and that he had campaigned using the disagreement he has with the EU for electoral purposes.

The result of the elections

In the April 8, 2018 elections, the Fidesz party (in its alliance with the Christian Democratic People's Party) won a third consecutive wide victory, even bigger than the previous one, with almost half of the popular vote (48.89%) and its third two-thirds absolute majority (134 out of 199 seats). It was the first time since the fall of communism in 1989 that a party had won three elections in a row.

The Jobbik party managed to become the leading party on civil service examination, coming in second place with 19.33% of the vote and 25 seats. However, its vote growth was minimal and it gained only two extra seats, remaining virtually stagnant at the 2014 figures. Jobbik's second place was rather propitiated by the weakness of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), whose debacle pushed it into third place, with 12.25% of the vote and 20 seats. It was the first time since 1990 that the MSZP did not come in first or second place, putting an end to the bipartisanship it had maintained with Fidesz since 1998.

On the other hand, since its return to government in 2010, Fidesz has significantly modified the electoral system, reducing the issue number of legislators from 386 to 199 and eliminating the second round, which does not favor the smaller parties, which could form alliances between rounds of voting. By securing two thirds of the chamber, Fidesz will be able to continue governing comfortably and reforming the Constitution to suit itself.

EU reaction

A week after the elections, tens of thousands of opponents took to the streets of Budapest, disagreeing with an electoral system described as "unfair", which has given Prime Minister Viktor Orban a landslide victory at the polls after a campaign based on a refusal to accept refugees.

The congratulatory letter that the president of the European committee , Donald Tusk, addressed to Orban was considered by various media to be cooler than the one issued on other similar occasions. The EU is concerned that Orban continues with his defense of an "illiberal" democracy and that he seems to be leading the country towards authoritarian tendencies. The government's purchase of many media outlets in recent years, in order to isolate civil service examination and make more propaganda, resembles what has happened in countries such as Russia and Turkey.

It is true that with Orban at the head of the government Hungary has grown economically at a good pace and that the middle classes have improved their status, but his latest victory has been due not only to the good economic management , but the defense of values that the Hungarian people consider important (essentialism, Christianity, respect for borders).

European socialists have not been pleased with Orban's new victory, insinuating that it is a setback for democracy in Hungary. The joy that the populist parties have expressed over his victory is test that Orban, whose training Fidesz still belongs to the European People's Party, has become an exponent of modern ultra-nationalism, which threatens democratic ideas of the European Union.

For the time being, Brussels is being cautious with Hungary, even more so than with the British Brexit, since Viktor Orban, seen by many as "the EU rebel", unlike the UK, wants to remain within the bloc, but change part of the ideals he represents.

[Robert Kaplan, Earning the Rockies. How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World. Random House. New York, 2017. 201 pages]

REVIEW / Iñigo Bronte Barea

Despite rising powers in conventional geopolitics, the United States today remains unopposed due to geography as an overwhelming advantage for the US. As such, the country is blessed with a trifecta of comparative advantages. The country is bound by oceans on both sides, lacks any real threat from its neighbors, and contains an almost perfect river network.

Throughout the book, Author Robert D. Kaplan guides the reader as he travels the US, portraying how geography impacts the livelihood of its population, analyzes the concerns of its citizens, and studies how the country achieved its current composition from a historical lens.

The author introduces the topic by arguing that the world's security during the 20th and 21st century largely depended on the political unity and stability of the United States. Kaplan crosses the country to study how geography helped the US attain the position that they have in the world. The title of his book, "Earning the Rockies," emphasizes the importance of the fact that in order to achieve western part of nowadays US, it would be necessary to first control the East, the Midwest, and the Great American Desert.

During his travels, Kaplan brought three books to reinforce his staff experiences on the road. His first book was "The Year of Decision: 1846" from the DeVoto trilogy of the West. From this text, Kaplan learns that America's first empirical frontier was not in the Caribbean or Philippines, but earlier in the western part of the country itself. Kaplan also stresses the idea that the solitude and dangers of the old West are today very present in the common American character. In particular, he argues such values remain manifested in the extremely competitive capitalist system and the willingness of its population for military intervention. The last and most important idea that Kaplan gleans from DeVoto was that the defining feature of US greatness today is based ultimately on the country being a nation, an empire and a continent, all rolled into one.

Kaplan starts his journey in the spring of 2015 in Massachusetts. He wanted to contemplate the American continent and its international role, and the one that must be expected for it in the coming years; he wanted to discover this while hearing people talking, to discover what are their real worries.

Back on the East coast, Kaplan traces the country's origins after the independence of the thirteen colonies in 1776. Kaplan starts his eastern journey by examining the US from a historical perspective and how it grew to become a global force without equal. Primarily, Kaplan argues that the US did so by first becoming an army before the US became a nation. For the author, President Theodore Roosevelt was the one who realized that the conquest of the American West set the precedent for a foreign policy of active engagement worldwide.

Kaplan continues his travels through the Great Lakes region; Lancaster, Pittsburgh, Ohio, and West Virginia. His travel is set in the context of the Presidential primary season, in which he examines the decline of the rural middle class from the staple of the American workforce to near poverty. As such, the devolution of the social process ended with the election of Donald J. Trump. Despite a legacy of success in globalization and multilateralism, America quickly became a nation enthralled with a renewed sense of nationalism and isolationism.

From his travels, Kaplan deduces several types of groups based on the founding fathers. He categorizes them as following: elites in Washington and New York were Wilsonian (who seek to promote democracy and international law), Hamiltonians (who are intellectual realists and emphasize commercial ties internationally) or Jeffersonians (who emphasize perfecting American democracy at home more than engaging abroad). Surprisingly, the huge majority of the American people were actually Jacksonians: they believe in honor, faith in God, and military institutions.

Kaplan continues his path toward the Pacific by crossing Kentucky and Indiana, where the transition zone leads him to the arid grasslands. During his voyage, Kaplan finds that the people did not really care about ISIS, the rise of China, the Iraq War or any other international issues, but instead their worries on their work, health, family, and basic economic survival. This is in fact because of their Jacksonian way of seeing life. This in turn means that Americans expect their government to keep them safe and to hunt down and kill anyone who threatens their safety. Related to this, was the fact that isolationism was an American tradition, which fits well within the current political landscape as multilateralism has lost much of its appeal to people in the heartland.

The native grasses and rich soil of the temperate zone of this part of the country, such as Illinois, promote the fertility of the land that goes on for hundreds and hundreds of miles in all directions. For Kaplan, this is ultimately what constitutes the resourceful basis of continental wealth that permits America's ambitious approach to the world.

West of Lincoln, the capital city of Nebraska, it could be said that you enter the real West, where roads, waterways and urban cities rapidly disappears. At this point, Kaplan begins to make reference to the second book that he read for this part of the journey. This time, author Welter P. Webb in "The Great Plains" explains that the history of the US relies on the history of the pioneers adapting to life in the Great American Desert. This author argues that the Great Plains stopped slavery, prompting the defeat of the Confederacy. He states so because for Webb, the Civil War was a conflict between two sides whose main difference was largely economic. The Southern system based on the plantation economy with huge, "cash" crops and slave labor. On the other hand, the Northern economic system was based on small farms, skilled labor, and a rising industrialized system. While the Great Plains were a barrier for pioneers in general, that wall was greater for the Southern economy than for the industrializing North, which could adapt to aridity unlike the farming economy of the south.

The last book that Kaplan reads while crossing the country is "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian" by Wallace Stenger. The author of this book stresses the importance of the development limitations in immense areas of the western US due to a lack of water. This desert provided a big challenge for the federal government, which manages the little resources available in that area with the construction of incredible dams, such as the Hoover Dam, and turnpike highway system. It remains quite clear that the culmination of American history has more to do with the West than with the East. Stenger is well aware of the privileged geographic position of the US, without dangerous neighbors or other inland threat. In addition, the US contains an abundance of inland waterways and natural resources that are not found on such a scale anywhere else. This characteristic, helps provide the US with geographical and political power unlike any other in modern history. As Stenger stipulates, the fact that World War II left mainland America unscathed, which inly shows how geography has blessed the US.

One of the key aspects that Kaplan realized along his trip was the incredible attachment that Americans have to their military. For Kaplan, this feeling becomes more and more romanticized as he headed westward. In Europe, despite the threats of terrorism, refugees, and Russia, the military is seen locally as merely civil servants in funny uniforms, at least according to Stenger. On the contrary, America, which faces less physical threats than Europe, still maintains a higher social status and respect for military personnel.

In summation, the radical landscape of the west provided Americans with a basis for their international ambition. After all, if they could have conquered and settled this unending vastness, they settle the rest of the world too. However, the very aridity of the western landscape that Kaplan faces at the end of his voyage, requires restraint, planning, and humility in much of what the government had to invest in order to make the west inhabitable and successful. But despite the feeling that they could conquer the world, America faces huge inequalities, real and imagined, that force US leaders to focus on domestic issues rather than foreign affairs. Therefore, elites and leaders in Washington tend to be centrist and pragmatic. In such, they do not dream about conquering the world nor opt to withdraw from it either. Instead, they maintain America's "pole position" place within its global affairs.

At the end, it could be said that American soil itself is what in fact really orients the country towards the world. Despite all the restraint and feelings for the heartland, what really matters are the politicians and business leaders that enable the new American reality: the world itself is now the final, American frontier.

▲Flags of the United States and Japan at a ceremony welcoming the U.S. vice president in Tokyo in February 2018 [White House].

COMMENTARY / Gabriel de Lange [English version].

In recent decades, China has grown in economic and political strength. The inclusion of the document "Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" in the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), carried out during the 19th congress of that party in October 2017, and the amendment of the country's Constitution to eliminate the limit of two consecutive presidential terms, approved by the plenary session of the Executive Council of the People's Congress of China in March 2018, have meant the consolidation of power of the current Chinese leader.

For its part, the United States has been criticized on multiple fronts for its relations in Asia. Authors critical of the Trump Administration believe that its policies toward North Korea, China and the region in general are "damaging US interests" in the Asia-Pacific. The withdrawal from the agreement Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)has"undermined the influence" of the U.S. to shape the regional future, giving China the opportunity to do so on its own terms. The withdrawal from the TPP has left many Asian countries wondering what Washington brings to the table in economic terms and looking to China to fill the void.

One of the main factors that lead Asian countries to maintain a certain distance from China and closer proximity to the United States are the problems in the South China Sea. As in the case of the Philippines with the Spratly Islands or Vietnam with the Paracel Islands. The concern of those countries about Chinese intentions has pushed them to a rapprochement with the US. Unfortunately for Washington, that rapprochement depends on China's own decision whether or not to insist on its claims to particular islands. The Xi Administration may decide that the benefits of stronger relations with its neighbors are more important than these disputed territories.

The question now is: who will the other Asian countries, especially the members of ASEAN (association of Southeast Asian Nations), look to as a political ally? With signs of steady, stable and enduring power under the consolidated authority of Xi Jinping, compared to a seemingly unpredictable, divided and internationally criticized Trump Administration, no one can be surprised that regional neighbors may lean more towards China in the near future.

DOCUMENT FROM work / María Granados Machimbarrena

SUMMARY

Despite the HIRSI and JAMAA judgment of 2012, Italy was condemned in 2015 once again by the European Court of Human Rights for unlawful detention and summary and collective refoulement of several migrants. The events occurred in 2011, when the applicants travelled in a boat across the Mediterranean and were intercepted by Italian vessels. The migrants were transferred to the island of Lampedusa, and detained at the Centro di Soccorso e Prima Accoglienza (CSPA), in a area reserved for Tunisian nationals. According to the complainants, they were detained in overcrowded and filthy rooms, without contact with the outside. The events took place immediately after the Arab Spring. The issues raised before the Court by the applicants and the arguments raised by the judges are relevant in the current context of the European crisis in the management handling of refugee flows by the EU institutions and its Member States.

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[Pedro Baños, Así se domina el mundo. Desvelando las claves del poder mundial. Ariel, Barcelona 2017, 468 pages]
 

review / Albert Vidal

The vast majority of wars fought in the world always have a vital economic background, although other motives (political or religious, for example) are often used to safeguard these economic interests. The book Así se domina el mundo, by the analyst and researcher Pedro Baños, former head of Counterintelligence and Security of the European Army Corps, with experience in various international missions (UNPROFOR, SFOR and EUFOR), states that economic interests are the ones that rule the International Office is the main thesis , illustrated with great issue of examples, an d is supported by the book Así se domina el mundo, by the analyst and Pedro Baños, former head of Counterintelligence and Security of the European Army Corps, with experience in various international missions (UNPROFOR, SFOR and EUFOR).

"The United States is still trying to dominate the world. But its big competitor is China. Especially when it comes to the economic sphere. That is why they wage economic war, and also through interposed actors in many scenarios. Everything has an economic substratum," writes Colonel Baños. China, for its part, is determined to strike a blow against the dollar. Beijing is preparing a new contract format for crude oil transactions using the yuan, which would be fully convertible into gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. If this were to happen, it would lead to the main reference letter of the Asian oil market, and allow crude exporters to circumvent the dollar-dominated benchmarks.

Afghanistan is another example of the primacy of Economics in geopolitics. The US decided to return to Afghanistan, where, coincidentally, opium production has multiplied. This had been reduced by the Taliban to minimal levels, as they banned opium cultivation and the Afghans switched to cotton production. But then, according to Baños, a strong civil service examination arose from the US cotton producers, so that some US states rebelled because they felt that the skill of cheap Afghan cotton could ruin them. Baños points out that there are Pentagon reports recommending such intervention. Moreover, Afghanistan is extremely rich in minerals. That is why Donald Trump declared that "China is making money in Afghanistan with rare minerals while the United States makes war".

These appreciations confirm the realistic and pragmatic way in which Baños interprets the events taking place in the world. His vision of geopolitics is integrated into political realism, close to Machiavelli's interpretation. He has a Hobbesian vision of the international scenario. He defines current geopolitics as "the activity developed with the aim of influencing the affairs of the international sphere, this exercise being understood as the aspiration to influence on a global scale, while avoiding, at the same time, being influenced".

This book is a great opportunity to enrich our perspectives on the international scene. With simple language, Baños manages to convey complex concepts through different images. One of them, central to the book's thesis , is the comparison of the international scenario with a playground at high school: in the playground (the world), the great powers (the bullies) enjoy circumstantial allies (cowardly children who decide to join the court of sycophants); then there are outcasts (who suffer the malice of the bullies) and others who simply resist the pressure of group or decide to isolate themselves from the group of students. Hypocrisy, as the author well describes, is a constant in the International Office.

Geopolitical principles, geostrategies and errors

Baños presents four immutable geopolitical principles that, in essence, have always been present in history (even if there are accidental changes). They could be summarized as follows:

1. The State is a living being, which has vital and existential needs, as well as those of development and evolution.

2. The Economics is in charge, the backbone of conflicts and the source of tensions. These are economic interests often related to the arms industry.

3. The determining weight of history, with repetition of the same scenarios, such as Afghanistan (its orography has been a graveyard for empires and superpowers) and Russia (with a winter that ruined the plans of Napoleon and Hitler).

4. There are no eternal allies, but permanent interests. Interests create strange alliances, and these alliances are often ephemeral. For example, Saudi Arabia is one of the main allies of the USA, when their values, in principle, are totally contradictory.

After the description of geopolitical principles, the book reviews 27 geostrategies that have been recurrently used on the international scene. This section is very useful for understanding many of the movements or events occurring in the world. Some examples of such geo-strategies are:

-Theintimidation of a strong country towards other weak countries, using them for their own interests.

-Theencirclement and counterencirclement.

-Thekick to the ladder. Examples are the refusal of the atomic powers to allow others to join the nuclear club and the obligation that developed countries impose on underdeveloped economies to open up to the free market.

-Theweakening of the neighbor.

-The breaking point.

-Fostering divisionby sowing tares.

-Religious fervor as tool to gain followers.

-Goodism. In the Syrian war, we have seen killings by the Islamic State, but the killings by the international coalition, which in our eyes appear to be the rescuers of the Syrian people, have been systematically hidden.

¬Thecreation of the need. The need to buy weapons is based on concepts such as war on terrorism, preventive strategy, and others, which result in a fabulous business of buying and selling weapons.

-Indirect domination. Between 1946 and 2000 the White House has interfered in 81 elections in 45 countries, according to declassified CIA documents.

-Thecreation of the enemy. NATO and the USA encourage the enmity of Western countries towards Moscow, so that they become subordinate to NATO and ask it for protection and buy weapons from it,

-Themadman. This is a strategy used by North Korea, threatening catastrophic consequences to avoid being attacked.

Banos also exposes the mistakes that powers often make in their international actions. A couple of them are:

1. Ignoring the idiosyncrasies of peoples. The Western world is composed, at most, of 900 million people. The rest of the world is home to 6.6 billion. On the other hand, globalization is basically Anglo-Saxon: not all peoples necessarily want to participate in it. And given the biased view we have of the world, we often have a wrong conception of other peoples. The sad reality is that many interventions abroad are carried out without any subject study or examination of the potential consequences on the cultures and peoples affected.

2. Excessive self-confidence. There is no small enemy, not even an asymmetric one. With guerrilla tactics, even a group of peasants can become a real threat to the plans of a great power. In fact, history has repeatedly shown how those who have acted too confidently have been defeated by their more cautious adversaries.

Post-truth and disinformation

Pedro Baños stresses the importance of narratives. According to the author, to have one's own narrative is to win the game. The narrative makes reality mutate. And narratives become an instrument of emotional control of the population, which serves to justify what suits them.

On the other hand, it makes reference letter to the truth, which runs the risk of being reconstructed to justify national or corporate interests. The citizenry, says Colonel Baños, must be vigilant: "those who decide for us do so subtly, even resorting to the so-called 'post-truth', which is nothing but a big lie disguised as truth". As the author points out, the core topic of power is to influence a deliberately uninformed world, in which many conflicts of interest between states, individuals, companies, lobbies and powerful families are intermingled, all trying to exert as much influence as possible.

The cyber world is the new great stage for this battle. A very intense psychological and propaganda war is being waged there, led by fake news and disinformation. These two worlds (one physical and the other virtual) are connected by the human mind. That is why it is vital to be wary of attacks that, although we may not realize it, take place every day, veiled or not. The powers are in continuous action, with only one purpose, as Baños concludes: "to control the world and avoid being subjugated by another power. That is the only goal".

DOCUMENT OF work / Lucía Serrano Royo

SUMMARY

The European Union was born as a mechanism for cooperation between countries, but its recent history means that the system is still very fragile. At the same time, its diversity makes decision-making complex and numerous political interests come into play, which can conflict. One of the most relevant events that is currently taking place and that has shaken the pillars of the Union is "Brexit", the exit of the United Kingdom as a member state of the Union. This paper will analyze the slow implementation of the article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which is activated for the first time in history. In addition, it analyzes the reasons in the European and internal context that have led to this status and the consequences from a political, economic and social point of view. Faced with this climate of instability and uncertainty, different alternatives to this will be proposed. status and it will analyse how the European Union has responded to this problem in its White Paper, where different scenarios for the continuation of the Union have been established.

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▲Street art in the city of Medellín

ANALYSIS / María Gabriela Fajardo

Colombia experienced on March 11 the first elections held after signature in 2016 of the Peace agreement between the government and the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). These elections to the country's bicameral congress - members of the Senate and the House of Representatives were elected - were the first occasion in which the different ideological sectors could measure their forces without the distortion of an armed struggle in significant parts of the territory. Traditionally, social rejection of the guerrilla campaign has been alluded to as an explanation for why the left in Colombia has usually enjoyed little popular support. Has the arrival of peace changed the correlation of political forces and has it led to an improvement in the electoral results of the left?

To answer these questions, we will examine the results obtained by the different political options, grouped into sections of the ideological spectrum (right, center-right, center-left and left), in the elections to congress held since the beginning of this century. An examination of the political composition of congress over the last decade and average will give perspective to the results of the March 11 legislative elections. These elections meant the integration of the FARC into the Colombian political party system, under a different name - Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común - but with the same acronym.

In the 2002-2018 period there were also, in addition to the five elections to the congress, as many presidential elections. The latter are mentioned in the analysis because they help to clarify the contexts, but they are not included in the comparative work , given that the presidential elections are governed by more personalistic dynamics and complex vote transfers take place due to the double round process. The March 11 elections, however, provide considerations for the presidential elections of May 27.

Senate

The Parapolitics scandal distorted the reception of the results of the 2002 legislative elections, after paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso claimed that 35% of the elected congress were "friends" of his organization. The right wing, represented by the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, won 41.1% of the Senate seats. This figure does not include the seats won by other minor political groups, among them Colombia Siempre, whose head of list was the current candidate presidential candidate Germán Vargas Lleras. The left, on the other hand, was quite fractioned, in groups such as Vía Alterna and Movimiento Popular Unido, and obtained 14% of the Senate seats. The center-left won 12.9% and the center-right 7%.

In the 2002 presidential elections, held a few months after the legislative elections, Álvaro Uribe became head of state, with the vote of 53.1% of the voters. Uribe ran as an independent candidate , after splitting from the Liberal Party, and had the support of much of the right and center-right, including Cambio Radical, Somos Colombia and the Conservative Party, which then did not participate in the presidential race.

Thus, in the 2006 legislative elections, a new party, the Partido Social de Unidad Nacional (better known as Partido de la U), created by Álvaro Uribe, played a major role. The Partido de la U won the elections, obtaining 20% of the seats: for the first time neither of the two traditional parties (Liberal and Conservative) had won result . The new party was here to stay, so that the right wing was now represented by three parties (de la U, Liberal and Conservative), with 61% of the senators. The left, although it increased to 19% of the Senate seats, was split into several political parties without weight and without the possibility of proposing drastic legislative changes. The center-right, represented by Cambio Radical, was in fourth place, with 15% of seats, while the center-left obtained none.

In 2010 the right wing reached its highest point, with 66.7% of the Senate seats, a figure that includes the three right-wing parties mentioned above and MIRA, a group with a smaller presence. These were moments of political dominance for Uribismo. In the electoral months of 2010, President Uribe was expressing his support to Juan Manuel Santos as candidate presidential. It was thought that he would continue Uribe's policies of confronting the guerrillas and organizing the security forces. However, after coming to power, Santos surprised by disassociating himself from Uribe and opening negotiations with the FARC in 2012, which led to the rupture of the relationship between the two politicians (El periodico, 2017). The strength demonstrated by the right in the 2010 legislative elections was accompanied by a great weakness of the left, which obtained only 7.7% of the Senate seats and would become the perfect ally of President Santos to carry out his diary and his journey towards the political center. The center-left had a representation of 13.3%, thanks to the push of the new Alianza Verde party, and the center-right remained at 7.9%.

The 2014 legislative elections meant the consolidation of a new right-wing party, the Democratic Center, created by Uribe after his separation from the U Party, which had been left in the hands of Santos, who that year would win reelection as Colombian president. The Democratic Center came in second place in the Senate elections, with only one senator less than the U Party (Sanchez, 2018). In 2014, the right went on to control 48.1% of the Senate, from agreement with the ideological realignment of the party system. Thus, several experts came to classify the Partido de la U as center-right, label which they also began to grant to the Partido Liberal, in a political space shared with Cambio Radical; these three parties formed the "Unidad Nacional" (Castillo, 2018). With this, the center-right totaled 19.6% of the seats, while the center-left obtained 9.8%, due to the votes achieved by the Green Party and the Progressives, the latter led by Gustavo Petro, current presidential candidate . The left only reached 4.9%, represented by the minorities of the Polo Democrático, the Unión Patriótica, Marcha Patriótica and the groups that came from the demobilized guerrillas.

In the legislative elections of March 11, there was a reinforcement of right-wing positions, with the return of some parties which in previous elections had slid towards the center-right by defending the negotiation with the FARC and which now wanted to counteract the fear of part of the population of a rise of the radical left, in a very polarized electoral process. Thus, the right rose to 55.2% of the senators, led by those of the Democratic Center, while the center-right fell to 15.9%. The moderate and radical left increased their presence: the center-left rose to 11.5% and the left to 9%. This last percentage does not include the five seats guaranteed to the FARC, which despite not winning any senator electorally, will have those five seats guaranteed by the Peace Accords.

House of Representatives

The results in the 2002-2018 period of the elections for the House of Representatives, held simultaneously with those for the Senate, do not differ much from what was discussed in the previous epigraph; however, they present some variations that should be considered.

The institution was quite affected by parapolitics scandals, a factor that influenced the political polarization of the country, which would be reflected in the elections throughout this period. In 2002, the right won 47% of the seats in the House, with the Liberal Party having the largest representation; the left won 27.1%. From then on, the center-right, which in 2002 obtained 4.2% of the representatives (the center-left took 1.8%) began to take a certain configuration, as the contours of the two traditional parties -Conservative and Liberal- blurred with the division into factions, from which new parties would emerge; this ended the bipartisanship experienced in Colombia throughout the 20th century: the Conservative governed for 48 years and the Liberal for 13.

The emergence of the Partido de la U, led by Álvaro Uribe and the wide acceptance of his political figure (Uribe became president in 2002 and was reelected in 2006), led for the first time a party other than the two traditional ones to come in second place in the 2006 legislative elections, in which the Partido de la U won 16.7% of the seats in the Chamber, raising the representation of the right to 54.2%. For its part, the left dropped its representation to 16.7% and entered a period of special political weakness (these elections were not good for the center-left either, which did not obtain representation). At a time of President Uribe's successes against the guerrillas, with measures supported by a large part of the population, although not without controversy, the left-wing parties were weighed down by sharing certain ideological assumptions with the guerrillas, as political scientist Andrés Dávila of the Universidad de los Andrés Dávila of the Universidad de los Andres points out.

This dynamic led to an even greater increase of the right wing and a new decline of the left wing in the House of Representatives in 2010, in parallel with what happened in the Senate, in a year in which the candidate promoted by Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos, would also win the presidency. The Partido de la U was ahead of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party in the House of Representatives, with these three right-wing parties accounting for 74.6% of the seats, the highest percentage of the entire period studied; the center-right party reached 9.7%. For its part, the left, whose largest party was the Polo Democrático, reached only 4%, its worst share in the period, minimally compensated by the maximum representation of the center-right, although this was a modest 8.5%.

The 2014 elections brought with them the presence of a new party headed by Uribe, the Democratic Center, which positioned itself to the right of the previous ones by positioning itself forcefully against the continuation of the peace dialogues with the FARC propitiated by President Santos (El periodico, 2017). The rupture between Santos and Uribe caused their electorate to split, so that in the elections to the House of Representatives the Liberal Party won, followed by the U Party, the Conservative Party and the Democratic Center. Taking into account the shift towards more moderate positions of some of these formations, when grouping them together we have that the right-wing advocates dropped to 46.7% of the seats in the House, while the center-right rose to 11.1%. The left, with the Polo Democrático, improved its representation somewhat to 10%, and the center-left languished at 3.3%.

Four years later, last March 11, the Liberal Party won again the elections to the House of Representatives, followed by the Democratic Center, the Radical Change, the U Party and the Conservative Party. Some of these formations returned during the electoral campaign to clear right-wing positions that they had previously moderated, so that the right wing added 61.1% of the seats (Sánchez, 2018), compared to 6% for the left. For its part, the center-right scored 9.1% and the center-left 6.1%. To these figures must be added the five seats in the House granted by the agreement de Paz to the FARC, which also failed to win any by citizen vote, as in the Senate. With this enlargement, the Colombian bicameral congress goes from 268 to 280 members (the ten members of the FARC party and two that will correspond to the presidential ticket that comes second in the presidential elections).

The division of the left

The analysis carried out allows us to affirm that right-wing political approaches have remained in the majority in Colombia so far this century, as was the case in previous decades, although no longer in the hegemonic framework of two major parties, but of a wider range of partisan options. In a period in which in many other Latin American countries there were turns to the left -notably, the Bolivarian revolutions- Colombia was a clear exception. In this time, the right in Colombia (not including the center-right) has controlled between 43.3% (2002) and 66.7% (2010) of the Senate seats and between 46.7% (2014) and 74.6% (2010) of those in the House of Representatives. In contrast, the left (not including the equally reduced center-left) has remained a minority: it has moved between 4.9% (2014) and 19% (2006) of the Senate, and between 4% (2010) and 27.1% (2002) of the House.

The 2016 Peace agreement and the integration of the FARC into political life have so far not led to a significant electoral boom of the left. In the legislative elections of March 11, 2018, the right actually recovered positions compared to 2014 in the two institutions of the Contreso, while the left, although it certainly improved its presence in the Senate, but far from the levels of 2002 and 2006, instead lost space in the Chamber.

The fear of broad sectors of the population that the political benefits granted to the FARC, such as guaranteed access to media or campaign financing, would contribute to an electoral advance of the ex-guerrillas did not materialize in these elections. The results of the October 2016 plebiscite, which rejected the agreement de Paz (this came into force in 2017 after some changes, without a new plebiscite), were again reflected in the past legislative elections: Colombians oppose the participation of former members of the belligerent group in politics. FARC candidates obtained only 0.28% of the votes. In addition, this party announced days before the legislative elections that it will not run in the presidential elections, for which the maximum leader of group, Rodrigo Londoño, was running as candidate .

Is Colombia a conservative country? Why has the left in Colombia been so weak electorally? These recurring questions about Colombian politics are not easy to answer. "The left is a sector that has traditionally been very much divided among doctrinal tendencies, for strategic reasons and even by personalities", explains Yeann Basset, director of the Observatory of Electoral Processes of the Universidad del Rosario.

It is worth highlighting what Fabio López, author of the book "Izquierdas y cultura política", said in response to the question of whether there is a left in Colombia:

"One thing is that we come from a defeat, internationally thought, of the left, an enormous setback of the workers' movement, a discrediting of socialist ideas, and another thing is the disappearance of the causes, of the structural reasons that motivate at international and national level some leftist ideas, some roots and some justifications, to appeal to the rescue or better restructuring, a new beginning of some leftist approaches in Colombia".

One of the reasons usually given to explain the difficulty of the left in gaining greater support is the negative weight of the guerrilla subversion. In Colombia, after the constant conflicts, massacres and the pain that the armed conflict has left on Colombians, leftist parties have not achieved the support of the society as in neighboring countries since there is a direct association of leftist party with the guerrillas and what comes with them. The arrival of political leaders such as Uribe to the presidency intensified this association and increased the taboo present today in a large part of the citizens of supporting a leftist party. At the same time, the left has not done much to repair this bad image; the great internal fragmentation and differences among political leaders have not helped the training of a solid left with the capacity to increase its representation in the congress.

Opportunity for the presidential election?

The presidential elections on May 27 are an opportunity for the left to improve its electoral results, which in any case could advance in the future to the extent that peace is consolidated and the past of violence can be forgotten.

The political polarization, which on other occasions has harmed the left, this time is assuming a certain unity of this ideological sector around the candidacy of Gustavo Petro, former mayor of Bogota. The celebration on March 11 of primaries on the right, won by the pro-Uribe Iván Duque, and on the left, won by Petro (Sánchez, 2018), have accentuated the polarization for the presidential elections, increasing citizen mobilization (in the legislative elections there were five more points of participation) and attracting media attention to both candidates. Polarization, at the same time, has reduced support to possible centrist alternatives, as divided as the left was before, so that it cannot be ruled out that Petro may go to a second round, on June 17. A victory against the odds for Petro, for which he should attract the bulk of the moderate electorate, would not mean a radical change in legislative policies, as the congress revalidated last March 11 the dominance of the right.

[Michael E. O'Hanlon and James Steinberg, A Glass Half Full?: Rebalance, Reassurance, and Resolve in the US-China Strategic Relationship. The Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2017, 104 pages]

REVIEW / María Granados

This short book follows a longer book published in 2014 by the same authors, Strategic Reassurance and Resolve. In the new publication, Michael E. O'Hanlon and James Steinberg —both academics and senior policy makers— update and review the policies they suggest in order to improve the relations between China and the United States. The relationship between both countries, established in the early 1970s, has been subject to changing times, and it has suffered several crises, but it has nonetheless grown in importance in the international sphere.

The short and straight-forward strategic review of the ongoing action provides an insight into the arsenals and plans of the two powers. Moreover, through graphs and numerical tables, it depicts the current situation in terms of strength, potential threat, and the likelihood of destruction if a conflict was to arise.

It also gives an overview of the diverse security matters that need to be monitored carefully, in the realms of space, cybernetics, and nuclear proliferation. These essential matters need not to be disregarded when planning defense strategies; instead officials should cast an eye over historical tensions such as Taiwan, North Korea and the South China Sea, and remember to use the tools that have already been established in the region to prevent the use of hard power, i.e.: ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

Not only does the paper carefully consider the action taken by President Obama and his predecessors, but also cautiously suggests steps ahead in the path opened by Nixon four decades ago. O'Hanlon and Steinberg use bulletpoints to give directions for further developments in the Sino-American relationship, stressing the need for transparency, mutually beneficial exchanges, cooperation, and common ends in common projects.

Some of the ideas are summarised briefly in the following paragraphs:

–True rebalance moves away from mere 'containment' and into a trustworthy alliance. Joint operations that ensure cooperation and reassurance are a key aspect of that objective.

–Confidence building in the area of communications must be reinforced in order to prevent espionage and the spread of piracy, as well as other illegal tactics to gather private information.

–The neutral trend in the broad topic of space, cybernetics and nuclearisation has to advance into a firm and close cooperation, especially in view of the threat that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea poses to the global community as a whole. Intelligence and the recent accusations of Russia's manipulation through the use of the Internet and other technological means can be a target to pursue further negotiations and the signing of international treaties such as The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

–To abstain from any risks of escalation, the following policies must be regarded: the leveling of military budget growth, and of the development and deployment of prompt- attack capabilities, restraining modernisation, in favour of dialogue and the exchange of information, providing notice of any operation.

The authors conclude that the relationship is not free from conflict or misunderstanding; it is indeed a work in progress. However, they are positive about that progress. The overall outlook of the Sino-American relation is, as the title suggests "A Glass Half Full": there is of course work to be done, and the path has plenty of potential problems that both countries will have to face and resolve in the least damaging way to advance on the common interest; in spite of the aforementioned, half of it has already been done: both China and the US have a goal to fight for: the prevention of war, which would be short and detrimental for all international actors alike.

Bulgaria's semester focuses on refugee crisis and Western Balkans

Bulgaria's presidency of the European Union, in addition to advancing in the concretization of the 'Brexit', puts on the table particularly sensitive issues for Central and Eastern Europe, such as the migratory routes that enter Europe through the southeast of the continent and the advisability of the future integration of the states born of the former Yugoslavia, of which so far only Croatia has joined the EU.

▲European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov [Nikolay Doychinov-Bulgarian Presidency].

article / Paula Ulibarrena García

During this first semester of 2018, for the first time, Bulgaria holds the rotating presidency of the committee of the European Union (EU). The Bulgarian presidency has as its main challenges the management of the migration crisis and the 'Brexit' negotiations. As a special goal has been marked to put the focus on the Western Balkans. During the semester, Bulgaria hopes to take the final steps towards the euro and to join the Schengen area.

Under the slogan "Unity is strength", Bulgaria - the poorest country in the EU - has set itself an ambitious diary until June. The Bulgarian government, formed by the conservative populist GERB party and the ultra-nationalist Patriotic Front, has set out to help make the European bloc stronger, more stable and more united.

To this end, Sofia wants to foster consensus, cohesion and competitiveness, with the specific challenge of overcoming existing differences in the handling of the refugee crisis. Given the rejection by several partners of quotas for the relocation of asylum seekers, Bulgaria will seek "a sustainable system for managing immigration," with "common rules that are enforced," the Bulgarian presidency program highlights.

Migration crisis

Dialogue with third countries to facilitate the return of migrants without the right to asylum and the strengthening of external border control are some of the measures planned by the executive led by the Bulgarian Prime Minister, the conservative populist Boiko Borisov.

Bulgaria's position on the Syrian refugee crisis is that the adoption of a mechanism to relocate refugees is only a solution provisional. The government in Sofia believes that a lasting and solid solution must be found under which to limit the pressure on the external borders of the EU and the secondary migration resulting from it. It proposes that the EU should work as a matter of priority and urgency together with its EU partners with a view to stabilizing the countries of origin and helping the transit countries. Bulgaria, which has Turkey as a neighbor, considers Turkey to be core topic for the resolution of the problem and proposes that the EU should forge urgent measures to strengthen Turkey's capacity to receive refugees. Bulgaria has always been keen for the agreements to provide for Turkey to admit the refugees that the EU can refund from Greece.

For Sofia, it is necessary to clarify the distinction between economic migrants and refugees and to move towards "solidarity mechanisms" that are acceptable to all member states, recalling in this regard the failure of the mandatory quota system for the relocation of refugees in Italy and Greece.

Western Balkans

Another priority of the Bulgarian presidency is to place the countries of the Western Balkans in the sights of an EU, which for the time being is not considering any further enlargement. Some countries in the region, such as Serbia and Montenegro, are actively negotiating their entrance, which they hope will take place within the next five years. Meanwhile, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo are still waiting to formally start negotiations.

Among the nearly 300 meetings planned during the Bulgarian EU presidency, a special summit on May 17-18 between EU leaders and these six aspirants stands out.

"The European project will not be complete without the integration of the Balkans", warned the Minister manager of the Bulgarian Presidency, Lilyana Pavlova. Bulgaria insists on the convenience of helping a European region still marked by the political instability of the new and small states that emerged after the Yugoslav war.

After Croatia's integration into the European Union on July 1, 2013, it is logical that other countries of the former Yugoslavia intend to follow. Montenegro (which even has a bilateral agreement with Bulgaria of technical-political attendance on topic) and Albania are already official candidates, and there will probably soon be an invitation for Serbia and Macedonia.

The Economics, stability of institutions and democratic transparency have always been and will always be decisive factors in the integration process. For this reason, today, the question of the development of the Balkans and the region of southeastern Europe is very present in the European diary since the big donors of the European budgets do not forget the problems caused by the integration of countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria itself. In fact, four countries in the area are subject to the economic policy of the Union: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.

Excluded from this possible integration for the time being are Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is still under European protectorate, and Kosovo, without official recognition by several governments, including two members of the committee Security Council (China and Russia) and five EU members (Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania). In addition, the level of unemployment in the Western Balkans is quite high compared to Bulgaria and Romania, with a combined average of the four candidates at around 25%.

On the other hand, with the disintegration of the Soviet bloc and the war in the Balkans, the socioeconomic systems collapsed and the transition period resulted not only in growing inequalities, but also in the absence of legality and effective government. The consequence of all this has been in many countries of the area the important role played by black money in the Economics. Bulgaria leads this sad record, with an informal sector accounting for 31% of the Economics, closely followed by Romania and Croatia, whose underground Economics accounts for 28%, and Greece, with 24%. The problem lies in the question of the extent to which the underground Economics and illegal trafficking channels in southeastern Europe can pose a danger to the security of the other countries of the Union. For this reason, the efforts of the candidate countries to improve democratic Structures , governance, transparency and control of capital flows will be an important factor to be taken into account in the negotiations.

Brexit, Schengen and corruption

The decisive phase of negotiations on the UK's exit from the EU is expected to begin under the Bulgarian presidency, following the progress noted in early December by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Sofia wants to become a "neutralcoordinator " in this process, according to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.

The progress in the digital Economics of the continent after the impulse given to this topic by the outgoing Estonian presidency, as well as in the banking union, are other points core topic of the Bulgarian diary . The Balkan country will also defend the cohesion policy and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which will be affected by the loss of funds due to the 'brexit'.

At the same time, Bulgaria aspires to enter during its EU presidency in the "anteroom" of the euro zone and join the Schengen area, of free community circulation, a step blocked until now by the lack of progress of Bulgaria in the fight against corruption and organized crime. The Balkan country, considered the most corrupt in the EU, took eleven years in approve its first anti-corruption law, adopted last December 20, less than two weeks before assuming its presidency of the EU. Unlike what happened in neighboring Romania, so far the Bulgarian justice system has not investigated or convicted any politician for corruption cases.

Air connectivity

association The International Air Transport Association (IATA) called for a renewed policy approach to strengthen Europe's aviation competitiveness at the Bulgarian presidency of the EU. There is an urgent need to strategically plan for the capacity needed to meet the growing demand for global connectivity, environmental improvements and regulation of infrastructure costs.

IATA forecasts a 6 percent expansion of air travel demand in Europe in 2018. "Operating an airline in Europe is challenging. There are high costs and regulatory burdens. Infrastructure capacity is often not sufficient and charges for using airports have doubled across Europe in the last decade. The Bulgarian government has put competitiveness and connectivity at the center of the diary of its EU Presidency. This will drive greater competitiveness and prosperity for European economies, but only if individual EU member states follow through by adopting policies that promote air connectivity," said Rafael Schvartzman, regional vice president of IATA Europe, at the IATA Bulgaria Aviation Day in Sofia.

Bulgaria occupies a strategically important position as the entrance gateway from Europe to Turkey and beyond to Asia. It is also a fast-growing market in its own right, with passenger issue set to double in the next 20 years. This is a challenge for the country's air traffic management , and the Bulgarian air navigation services provider BULATSA.

A country with many conditions to have a great weight in Europe, but weighed down by Russia's proximity to it

If the border between the West and the Russian-dominated area divided Germany during the Cold War, today that border runs through Ukraine. The open conflict with Russia hampers the objective conditions of great development that Ukraine has. The country is paying a high price for the desire to preserve its independence.

▲Pro-European protesters at place central Kiev, during the riots in late 2013 [Evgeny Feldman].

article / Alona Sainetska [English version].

Ukraine, a sovereign and independent state (since 1991), located in Eastern Europe, with the second largest area (after Russia) of the European countries (576,550 km² without the Crimean peninsula) and with a long history of struggle to preserve its identity, is today the center of tensions between Russia and the West. In 2014 Moscow wanted to compensate for the fall of the pro-Russian government in Kiev by annexing the Crimean peninsula. It was then that Ukraine aroused global interest. The Ukrainians were finally achieving a prominence commensurate with the size of their country, although they would undoubtedly have wanted to do so with another subject headline-grabber.

1. WHAT DRIVES FORWARD

Considering its geographical position and its strategic, economic and military weight, it is difficult to justify that before the outbreak of the conflict Ukraine was not for many more a fuzzy place on the map. The country is surrounded by Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and has direct access to the Black Sea. This central location makes it very clear that Ukraine should play an important role in the context of the International Office.

Agriculture

Ukraine's rich and fertile soil is known as black soil or "Chornozem". The agricultural area used covers 70% of the arable land, or about 42 million hectares, and is capable of feeding 500 million people. The country, with its 46 million inhabitants, therefore has considerable potential for production, processing, consumption and export of agricultural and organic products. It is already one of the leading countries in the agricultural sector and can be considered a "green vein" in the heart of Europe.

It is the leading producer and exporter of sunflower oil, 30% of whose exports go to India and 16% to China. Ukraine also produces large quantities of wheat, of which it is the world's sixth largest exporter. It produces wheat flour and corn flour for food production, which it exports to France, Poland and Belarus, among others. It is also one of the leaders in poultry production, whose issue grew by more than 55% between 2000 and 2011; its exports go mainly to Iraq and the EU and seventy other countries.

Industry and logistics infrastructure

Ukraine also has an aircraft industry, although lack of investment is holding back its development on a large scale. However, examples such as Antonov's Mriya-225, the world's largest cargo plane built during the Soviet era and capable of carrying up to 250 tons, speak of its potential while awaiting investment.

On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that Ukraine is ideally suited to be a hub for international trade, mainly between the European Union, the Middle East and Asia. Five out of ten European transport corridors cross the Ukrainian territory; Ukraine has the most extensive railway networks in Europe that handle a substantial part of passenger and freight traffic; moreover, its road network covers the entire territory of the country and enables deliveries to any destination point. Last but not least, there is the natural gas transmission system, led by business Ukrtransgas, engaged in natural gas transmission and storage in Ukraine. In 2013 it transported 132 billion cubic meters (bcm), including 86 bcm for the EU and Moldova. Ukrtransgas owns Europe's largest subway gas storage network with a total capacity of 31 bcm and consists of 14 subsidiary units operating in Ukraine.

2. WHAT SLOWS DOWN THE DEVELOPMENT

However, the country continues to be underestimated by other players on the international chessboard and this exposes it to Russian ambitions. These are manifested in numerous obstacles that make it difficult for Ukraine to gain weight in the aforementioned sectors of trade, industry, agriculture and transport. There are also other derived factors that slow down the country's development .

Interest from Russia

Russia's interest in its neighbor to the west is mainly due to strategic reasons, since Ukraine is a fundamental piece for any expansion of the former Russian imperial power. Therefore, Russia seeks to strengthen its influence in Ukraine through economic expansion, control over the maritime border, installation of Russian military instructions and Russian occupation troops in the territory, expansion of interference in the Ukrainian information space, influence of the Russian church, etc. Another of the measures attributed to Moscow is the placement of people with similar interests in positions of power in Ukraine: the Kremlin wanted to take advantage of the presidency of V. Yanukovych, a pro-Russian politician.

Internal instability

Today the future of Ukraine is as uncertain as ever. Economic and political reforms have failed to overcome the country's serious structural problems, the fight against corruption is weak, and the insignificant international support further diminishes the already leave expectation that Ukraine can overcome the crisis in a short time. Given the absence of other means to put pressure on Russia than sanctions, and in view of the fact that those that have been applied have hardly changed the Kremlin's attitude, it is safe to say that normalization of the status is far away on the horizon.

All this is reflected in the growing popular discontent. 90% of Ukrainians disapprove of the current government's management , express the desire for new elections and show their refusal to allow the regions closest to Russia to participate in the country's political life. Desperation means that the only institutions the Ukrainian people trust are the army, the church and volunteers.

The "frozen" conflict

On the other hand, the "frozen conflict" in the east of the country remains and continues to undermine the state's budget . Defense and security spending accounted for 5% of GDP last year, a high figure that includes the government's efforts to create a new army. According to President Petro Poroshenko, this was one of the many reasons for the failure to raise citizens' living standards. Overall, the prospects for a Ukrainian victory in a war to regain full sovereignty over its eastern lands appear dim, given Russia's support for the rebels and Ukraine's fear of an internal counter-reaction. A vicious circle is thus generated, so that as long as there is no successful end to the war, economic and political tension on the Kiev government will increase and could lead to a new Maidan, the popular revolt that collapsed the government in 2014.

The geopolitical standoff between Russia and the West in Ukraine has been detrimental to all parties involved, but most of all to the Ukrainian state. Declining cross-border trade, weakening currencies and stock markets, and increased security risks have affected the entire region. Poverty is growing at the same pace as the standard of living of citizens is declining and market prices are rising. As result, Ukrainians are unable to take advantage of the opportunities granted to them, as is the clear example of the exemption of visas between Ukraine and the European Union (approved in May 2017), which many have not been able to use as they have been unable to finance their travel.

3. THE NECESSARY BALANCE

Ukraine's geopolitical priority is to gain independence from Russia, which means breaking economic ties with it. This is an unbalanced battle with a high cost for the Ukrainians, who face the destruction of Economics, the defeat of the elites and the impoverishment of the population.

This strategy of development of the Ukrainian state is increasingly based on the concepts of radical nationalism. But the report of historical antecedents, such as the Holodomor (the great famine of the 1930s), warns of the enormous power of the Russian "hegemon" and suggests the need to serve the national interest through a sort of balance between ultimate goals and halfway diplomacy deadline.