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Quel est le plus grand propriétaire foncier de Macédoine du Nord ? L'Église orthodoxe. Et le second ? La Communauté islamique. Ces institutions ont décidé que l'impôt ne les concernait pas. BIRN a passé les biens religieux à la loupe. Enquête.

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This policy paper is authored by Ioannis Armakolas, Head & Senior Fellow, South-East Europe Programme, ELIAMEP, Dimitar Bechev, Senior Research Fellow, South-East Europe Programme, ELIAMEP, and Ana Krstinovska, Research Fellow, South-East Europe Programme, ELIAMEP is published in the context of the of the project EMBRACing changE – Overcoming Blockages and Advancing Democracy in the European Neighbourhood. EMBRACE is a multi-country research initiative that aims to enhance democracy promotion efforts in the EU’s neighbourhood by identifying key obstacles to democratisation and formulating evidence-based strategies to overcome them. The project draws on locally led research and stakeholder engagement across twelve case studies in five regions: the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Southern Caucasus, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Focusing on Work Package 7 of the project, the report “The EU’s Democracy Promotion and Geopolitical Competition” examines how the European Union’s democracy promotion efforts are shaped and challenged by both external authoritarian actors, primarily Russia and China, and internal political dynamics within partner countries. The report offers an in-depth comparative analysis of five case study countries: Algeria, Georgia, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

The authors analyse how authoritarian rivals deploy various forms of coercion, subversion, and co-optation, often exploiting internal political vulnerabilities. They also highlight how domestic elites navigate this external competition, at times instrumentalising their ties with Russia and China to entrench their power and limit EU influence. In this geopolitical context, the paper finds that EU democracy promotion tools are most impactful when tied to credible enlargement prospects and implemented with consistency and strategic sensitivity to local conditions.

The paper concludes that democracy promotion is no longer merely a matter of institutional design or normative appeal, it has become a geopolitical contest where foreign influence and domestic agency intersect. As such, future EU strategies must account for this complexity and tailor instruments to local realities while remaining steadfast in their democratic commitments. The report closes with concrete policy recommendations aimed at refining the EU’s approach, particularly in geopolitically contested environments.

You can read the policy paper  in pdf here.

The European Union’s capacity to foster democracy in its neighbourhood is increasingly constrained by a dual challenge: the pushback from authoritarian powers like Russia and China and the domestic political dynamics in partner countries. This policy report draws on granular empirical evidence and comparative analysis from five states—Algeria, Georgia, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine—to seize the nuances in the approach (objectives, tools, tactics) of Russia and China and to identify patterns in how EU leverage is shaped by external authoritarian strategies and internal political conditions. The report draws conclusions about the conditions under which EU democracy promotion has the potential to be impactful when facing geopolitical challengers, offering ideas for its future design improvements.

This policy report finds that:

• The EU’s democracy promotion tools are most effective when paired with credible enlargement prospects and coherent conditionality.
• Authoritarian rivals, particularly Russia, deploy a mix of coercion, subversion, and co-optation, capitalizing on internal vulnerabilities.
• Domestic elites play a decisive role in shaping the direction of foreign alignment, often exploiting ties with Russia and China to cement their hold on power and dilute EU influence.
• Societal attitudes significantly condition the success of EU or authoritarian leverage.

The policy report argues that, beyond geopolitical competition and authoritarian diffusion, as the most common explanatory devices for the spread of authoritarianism to be found in the scholarly literature, democracy is often undermined as an “unintended consequence” of the domestic actors’ multiple engagements with external actors.

The report also concludes that democracy promotion is not merely a matter of institutional engineering but a geopolitical contest where domestic politics and external power plays intersect. The outcome is contingent on EU consistency, strategic adaptation, and the good understanding of the limitations and opportunities of the domestic political context in partner countries.

Finally, the report offers recommendations for tailoring EU democracy promotion policies in response to the challenges faced by increasingly emboldened geopolitical and authoritarian rivals. The recommendations pertain to the type of instruments the EU is fielding in geopolitically contested states, the relationship to domestic political elites and civil society in these countries, and the communication and economic instruments intended to appeal to the wider societies.

Introduction to the EMBRACE project

The EMBRACE research project (2022-25) collects evidence-based knowledge on the obstacles to democratisation and ways to overcome them in five regions of the European neighbourhood: Southern Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Western Balkans, Middle East and North Africa. Its aim is to strengthen the capacity of policy-makers and pro-democracy forces to develop effective strategies to promote democratic progress in the European neighbourhood. In addition to research reports and policy briefs, new policy tools for EUDP practitioners and pro-democracy activists are developed based on the project’s findings.

The EMBRACE consortium consists of 14 partner organisations based in 13 countries, and places particular emphasis on locally-led research with deep contextual familiarity and stakeholder access within the regions under study. It brings together partners with unique and complementary strengths as well as shared areas of interest, in order to foster joint learning and development.

Empirical data was gathered in twelve case study countries through a variety of research approaches, investigating episodes of political closure and opening to identify, analyse and explain behavioural, institutional and structural blockages, and the conditions under which they can be overcome. A new quantitative dataset was generated on the larger trends of EU Democracy Promotion and its effects on democratisation over the last two decades in all 23 neighbours.

The research is structured around four thematic clusters: the re-configurations for democratic policy shifts after popular uprisings; democratisation and economic modernisation in authoritarian and hybrid regimes; the nexus between democratisation and peace; and the geopolitics of EUDP and the competition that the EU encounters in its democracy promotion efforts. This report focuses on Work Package 7, which aims to understand the EU’s democracy promotion potential when confronted with geopolitical challenges by powerful and authoritarian geopolitical rivals. It analyses how all these forces interact, compete, clash or cooperate, and how such interplay raises obstacles or offers opportunities for democracy promotion by the EU.

Introduction to this Policy Report

Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union (EU) has positioned itself as a champion of democratic norms and values, using a combination of economic assistance and political conditionality to push for institutional and political reforms in target countries. These efforts are particularly pronounced in regions such as the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, and North Africa—areas characterized by fragile institutions, hybrid regimes, and complex geopolitical alignments. As immediate neighbours of the EU, those regions have been the primary target of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the EU enlargement process, which now covers Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia in addition to the Western Balkans.

However, EU democracy promotion now unfolds in a hostile strategic environment. Authoritarian powers like Russia and China have expanded their regional footprints and actively challenge the EU’s normative agenda.  With its aggression against Ukraine culminating in a full-scale invasion, Russia has resorted to crude military power to assert its primacy.  Faced with this reality, political elites in countries next door to the EU increasingly adopt hedging strategies, playing with all external powers to maximize regime survival or economic gain. This interplay between external pushback and internal resistance complicates the EU’s ability to shape political trajectories in its neighbourhood.

This policy paper is the outcome of rigorous research on the geopolitical competition to EU democracy promotion conducted in the context of the EMBRACE project. It draws on a cross-regional comparison of five countries—Algeria, Georgia, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. It highlights the limitations of EU influence, identifies the modes of authoritarian contestation, and explores how domestic political contexts determine the effectiveness of democracy promotion. The aim is not only to diagnose challenges but to propose strategies that could help recalibrate the EU’s external democracy promotion.

EU Leverage: Dense Ties, Uneven Impact

EU democracy promotion rests on a set of well-established instruments: political conditionality, economic incentives, technical assistance, and societal engagement. These instruments are operationalized through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) for Algeria and through the Enlargement Policy for Serbia, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Georgia. All five countries in question have dense trade and investment ties with the Union, in most cases their leading economic partner, and are also linked to member states thanks to large diaspora populations. In that sense, both linkage and leverage – two variables highlighted by the literature on international promotion of democracy (Levitsky and Way 2005) – favour the EU’s role as a driver of political and institutional reform.

However, the EU’s track record is, at best, mixed.  Success is rare and setbacks common. North Macedonia and Ukraine are two cases giving grounds for qualified optimism. In both countries, the EU has demonstrated its potential to support democratic breakthroughs. In North Macedonia, the European Commission and the European Parliament played an important role in resolving the 2015-2016 political crisis, combining mediation, support to civil society, and conditionality tied to the broader EU accession agenda. Moreover, the Prespa Agreement concluded between Skopje and Athens, which resolved the long-standing naming dispute, was conditioned by the attraction of EU membership (Armakolas 2023, Bechev 2022).  However, the Europeanisation process ground down to halt in 2020 owing to new hurdles North Macedonia confronted because of France delaying, and later of Bulgaria blocking, its progress.

Similarly, in Ukraine, post-Maidan governments embarked on reforms under the impetus of societal demand, EU encouragement and the prospect of becoming a member of the 28-strong bloc. Russia’s full-scale invasion has shifted the priorities of the Ukrainian state from governance and market reform to ensuring state survival in the face of a mightier adversary.  Yet it has also propelled Kyiv further on the path to membership, with formal negotiations launched in 2024. Despite the political, economic and institutional obstacles going forward, at present Ukraine has a chance to enter the EU in the following decade. Particularly if NATO membership is off the table, accession to the Union would provide the highly desired anchor to the West that Ukrainians have pursued for at least two decades.

Yet these successes do not tell the full story of the complex landscape of EU democracy influence and other cases illustrate the limits of EU’s policies. In Georgia, despite robust public support for membership in the EU, which hovers around 80% of the populace, the government of the Georgian Dream (GD) party has slowed down (and arguably reversed) the effort to secure accession together with Ukraine and Moldova. GD gradually distanced itself from the EU, especially when democratization has threatened its political dominance. The passage of a highly problematic foreign agents’ law in 2024, inspired by legislation Russia adopted in the 2010s, coupled with the alleged irregularities at the October 2024 general elections have deepened the rift with the EU. In Algeria, the EU has largely prioritized stability and energy cooperation over democracy promotion. The 2019 Hirak protests received lukewarm support from Brussels, revealing a strategic preference for regime continuity over democratic change.

Even in the EU accession countries, conditionality is inconsistently applied. Serbia continues to slide into hybrid authoritarianism with little EU pushback. President Aleksandar Vučić has managed to simultaneously negotiate EU accession and cultivate ties with Russia and China, taking advantage of the EU’s reluctance to prioritize democracy over regional stability as well as its dire need to access critical resources. Europe’s reaction to an unprecedented wave of popular protests, which unfolded after November 2024 and demanded greater transparency and accountability, has been half-hearted at best. The outreach by Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos to pro-rule-of-law protesters has not moved the needle for the overall policy of the EU, which prefers engagement over confrontation with President Vučić.

EU credibility oftentimes falls prey to internal divisions. Member states diverge in terms of geographical focus, with some looking at Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe, others prioritising the Western Balkans while still others interested in the Maghreb, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Though the Russian aggression has helped soften such divisions by creating a sense of a common threat, they have not been fully overcome. Historically, member states have variable levels of commitment to enlargement too. While some see it as compatible with their strategic interests, others are concerned it might undermine the EU’s internal cohesion.

There are also institutional factors at play. Unanimity rules in enlargement decisions allow individual countries —such as Hungary or Bulgaria—to block or delay progress over bilateral issues or political calculations, as seen in North Macedonia and Ukraine. Though there have been multiple proposals coming from think tanks and academic researchers to reform decision-making on enlargement by introducing qualified majority voting (QMV), there is no sufficient mass in the EU Council to support such a move. As a result of all that, the EU has often struggled to deliver on promises to aspirant countries.

The experience of the countries under investigation shows that inconsistencies in EU policies, ambiguity over strategy, principles and priorities, as well as occasional failures in implementation limit the effectiveness of the EU’s democracy promotion tools. Local leaderships recognise the opportunity presented by these challenges and often devise a strategy of “pick and choose” of aspects of EU integration that suit their agenda and benefit their political, economic and strategic interests, while at the same time increasingly resist those aspects of EU ties that may challenge their authority or upset domestic equilibria. Aspects of these conclusions can be observed to a greater or lesser extent in all countries investigated. But the cases of Algeria and Serbia stand out as the ones where the ruling elites have found unique ways to make ties with the EU beneficial to their regime and its survival prospects.

Overall, the democracy promotion toolkit of the EU has the potential to foster democracy and strengthen resilience against external authoritarian pressure in aspiring countries. But the likelihood for success increases significantly when the pro-democracy policies are paired with a credible EU membership prospect and conditionality. Analysis shows that close economic, political, and institutional ties to the EU alone do not guarantee democratization, especially when the accession outlook is uncertain. Inconsistent application of democracy promotion tools or conflicting EU priorities risk undermining both their effectiveness and the EU’s overall credibility. Finally, authoritarian states—especially Russia—have shown a keen interest in shaping the democratization trajectories and undercut the EU’s positive influence on the examined countries.

Authoritarian Rivals: Strategies of Pushback

The EU is coming to terms with the fact that it is no longer the only game in town when it comes to influencing domestic politics. Authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states such as Russia, China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are growingly present on the European periphery. Of these, Russia and China are the two most remarkable cases. As early as 2008, the prominent scholar of democratisation, Larry Diamond, noted that “[the a]uthoritarian regimes in Russia and China are acting as black knights, supporting autocrats and undermining democratic transitions by providing diplomatic cover, economic aid, and sometimes even security assistance to embattled regimes.”

Russia and China are not ideologically committed to spreading authoritarianism per se, but they actively contest the EU’s influence when it threatens their strategic interests. In the Russian case, the latter include influence over institutions and elites in adjacent countries that are considered by Moscow as its “privileged sphere of influence” or its “near abroad.”   Beijing’s policies are more low-key, undermining alignment with the EU when it goes against China’s (predominantly business) interests, while increasing its political and economic footprint, but still without adopting the aggressiveness that Russia often uses. Russian and Chinese objectives, strategies and methods vary. Russia aims to blunt the EU’s – and more broadly the collective West’s – leverage, undermine its normative standing and accordingly increase their own room for manoeuvre. China, on the other hand, aims to secure allies to pursue its global agenda and opportunities to advance its economic priorities. In that context, while its objectives do not clash with enlargement countries’ bid to join the EU, Beijing’s approach is not always compatible with EU norms and standards, and it sometimes exploits structural governance weaknesses.

Russia’s and China’s strategies fall into three categories:

• • Coercion

Coercion involves the use of tools designed to compel a significant shift in the target’s behaviour. This includes direct military action or the threat of force, intervention in internal conflicts, terrorism, cyberattacks, and various forms of economic pressure such as sanctions or embargoes. These instruments are intended to impose costs that alter the target’s strategic calculus.

Russia’s approach in Ukraine demonstrates how far it is willing to go to prevent EU integration. After the 2013 Euromaidan protests and the pro-European turn, Russia responded with the annexation of Crimea, support for separatists in Donbas, and eventually a full-scale invasion in 2022. In Georgia, the 2008 war was a similar move to destabilize a reformist government and maintain influence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

• Subversion

Subversion (or soft coercion), by contrast, seeks to weaken an adversary—be it the EU, the broader West, or Western-aligned governments—from within. The ultimate aim is behavioral change, achieved through the erosion of institutions, norms, or public trust. This domain is extensively covered in the literature on “hybrid” threats, which span both overt and covert activities below the threshold of open conflict.

Russia presents many examples of subversion. It excels at using hybrid tools to undermine democratic institutions and pro-Western narratives. In North Macedonia, Russian-linked actors used disinformation and Orthodox Church networks to oppose the Prespa Agreement in 2018-2019. In Serbia, Russian-backed media outlets reinforce nationalist sentiment and scepticism toward the West. Their message is amplified by the mainstream media, including TV channels, news portals and tabloids that are linked to President Vučić. In a similar way, China has worked to undermine trust in Western-style democracy – e.g. propagating its success in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 and presenting the performance of EU members and the United States in negative light.

• Co-optation

Co-optation operates through the cultivation of relationships with domestic elites—political parties, business lobbies, media outlets, or civil society groups—to shape a target country’s foreign policy or internal choices. This approach provides external actors with channels of influence embedded within local power structures. A well-documented example is Russia’s strategic presence in the energy sector across Eastern Europe and even within the EU’s core.

Similarly, China primarily uses economic tools—investment, loans, and trade partnerships—to create dependencies and cultivate elite networks. Its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and bilateral deals often bypass transparency mechanisms, contributing to state capture and corruption. This strategy is evident in Serbia, where Chinese investments have expanded rapidly, including in strategic sectors like energy and infrastructure. Algeria presents a case of strategic triangulation, where both Russia and China are welcomed as partners in arms sales, infrastructure, and diplomacy. While their influence remains mostly co-optative, it offers the regime a buffer against EU democratization demands. In Georgia, the ruling party has allowed increasing Chinese economic presence and has taken a softer line on Russia since 2022, to offset the increasing EU influence over the country’s democracy and reform agenda. Strengthened ties with authoritarian countries became the counterbalance to EU’s pro-democracy influence which had the potential to undermine the power base and authority of the ruling political elites in Tbilisi.

Domestic Elites and Public Attitudes

The five cases under examination demonstrate that Russia and China are effective in countering the EU policies and influence only because they find allies within the countries. Domestic political elites early on draw the conclusion that closer ties with the EU come with policy impact that may prove challenging for the survival of their regime or the longevity of their governments. They quickly adapt to the situation, incorporate the EU impact on their cost-benefit calculations, and develop counterbalances to influence that is potentially harmful to their interests, including by increasing ties with EU’s rivals. Thus, both Russia and China often find the political circumstances in different countries ripe for increasing their footprint and unfolding their agendas.

Both Russia and China maintain strong military, economic, and diplomatic ties with Algeria while avoiding overt interference. Their influence is primarily co-optative—built on elite networks and strategic infrastructure investments—rather than subversive. Russia leads in arms sales and military cooperation, whereas China focuses on infrastructure and surveillance technology. Both actors also engage in vigorous public diplomacy, targeting Algerian media to counter Western narratives. Importantly, the role of Algeria’s regime is crucial in making the co-optative policies possible. The Algerian ruling elite triangulates between the EU and these external players to maximize its autonomy and expand its room for manoeuvre in foreign policy. This balancing act reinforces internal cohesion and bolsters authoritarian resilience.

A similar dynamic is evident in Georgia. The ruling Georgian Dream party prioritizes regime survival over alignment with EU democratic standards. It combines formal EU ties with growing cooperation with China and a muted alignment with Russia, especially following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While Russia exploits political polarization and institutional fragility—classic subversive tactics—the more decisive factor remains the agency of domestic actors. In Georgia as in Algeria, co-optation is the principal strategy used by Russia and China to blunt EU-led democratization, though Moscow retains also coercion as a viable tool, given its military capabilities and economic leverage.

Ukraine represents a contrasting scenario. There, Russia has long since abandoned co-optation and subversion in favour of direct coercion. Since 2014, military aggression has become the primary instrument to thwart Ukraine’s EU aspirations, overshadowing earlier tools such as economic pressure and disinformation. China, by contrast, has adhered to a strategy of co-optation, maintaining economic engagement (e.g., Belt and Road projects) while presenting itself as a neutral actor. Beijing avoids direct confrontation, diplomatically supports Russia, and carefully manages its relations with both Ukraine and the EU.

In the Western Balkans, Russia counters EU influence through a dual approach: exploiting societal divisions (subversion) and cultivating networks with local actors—politicians, civic groups, businesses, and national Orthodox Churches. Serbia offers a textbook case. Since the mid-2000s, political elites and influential societal actors have aligned with Russia. Moscow’s influence has benefited from enablers such as state capture, media control by President Aleksandar Vučić and his allies, aggressive nationalism, and the marginalization of opposition forces. As in Algeria and Georgia, Serbia’s leadership uses its ties with both Russia and China to pursue a “multi-vector” foreign policy. This strategy supports regime durability and dilutes the impact of EU democratic conditionality. In North Macedonia, Russia has deployed media manipulation, proxy actors, and disinformation—often via Serbian networks and Orthodox Church links—to disrupt Euro-Atlantic integration. Influence operations peaked in the late 2010s following the Prespa Agreement with Greece. Tactics included propaganda and intelligence-driven subversion.

In both Serbia and North Macedonia, China has pursued a quieter path. It avoids direct confrontation with the EU agenda, instead promoting economic cooperation through infrastructure projects and trade. Its involvement—often via opaque loans and non-transparent procurement—undermines good governance by reinforcing corrupt practices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China successfully leveraged propaganda and disinformation to boost its image, often with the active participation of local actors such as President Vučić. Still, China’s approach remains firmly co-optative; subversion is rare, and coercion is not a preferred tool.

Overall, our analysis has found that significant EU influence on domestic political dynamics, including in the democratisation process, tends to be resisted by ruling elites through seeking geopolitical counterbalances. Such resistance is more effective, and EU’s influence less powerful, the more a country in question is geopolitically contested between the EU and its authoritarian rivals. Influence is also a function of the type of pressure coming from the EU. When the EU does not have the ambition to significantly influence and alter the domestic political landscape or when receiving countries already have well-established and consolidated autonomous international role and they avoid being tied to one only geopolitical option, then any influence coming from Europe will tend to be more limited. Conversely, countries and ruling elites with limited autonomous international role and less foreign policy clout are less likely to seek extensive geopolitical realignment and more likely to accept the geopolitical anchoring to the West and its democracy implications.

The autonomous role of domestic elites and their resistance to EU democracy influence tend to be facilitated and made easier by matching public attitudes in their respective countries. In every country case that we have studied, higher popular support for non-EU influence or for foreign relations that counterbalance the EU makes it much easier for political elites to challenge the conditions set by the EU and the democracy requirements that accompany EU ties. The resilience of (semi-)authoritarian elites is stronger in countries where the EU and its influence are not popular.

In contrast, the role of the economic dimension proved more complicated to gauge than what we had originally expected. Our analysis has shown that there is no straightforward correlation between economic ties and propensity to align politically or accept pro-democracy influence. Rather, what we have found is that political elites chart a policy path between economic benefits and political autonomy. Decisions are not determined by economic dependencies alone but are also highly influenced by domestic popular attitudes, historical legacies, ruling elites’ political strategies and broader geopolitical dynamics. The role of the economic dimension is dynamic and context specific, always shaped by political strategies, elite priorities and the broader societal context.

Conclusions

Across these three regions—North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans—several core conclusions emerge:

• Domestic factors are the primary obstacles to democratic development. Authoritarian norms, institutions, practices, and societal preferences, in combination with structural governance weaknesses, often present a complex, self-sustaining and with deep roots reality that severely challenges the EU’s ambitions for transformative influence. The EU’s transformative power, that comes through leverage (democratic conditionality) or diffusion (economic and societal linkages), can be drastically limited by the strong presence of these internal conditions.
• External authoritarian actors benefit from these domestic conditions both relatively and absolutely. In relative terms, the EU is at a disadvantage, providing rivals with a comparative edge. In absolute terms, domestic deficits—polarization, institutional fragility, underdevelopment, and state capture—create openings for external authoritarian influence. The motivations of EU’s authoritarian rivals—whether geopolitical rivalry or authoritarian promotion—are secondary to the methods used to achieve influence, as well as the outcome.
• Co-optation is the preferred method for both Russia and China. It is cost-effective and relies on partnerships with local elites. Subversion and especially coercion are riskier and more costly, potentially provoking backlash from within target states or from the EU. Coercive actions, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, can have unintended consequences, including closer alignment between the target and Western actors.
• Policy Implications

The case studies suggest that democracy promotion is not a technocratic process but a political contest. The EU’s credibility and effectiveness depend on three pillars: coherence, consistency, and contextual awareness.

• Coherence: The EU must align its strategic interests with its normative agenda, and this should be reflected by all EU actors – institutions and member states. Prioritizing short-term stability (e.g., on energy or migration) at the expense of democratic values weakens long-term influence. EU and member states should also work more to have their positions and agendas aligned. Internal divisions within the EU, especially when it comes to policies and ties that have impact on democracy, tend to dilute the EU’s message, undermine its leverage and make it overall less credible and relevant.
• Consistency: Conditionality must be applied uniformly. Turning a blind eye to democratic backsliding, as for example in Serbia, undermines incentives for reform in other countries.
• Contextual Awareness: Democracy promotion must be tailored to local conditions. Where public support for EU integration is high (e.g., Georgia, Ukraine), civil society should be a strategic ally. Where sovereigntist sentiment is strong (e.g., Algeria), EU engagement must be more subtle but no less principled.

Policy Recommendations

The changed geopolitical reality and pressing need for the EU to re-assert its influence in its immediate neighbourhood mandate a bolder approach in re-imagining the EU’s democracy support. Support for continuous democratization of the EU’s neighbourhood is an investment in the EU’s own security, reducing the space for manoeuvre of EU’s geopolitical rivals and building stronger allies that will be able to resist external actors’ pressure that indirectly affects EU’s interests (e.g., reducing migratory pressures, securing energy supplies, closing enforcement gaps in sanctions/restrictive measures, reducing disloyal competition for EU and local actors et al.). This is even more important as these countries progress towards EU membership, but also as means to address current loopholes and build resilience. The improved understanding of the specific links between democratization and geopolitics should translate into targeted policy improvements in several areas:

• Step up the geopolitical game: As both Russia and China speak the language of multipolarity, the EU needs to step up the game in demonstrating that its neighbourhood is its own “sphere of influence”. On the medium to long term, this can be achieved through a credible and consequential enlargement policy. On the short term, however, the European institutions and local EU actors (e.g, EU Delegations in the neighbourhood) need to be more vocal on geopolitical topics and call foul all direct attempts by both external and domestic actors to undermine democracy and European values, membership-related reforms and alignment with the acquis.
• Streamline gradual accession in CFSP: The gradual accession, that is the inclusion of negotiating countries in specific EU-level policies and instruments before membership, should extend to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Candidate countries with full CFSP alignment should be allowed to seat as observers in Council meetings where decisions are discussed. This will serve as encouragement to maintain full alignment, as well as incentive, through peer pressure, to candidate countries who are not fully aligned.
• Re-imagine democracy support in light of geopolitical needs: The new design and significant reduction in the volume of US Government funding has adversely affected democratization programs and projects in the EU’s neighbourhood. To mitigate the consequences, which are especially dire for civil society actors, the EU should re-design its democracy support programs in parallel with the adoption of the new MFF. While this would necessitate an increase in funding, streamlining to maximise the impact and better target the priorities is even more important, considering both the Court of Auditors’ recommendations and geopolitical challenges.
• Encourage local ownership: If they want to make progress in the accession process, candidate countries should take ownership of democracy promotion and contribute alongside the EU in supporting pro-democracy actors. While the EU should remain in charge of the rules, procedures and oversight, national governments should be asked to provide some amount of financial contribution (co-financing) to national democracy promotion programmes.
• Enhance resilience against foreign information manipulation: The EU should encourage candidate countries for EU membership to prioritise the adoption of its Foreign Interference and Manipulation of Information (FIMI) toolkit and align with the Digital Services Act, implementing stricter policies related to media and social media platforms’ control over information manipulation (content transparency, inorganic activity, state-controlled entities etc.). This should be teamed with support for media literacy programs, investigative journalism focusing on the dealings of third actors and their proxies, and media projects devising counter-narratives to the propaganda of external actors.
• Build economic resilience: The EU’s Economic Security Strategy should expand to include, both at the level of design and implementation, the countries in the EU neighbourhood. Their adoption of and alignment with specific instruments, like foreign direct investment screening mechanism or foreign subsidies regulation, have the potential to limit the economic penetration of external actors through their companies that often benefit from subsidies and/or undue practices, distorting the level-playing field to the disadvantage of local and EU companies.
• Improve strategic communication: While it cannot be expected that different EU actors, especially member states, speak with one voice on all topics of interests related to the EU’s neighbourhood, there should be clear strategic communication plans in place for each country. They should be regularly updated to identify and distinguish between (i) messages that form a clear consensus and need to be amplified, (ii) messages that may create unnecessary divisions, block democratization or empower external actors, hence need to be reviewed and addressed.

References

Armakolas, Ioannis 2023. “The Promise of European Integration: Breathing New Life into the Settlement of Bilateral Disputes”, Institute for Human Sciences – Europe’s Futures, www.iwm.at/europes-futures/publication/the-promise-of-european-integration-breathing-new-life-into-the

Bechev, Dimitar 2022. “The EU and Dispute Settlement: The Case of the Macedonian Name Issue”, East European Politics and Societies, 37 (2), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08883254221101905

Diamond, Larry 2008. “The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State”, Foreign Affairs, 87 (2), https://www.jstor.org/stable/20032579

Levitsky, Steven and Lucan A. Way 2005. “International Linkage and Democratization,” Journal of Democracy, 16(3): 20–34, www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/international-linkage-and-democratization/

 

The authors would like to thank EMBRACE project partners Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), Ukrainian European Studies Association (UESA) and Ilia State University for analysis of country cases that informed this policy paper and Isabelle Ioannides for feedback to earlier versions of this text. The authors alone are responsible for any errors.

 

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Az EP-képviselők határozottan elítélik az Ukrajnában elkövetett orosz háborús bűncselekményeket, és támogatásukról biztosítják a Nemzetközi Büntetőbíróság vizsgálatát.

Forrás : © Európai Unió, 2025 - EP

Three reports adopted on Wednesday highlight the urgent need for EU-related reforms, effective use of the Growth Plan and a decisive stance against foreign interference.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Avec Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master (Otapanje vladara, 2025), Ivan Salatić fait le pari de démystifier le prince-évêque et poète monténégrin Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (1813-1851), une figure littéraire, politique et religieuse dont l'impact ne se mesure plus sur le territoire post-yougoslave... Entretien.

- Articles / Monténégro, Culture et éducation, Histoire, Courrier des Balkans

À peu près tout a été dit sur « L'Espoir Malgré Tout », le Spirou en quatre volumes d'Émile Bravo, publié récemment par les éditions Dupuis en « intégrale », et initié par son « Journal d'un Ingénu » (2008), qui situait l'histoire en 1939. On pourrait ici décider de faire comme à l'école : lister citations et situations pour illustrer le talent de l'auteur et tout ce qui en fait une œuvre formidable d'humanité. Mais il serait beaucoup plus simple de se demander ce qu'il n'y a pas.

- Contrebande / Communisme, Seconde guerre mondiale, Bande dessinée

Perdues entre le Mozambique, les Comores et Madagascar, on appelle « îles Éparses » les petites possessions françaises du sud-ouest de l'océan Indien héritées de la colonisation : les Glorieuses, Juan de Nova, Europa, et Bassas da India — cette dernière parfois submergée à marée haute. Elles ne sont pas habitées en permanence, sinon par une mini-escouade de soldats et un gendarme ou un agent de Météo-France, relevés toutes les six semaines…

- Défense en ligne / France, Armée, Océan Indien

Comment expliquer l'inertie de la Ligue arabe et son incapacité à faire face à la guerre à Gaza, l'un des événements parmi les plus sanglants de l'histoire récente du Proche-Orient ?

- Horizons arabes / Monde arabe, Géopolitique, Palestine (Gaza)

The cease-fire is holding, Israeli hostages are being exchanged for Palestinian terrorists, and the stage is being set for further Israeli compromises.

What could go wrong?

Typical of the media agenda leading up to the cease-fire is the sloppy media narrative as per The Washington Post:

The conflict started when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage. The Israeli military responded with a brutal campaign that destroyed much of Gaza and killed at least 47,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children....in which:

• Hamas terrorists are described as "Hamas-led fighters
• The massacre is described merely as an attack, with no modifier
• While the Israeli retaliation is described with an added adjective as a brutal campaign
• At least 47,000 were killed -- despite analyses that dispute that number
• The Gaza Health Ministry is quoted, without mentioning it is controlled by Hamas
• The claim that the majority of those dead are "women and children" without mentioning contrary views
• No mention of what age range defines "children"
• No mention of the Hamas rockets landing in Gaza or how many Gazans killed by those rockets

Now, the media is framing the appropriate cease-fire narrative for their audiences. All this time, the media has carefully eschewed labeling Hamas as terrorists. This is hardly the time to describe the agreement as swapping of hostages for terrorists. Instead, we have descriptions along the lines of The New York Times:

Mere "prisoners"?

In the second paragraph, they clarify:

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, crowds of Palestinians held aloft the returning prisoners, many of whom had been jailed for deadly militant attacks against Israelis

Give The New York Times credit for at least admitting that the attacks were deadly. But many of them were guilty of "deadly attacks"?

Honest Reporting points out that actually the vast majority of the first batch of "prisoners" -- 83% -- were guilty of violent and deadly offenses.

f But the New York Times "admission" of deadly attacks does not stop them from gushing:


"One of the largest prisoner exchanges" -- a prime example of New York Times evenhandedness, equating hostages with terrorists, "some" of whom are serving life sentences, without any specifics as to why.

Speaking about that exchange, it is noteworthy that Hamas violated the agreement during the second exchange. As The Washington Post noted:Israel said Saturday that Hamas had violated the deal, which required it to release all living civilian women first. Israel had expected that Arbel Yehud, a 29-year-old civilian who was abducted with her boyfriend from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, would be among those in the Saturday release. [the article is reposted on msn.com]JNS therefore duly noted that Israel took measures to ensure that Hamas would follow through by releasing Israeli hostage Arbel Yehud as agreed:

But CNN's sloppily constructed headline could not be bothered with the facts:

The headline paints Israel in the worst possible light. It is not until the eighth paragraph that CNN deigns to inform us:Israel has been pushing for the release of Arbel Yehud, 29, who was kidnapped from her home in kibbutz Nir Oz. Israel says she is a civilian and should have been released Saturday.Not only does CNN bury this important detail, but they also make it seem that Israel is inconveniencing the hapless Hamas terrorist leaders by "pushing" for the release.

In case you are wondering just how many cease-fire violations is Hamas guilty of violating...

According to Haaretz, Hamas is guilty of 3 violations:The first, current phase of the deal was intended to be the simplest of the deal's proposed three phases. Both Hamas and Israel are thought to be committed to the so-called humanitarian part of the phase, but obstacles thrown up by both sides have threatened to stop the deal before it even began.

Hamas failed to submit to Israel the names of the hostages to be released in time, didn't release the civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud as promised and delayed issuing the list specifying which of the hostages designated for release are still alive. Israel, for its part, delayed allowing displaced residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes in response.The 3 Hamas violations are:

• Failing to submit to Israel the names of the hostages to be released in time
• Not releasing the civilian hostage Arbel Yehoud as promised
• Delaying issuing the list specifying which of the hostages designated for release are still alive

But wait! Israel also placed an obstacle preventing the smooth proceeding of the cease-fire. According to Haaretz, Israel put an obstacle in the way of the cease-fire by insisting on the release of a kidnapped hostage as per the agreement.

In their haste to be "fair" and find something to pin on Israel, Haaretz claims that "obstacles thrown up by both sides have threatened to stop the deal before it even began," But the one "obstacle" by Israel clearly happened after the cease-fire began.

Now the campaign to erase Hamas responsibility for the war begins, as CNN tells us that this is not Hamas's war at all:

After 16 months of war, we were inundated by the media agenda to reframe the Hamas massacre itself and the war that Israel had to wage to protect itself.
Now, we should prepare for the media's coverup of the cease-fire as well.

George Gilder is an American author and economist. His book, The Israel Test, was published in 2009. A new version of the book came out last year.

George Gilder (YouTube screencap)

What is so important about your book, The Israel Test, that it merits a new third edition?

The issues of The Israel Test are imperative for everyone to understand—a relaunch of the message of the essential book of my lifetime. I've been writing for nearly 70 years, and of all my books, I like The Israel Test best. It's the most personal of my books and the most fervent. It may be the most important. I write about entrepreneurship, I write about technology, I write about creativity as the paramount force in human life. It is all epitomized in the fabulous feats of Israel as the Startup Nation and now possibly the leader of the Free World.

I think Israel is transforming the world as we speak.

Briefly, what is the Israel Test?

The test is how people respond to those who excel in creativity, intellect, accomplishment, and wealth. Do you admire them and try to learn from them or do you envy them, resent them, and try to tear them down? This is the central test of the world economy and human life. When we resent those who excel us and attempt to suppress them, we doom our Human Experiment. To the extent that we admire them and emulate them, there are no limits to our achievements on this planet.

For whatever reason, most of the great breakthroughs of the century have come from Jews, and Israel now epitomizes this genius of the Jews. So when we attack Israel, we're really attacking the very source of human creativity and accomplishment in the world. That is the Israel Test.

U.S. corporations have some 70% of the global market cap and all the world's equity markets. When you examine the companies that account for this global leadership in the United States, they all have crucial, laboratories inventions, factories, research, and operations in Israel. People talk about Israel being dependent on the United States. But the U.S. is more dependent on Israel today than Israel is on the U.S. The United States is in a maelstrom at the moment, and Israel is really the inspirational leader of the world economy.

What are the biggest misconceptions about Israel's economy and the Israeli society that you debunk in your book?

First of all, the whole idea that Israel somehow is occupying something is just misconceived.

One of the reasons for the second edition of the book is that once, after I addressed a synagogue in Far Rockaway in New York, fifteen years ago, someone came up to me and gave me a beaten-up, frayed copy of a book by Walter Lowdermilk. That book is the basis for a couple of new chapters in the recent editions of The Israel Test.

Walter Lowdermilk was a Christian in the United States in the Agriculture Department under FDR. A heat wave had led to a terrible drought in the U.S. causing a crisis for US agriculture and for the West. Lowdermilk traveled around the world, in search of agricultural methods to meet this crisis. He ended up in then-Palestine and discovered amazing agricultural feats. This is back in 1938, before the establishment of the state of Israel. He found that the Jews had performed an agricultural miracle unparalleled anywhere else in the world.

Lowdermilk found that they had solved the water problem and made the desert bloom. In time, this led to desalination plants, drip irrigation, microirrigation, and the planting of a million trees. There is now an Israeli university with a Lowdermilk building because he became a hero and is recognized for his important contributions.

He reported that when the Jews moved to Palestine in the 19th century, there were only 200,000 to 300,000 Arabs in this wasteland that was really a desert. Their average lifespan was around 30 years old. When the Jews came and made the desert bloom, the Arabs crowded into Palestine to take advantage of these breakthroughs the Jews achieved. Jewish migration made a population of Palestinians possible. Without the Jewish immigration, there could not have been a sustained population because of the lack of water. Lowdermilk's book documents detailed observations and testimony about how the Jews transformed the desert and made Israel ultimately into the world's most Innovative agricultural country.

But Israel made a big mistake. They adopted socialism. By 1985, Israel was about over, approaching 1000% inflation with the economy on the verge of collapse. The Histadrut domination of banking had resulted in the bankruptcy of banks and the fall of the shekel. That was when the new government under Netanyahu led the transformation of Israel into a capitalist leader.

The real Israel Test came when Israel demonstrated that freedom, capitalism, and creativity enable human life and accomplishment. That vindication of capitalism, pioneered by Netanyahu, changed the Israel Test from a test of recognizing their agricultural changes to recognizing their technological changes. Israel was a key source of the success of Intel Corporation, the leading American semiconductor company. Nvidia achieved great success by buying an Israeli company called Melanox, making Nvidia one of the world's most valuable companies by enabling their Artificial Intelligence breakthroughs.

It begins with half the Nobel prizes and the serious Sciences and it goes on to the richest people in the world, to the most pioneering country in the world. And it's all ultimately a recognition of the incredible genius of the Jews.

The Israel Test is about how Israel's genius enriches the world.

Is the Israel Test of the Arabs different? Aside from the psychological and emotional elements of envy and hatred of the Jews, the Arab world also has a cultural aspect that you mention in your book: shame and honor. Going a step further, are those Arabs living in Israel under Jewish rule for the first time in Arab history being tested and challenged differently than any other people?

Israel is a democratic government that grants Israeli Arabs more rights than any other place in the world, except maybe the United States. Arabs do better in Israel than they do anywhere else. The million Arabs in Israel comprise 16% of all the engineers. The Arabs do well in Israel and do not support Hamas or Hezbollah activities. There are, of course, disgruntled Arabs. But I think that the Arab integration with Israeli Society and Israeli industry has been a lesson for the world and the Israel Test.

I've spent a lot of time in Israel, talking to Arab engineers. They are making crucial contributions. The ones who learn from the Jews rather than resent the Jews do brilliantly in Israel.

You write that capitalism is one of the best remedies for antisemitism. How does that work?

Capitalism is based on giving. A fundamental principle of capitalism is its dependence on the moral fabric that the Jewish and Christian traditions enabled. capitalism is the secret behind the emergence of Israel as the world's leading creative force and its world leadership. Israel did not become the Startup Nation until it adopted capitalism and they didn't employ all these Arabs either until it adopted capitalism.

Probably seven out of the ten richest people in the world are Jews. All their wealth is invested in projects and companies that employ millions of people around the world. This makes the continued triumph over human exigency possible. It explains why the genius of the Jews converges with the capitalist insights to make Israel's emergence as the leader of the West possible. Israel's amazing achievement is that this tiny country has accomplished so much, yet has only existed for 75 years. And it could only have happened with capitalism.

The American economist and political commentator Thomas Sowell makes an important observation. He studied minorities all around the globe. He acknowledges the incredible achievements of the Jews and of Israel as the spearhead. However, he also shows that a similar phenomenon exists in Asia with the overseas Chinese. There are some 40 million overseas Chinese, more overseas Chinese than there are Jews. It's not exactly comparable, but the overseas Chinese dominate the economies of Asia in the same way that Jews dominate the Middle Eastern economy--and the American economy for that matter. Millions of overseas Chinese have been killed in pogroms in Indonesia, for example. This ended up depleting the Indonesian economy for decades They imagined that the overseas Chinese were somehow stealing wealth instead of creating wealth. Wealth is created; it is not stolen.

You write that anti-Semitism withers in wealthy capitalist countries. But is that really true today?

We are slipping back into Socialism. The West is no longer so wealthy and our wealth does not distribute itself as thoroughly as in a free economy. We are socializing our economy in the name of climate change and other delusions that are inducing us to abandon capitalism. When we abandoned capitalism, people began to look for victims. They consider themselves victims and resent the wealthy. They start failing their Israel Test.

So it's not just because we're living post-October 7th?

That's right. Marxism is based on resentment of wealth. If you start resenting and tearing down wealth, you end up failing your Israel Test and bring about catastrophe. And that's our history.

One of the stories I like to tell is about World War II. It was won because the U.S. admitted Jews to lead the Manhattan Project and create the nuclear weapons that made the triumphs of the Western order possible. After the Second World War, democracy and capitalism were the fruit of the Manhattan Project, and the Manhattan Project was accomplished almost entirely by the Jewish scientists fleeing Europe.

John von Neumann is a great hero of the Israel Test. He was a pivotal figure both in the Manhattan Project and in the creation of the computer industry. He won his debate with Albert, Einstein and persuaded Israel to create a supercomputer and acquire nuclear power. Israel could not have survived without von Neumann's contributions. A Jew who fled Europe for the United States ultimately saved both Israel and The United States.

You mention the United States. Generally, antisemitism doesn't seem to be as large a problem here as it is in Europe. Why is that?

One of the reasons is that Europe accepted massive Muslim immigrants without requiring them to adopt the principles of a free society, and without requiring them to abandon their antisemitism. Europe got occupied. It's a terrible problem and it's why Trump's insight about immigration is so critical. You accept immigrants who accept the constitutional principles of your society, the key moral underpinnings of civilized society. An obsession with exterminating Jews is utterly inconsistent with the principles of any kind of free, civilized society. Europe accepted too many jihadists and it's changing their culture.

Eastern Europe is now becoming more prosperous than Western Europe because of this. It is not trivial. Eastern Europe refused Islamic migration and has managed to continue its capitalist prosperity. Poland is now one of the world's most creative and productive countries.

You write that Judaism perhaps more than any other religion favors capitalist activity and provides a rigorous moral framework for it. How so?

Capitalism is based on escape from materialism. It is based on the belief that human beings are created in the image of their Creator. These Judaic insights and principles help explain why Jews lead the world economy.

Is capitalism the escape from materialism? Some say capitalism is dependent on materialism.

No, it absolutely isn't. Many models imagine the economy is dominated by land, energy, resources, rare metals, or whatever claims they make. Actually, ideas are all the world has. As Thomas Sowell puts it, the Neanderthal in his cave had all the material resources that we have today The difference between our age and the Stone Age is entirely the triumph of intellect and ideas and the transcendence over our material bondage and our material entrapment.

What are Israel's biggest challenges in maintaining its economic growth?

Israel led the world in new venture capital in 2024. It grew its venture capital by 38% over 2024 while the U.S. expanded its venture capital, because of the advance of artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of AI on various industries. But even during this horrific war, Israel has expanded its economic leadership. That is why I say they are the leader of the West. They have to maintain their openness, creativity, and inventiveness. They can't retreat to the materialist superstition that wealth comes from the land. Israel demonstrates that wealth doesn't come from the land--it comes from the mind.

What would you like your readers to take away from The Israel Test, especially the younger readers, who may not be familiar with Israel's story?

They should understand that this is a world of abundance. They should be careful not to accept the materialist superstition that ends up resenting wealth by imagining wealth is something material that was stolen from them. And that's the crucial recognition.

We always face the Israel Test. We all have the propensity to envy people who excel us. We all feel that temptation. We must shun the material superstition and embrace the infinite possibilities of the human mind and creativity.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and concision

“If Hamas truly believes that the people, the Palestinian people are suffering, then why would they want to take this aid and use it for themselves to support their terrorist organization? One would hope that this aid will get to the people that are most deserving and in need.”
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder when asked how the US was going to ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians and not Hamas, March 8, 2024

Did Ryder really acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization and then in the same breath expect that those terrorists would happily share humanitarian aid with the rest of Gaza?

We shouldn't be all that surprised. Remember, this is the same administration where Biden himself wholeheartedly accepts -- and repeats -- the Hamas claim that 30,000 Gazans have died so far.

The Biden administration, like most of the West, has fallen for the Hamas propaganda -- hook, line, and sinker. That is the point made in a recent YNet article, The US sees situation in Gaza through Hamas' optics:Hamas uses the suffering of the people in Gaza for its propaganda purposes and for pressuring Israel. The fact that the U.S. has fallen for this Hamas tactic is no less than shocking. It only reinforces Hamas’ incentive to use the civilian population as a human shield since this strategy works - it is more harmful to Israel than it is to Hamas.Of course, we can make the argument that the Biden administration is not fooled by Hamas at all -- they are merely undercutting Israel because this is an election year and the powers that be are afraid of losing votes. But that interpretation doesn't make Biden look any better.
Either way, the administration is publicly accepting Hamas disinformation and reinforcing it. That only strengthens the terrorists in their strategy and encourages them to hold out while putting lives and the future of Gaza at stake. Biden says he wants stability, but his actions have the opposite effect.
The destruction of Hamas terrorists is not a stated goal. The foreign policy is even more wishy-washy.
For that matter, in the recent UN Security Council Resolution 2728, there is no linkage between a cease-fire and the release of the hostages. Hamas wins again. 

 The resolution fails to explicitly tie humanitarian aid to the release of hostages. The resolution merely puts the two issues side by side.
During Monday's Press Briefing, Matt Lee of the Associated Press pushed State Department Spokesperson, Matthew Miller on this point:QUESTION: So last week when you guys presented your resolution at the UN, there were complaints from people who said that it delinked the ceasefire from the release of hostages, and U.S. officials were rather vociferous in saying that that is not the case. However, what you guys abstained on today does appear to delink them. Is that your understanding of —


MR MILLER: So we don’t believe it delinks them. You see in the same paragraph it – the resolution calling for both a ceasefire and the release of hostages. It’s not the exact language that we would have put forward, obviously, because the language that we would put forward is the language that we did put forward last week, but it is language that is consistent with our policy to call for both a ceasefire and the release of hostages, and that’s why we did not exercise a veto today.

As I said, we did have concerns about the lack of other provisions in the resolution, but as it pertains to a ceasefire and the release of hostages, both the things that we called for were there in the resolution. A few moments later, Miller admits this resolution is toothless since it is non-binding. Matt Lee asks the obvious question:QUESTION: So what’s the point?

MR MILLER: Well —

QUESTION: Why did you —

MR MILLER: — you could ask that —

QUESTION: Why did you abstain? Why didn’t you veto?

MR MILLER: We didn’t veto because we thought the language in it was consistent with something that – the language as it relates to the ceasefire and release of hostages was consistent with the longstanding United States position.

QUESTION: So you don’t believe anything is going to happen as a result of the passage of this resolution.

MR MILLER: So I think that separate and apart from this resolution, we have active, ongoing negotiations to try to achieve what this resolution calls for, which is the – an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages. I don’t – I can’t say that this – this resolution is going to have any impact on those negotiations. Matt Lee


This whole drama leading up to passing a resolution for a cease-fire has all been for nothing. That fact leads to Lee's obvious question:If that’s the case, what the hell is the point of the UN or the UN Security Council?Miller admits the US is not looking to the UN to get things done. It is looking to negotiate in Qatar. That would be the same Qatar that supports Hamas and plays host to Hamas leaders. This is not exactly neutral territory.
Is it any wonder that Hamas has shown no inclination to surrender and is willing -- and confident -- in its strategy to sit and wait?
I recall that during the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter administration, some suggested that the Iranians would not have dared to try taking Russians hostage -- such was the fear that the Soviet Union inspired. 
That was then.
The ISIS massacre at the concert hall shows that those days are over. Ukraine's ability to hold out against Putin has seen to that.
The West will blame Israel for the Hamas massacre and for unrest in the Middle East. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the weakness and indecision of the once powerful "superpowers" is seen as an invitation to Islamists to renew and expand their jihad.