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41. Germany’s Ostpolitik. An Italian Perspective

Author:
Riccardo Alcaro
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Italy has traditionally looked to Germany as a natural partner in defining the EU’s approach to Russia. Shared views of Russia as a member of the European family of nations, converging assessments of Europe’s security needs, and parallel energy and trade interests have all contributed to this. However, since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis a perception has begun to emerge in Italy of a widening gap between the Italian national interest and Germany’s Ostpolitik. While German policy per se is not a major topic of discussion, the Italian debate about the most appropriate policy course towards Russia and Eastern Europe contains a number of implicit assumptions about German choices and interests. This debate runs along political cleavages, with Italy’s expanding Eurosceptic coalition increasingly advocating a normalization of relations with Russia. Germany’s Ostpolitik, or at least some of the fundamental assumptions on which it is predicated, seems thus destined to become the object of greater contestation in Italy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Germany and Italy

42. The Europe We Would Like to Inherit: Toward a Visionary New Pragmatism

Author:
Dustin Dehez, Muddassar Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Spela Kranjc, and Ivo Sobral
Publication Date:
07-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Europe urgently needs to move forward on a number of crucial reforms simultaneously. To face the challenges of the recession, we need better economic integration. The crisis of the Euro zone is not only a debt crisis. What Europe is facing is a multitude of different crises, of which the debt crises in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Italy are only a small part. All European countries have accumulated huge debts, their social security models are facing an inevitable demographic challenge of enormous proportions. The conventional crisis management response—austerity—has failed to create a foundation for future economic stability. To survive, Europe needs to rethink the very foundations of its economic policies for a population that is older and a Europe more fractured. Europe needs to open itself up to immigration, foster regulation and integration of financial markets, overhaul social security structures set up decades ago, galvanize productive investment in new post-carbon industries that will create jobs and spur technological innovation, and invest in a security sector that is capable of projecting stability.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Politics, and Reform
Political Geography:
Europe, Greece, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus

43. Striking a Balance Between Norms and Interests in Italian Foreign Policy: The Balkans and Libya

Author:
Valérie Vicky Miranda
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
To what extent is foreign policy driven by norms and/or by interests? Considering the main trends of Italian foreign policy after World War II and two case studies, the Balkans and Libya, this paper investigates the role played by norms and interests and the interconnection between the two in Italian foreign policy. In the Balkans, norms and interests have neatly dovetailed: supporting democratization and the rule of law has also meant furthering Italian security and economic interests in the region. By contrast, Libya was the theatre of an essentially interest-driven foreign policy. Nevertheless, the Italian government's response to the Libyan crisis between March and May 2011 has interestingly marked a rupture from the recent past.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Libya, Kosovo, Balkans, North Africa, and Italy

44. The Italian Foreign Ministry on the way of reform

Author:
Raffaello Matarazzo
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The Italian government recently approved a reform of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) which should take effect by the summer of this year . By bringing the structure of the MFA into line with those of Italy's principal European partners, the reform envisages: A reduction from 13 to 8 in the number of Directorates General (DGs). These will no longer be divided by geographical region but by main subject area; The creation of a stable, structured relationship between the MFA and the Ministry for Economic and Financial Affairs (MEF); The creation of “ambassador-managers” who will be called to manage the budgets of Italy's missions abroad in an increasingly autonomous and entrepreneurial manner.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

45. EU-India strategic partnership: Taking the stock

Author:
Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, University of Calcutta
Abstract:
The prevalent perception of the European Union (EU) in India is predominantly constructed by the British and American media. At the time of a global economic downturn, its ripple effects on the continent especially on the 'PIIGS' (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and an imminent crack in the Eurozone have been the debate of the day. In a recent article in The National Interest, James Joyner, has however examined this genre of 'Europe's obituary'. Making a comparison with EU's transatlantic sibling, he identifies three errors in this type of analyses, 'treating the EU as if it were a nation-state, regarding anything less than utopia as a failure, and projecting short-term trends long into the future'. However Joyner is also right when he describes the EU as 'a confusing array of overlapping treaty commitments'.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, America, Europe, India, Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland

46. Making sense of Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean

Author:
Michael Emerson
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
resident Sarkozy's proposed Union for the Mediterranean (or UMed) has so far been poorly conceived and, to say the least, awkwardly presented politically. However this does not mean that nothing good can come of it. The Barcelona process and its confusing combination with the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) have neither been a disaster nor a brilliant success. There is a case for streamlining a single European Mediterranean policy, rationalising and properly integrating Barcelona, the ENP and new ideas that the UMed initiative may produce. Both Italy and Spain as well as the South Mediterranean states themselves appear concerned not to undermine the existing structures (Barcelona and ENP). Steps could be made to lighten the overweight participation of the EU and all its 27 member states in too many meetings with too many participants and too few results, drawing on models that have emerged in the EU's Northern maritime regions. However, the EU as a whole will not agree to delegate the essential initiative on strategic matters to just its Southern coastal states – as has been made clear in recent exchanges between President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel. In addition the EU will also want to maintain a balance between its Northern and Southern priorities, and if the UMed becomes a new impetus for the South, an equivalent but different policy move can be contemplated for the EU's East European neighbours
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Foreign Policy, International Political Economy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, Italy, and Barcelona

47. How to Change Your Foreign Policy in 100 Days: A New Course with Prodi?

Author:
Elisabetta Brighi
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom has it that the new government of Romano Prodi managed to effect a significant "shift" in Italy's foreign policy away from the course of the centre-right in the proverbial first 100 days of government. A number of discontinuities with the foreign policy of the Berlusconi government have been invoked, ranging from Italy's relations with Europe and its transatlantic posture, to its engagement with areas of crisis such as the Middle East. But these claims have to be substantially qualified. In fact, it appears that the foreign policy of the Prodi government has rather pragmatically blended elements of change and continuity, and that the shift which has occurred in some areas should be understood more as a combination of domestic and international developments than a result of the change in government alone. Moreover, in order to really change Italy's foreign policy - and change it for the better - the government should focus on a different set of priorities, mainly the institutions, instruments, politics, and ideas of foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Italy

48. The Foreign Policy of Italian Regions: Not Much Ado About Something?

Author:
Francesco Palermo
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
What does regional external power mean? To what extent is it allowed? What are the limits for its exercise? And how is it carried our in today's quasi-federal Italy? Not only is regional foreign policy a litmus test for the legal development of a compound system; it is also extremely telling as far as the political maturity of the actors in a multi-level governmental system is concerned. In the present constitutional and political framework in Italy, there is a cleavage between the rather developed normative framework and the immature practical reality. Regional foreign policy is something very important about which too little ado is made.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Italy

49. Debunking the 1930s Analogy: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Re-Examined

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:
The key events of the 1930s Hitler's rise to power, Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, Munich and the subsequent German occupation of Prague in March 1939, and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 transpired some seventy years ago. The events of the 1930s or at least Churchill's depiction of them have provided the standard images that have shaped U.S. foreign policy and scholarly research alike: falling dominoes, insatiable dictators, the interdependency of strategic commitments, the importance of demonstrating resolve, and the impossibility of achieving diplomatic accommodation with nondemocratic regimes. But does the myth track with the historical record? Does the 1930s myth accurately explain British grand strategy in the 1930s? Simply stated, my argument is that the 1930s myth as commonly understood in the United States is bad history, and that its use has contributed importantly to a series of dubious policy decisions by U.S. decisionmakers and still does. As I demonstrate, the British, in fact, were not willfully blind to the German threat or indifferent to the need to rearm to meet it. Rather, during the 1930s, London formulated a quintessentially realist grand strategy that attempted to blend deterrence and diplomacy to contain Hitler's Germany (and Japan and Italy), and defend Britain's interests as a world power by avoiding what, for Britain, could only be a disastrous war.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Japan, Europe, London, Germany, Italy, and Austria

50. Saudi-Italian Relations During the Reign of King Fahd

Author:
Roberto Aliboni
Publication Date:
11-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
In the hundred years that have elapsed since the birth of Saudi Arabia many important developments and changes have affected both this country and Italy. Still, whereas Saudi Arabia has progressed with remarkable political stability, Italy has suffered numerous shocks: the crisis and fall, after World War I, of the nationalist elites which had made Italy an independent and united country in the 19th century; the fall of the Fascist regime and the Savoy monarchy at the end of World War II; the emergence, during the Cold War, of a Western democracy run by the classes which the nationalist elite had excluded from the process of independence; today, after the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Catholic and communist parties that dominated the Cold War domestic stage and the painful attempt to establish a less ideologically-based, more market-oriented and liberal-minded democracy in the country.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Arabia, Saudi Arabia, and Italy