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The European Commission announced on Tuesday (20 August) that import volumes of Ukrainian honey had exceeded the limit fixed in the regulation setting trade benefits for Kyiv, triggering the reintroduction of tariff quotas.

On a return to Shanghai, our columnist takes note of how rising inequality is leading many Chinese to vote with their feet.

Summary and Key Points: The war in Ukraine has underscored the continued relevance of main battle tanks in modern warfare, despite previous predictions of their obsolescence.

-The Russian military's heavy losses have led it to deploy outdated tanks from the 1950s and 1960s.

-Meanwhile, Russia's supposedly advanced T-14 Armata tank has been plagued by development issues and has seen limited deployment in Ukraine, likely due to fears of exposing its vulnerabilities.

-The T-14's future is uncertain, with the possibility that ongoing problems and high costs may lead to its abandonment or a complete redesign.

Russia's T-14 Armata: A High-Tech Tank with a Troubled Future

If the war in Ukraine has taught one lesson above all other, it is that main battle tanks are still very important in modern warfare.

Before Russia invaded in 2022, plenty of observers thought tanks would be irrelevant in a conflict between two states. Indeed, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a stalwart supporter of Ukraine, opined as recently as November 2021 about the end of the tank era. 

But tanks keep on rolling. Battlefield demand for the steel behemoths is so high that the Russian military is pushing into service ancient vehicles from the 1950s and 1960s to replace its more than 3,000 tanks destroyed thus far. To an outsider, this decision is that much odder given that Moscow has in its arsenal one of the most advanced tanks in the world: the T-14 Armata. 

Or does it? 

The T-14 Armata and Its Ongoing Problems 

The T-14 Armata is a main battle tank weighing approximately 55 tons and equipped with a 125 mm main cannon. It requires a crew of three men (commander, driver, and gunner) and uses an automatic loading system for the main gun, much like other Soviet- and Russian-made tanks. 

In development for over a decade, the T-14 Armata has been plagued by mechanical and technological issues. To date, the Russian military has only received a handful of T-14 tanks. 

The Kremlin has claimed at specific points in the conflict that its forces deployed the T-14 Armata in Ukraine. TASS ran a story about how the new Russian main battle tank was performing in Ukraine, highlighting that it was deployed for the sake of experimentation, to ensure the T-14’s features fit modern operational realities. 

“The Armata tank was used several times in the combat zone in Ukraine. Based on the results of the use in the special operation, the vehicle is now being finalized,” Russian defense officials told TASS. 

But Ukrainian officials and Western intelligence estimates dispute Russian claims about the T-14’s combat experience. Instead of seeing combat against the Ukrainian military’s Western weapons systems, a handful of T-14 Armatas were restricted to areas close to the battlefield. This is in line with how the Kremlin is seen treating other modern weapons like the S-500 Prometheus air defense system and Su-57 Felon fighter jet. Moscow has held these systems back, most likely fearing humiliation. 

With the Russian military mired in Ukraine and no hopes of a quick victory, it is becoming increasingly likely that the T-14 Armata won’t see the end of this decade unless something radically changes. The mounting costs of the Armata and its continuing mechanical and technological issues will likely force the Russian military to ditch the project or order a complete redesign that better matches the capabilities of the Russian defense industry. 

About the Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock. 

Over the past decade, the European Union has increasingly experimented with novel forms of public engagement, most recently as part of a New Push for European Democracy. A paradigm of deliberative and participatory innovation that envisages unmediated forms of citizen involvement is advocated by a network of political actors, civil society organisations, and academics. The European Commission in particular has sponsored processes that engage (small sets of) citizens in dialogues and mini-publics; institutional competition over a discourse of “citizen centred” democracy has the European Parliament propose a European Agora with citizens “deliberating on the EU’s priorities” on a regular basis. 

An important narrative justifying the salience of such institutional innovations is that Europeans want greater citizen involvement – which pertains to broader claims about shifting expectations towards democratic politics as citizens would seek more individualised and direct forms of participation. Initiatives such as the Conference on the Future of Europe are said to bolster the democratic legitimacy of the EU because participatory and deliberative innovations could answer such a demand. Crucially, this narrative is anchored in statistical evidence: the public resonance of participatory innovations are connected to (very) large majorities of survey respondents supporting notions such that “citizens should have a bigger say in EU decision making” (Bertelsmann; cf. Eurobarometer) – an empirical proposition that also features in domestic contexts such as the first citizens’ assembly of the German Parliament. 

However, political psychology and public opinion scholarship caution us against straightforward interpretations of this kind of survey data – least to infer strong expectations about the legitimation and trust-building value of participatory and deliberative innovations. Both regarding general statements about citizens’ “say” or “voice” as well as responses to specific forms of involvement such as mini-publics (e.g. PEW), it remains unclear what (different groups of) citizens mean when they react to these questions. The issue is exacerbated in the context of public perceptions of the EU which are mediated by ambivalence, misinformation, and the strong role of national frames for opinion formation. 

How do citizens form opinions on participatory innovations? 

Against this background, my research scrutinises the narrative about the public resonance of citizens involvement in the EU and poses the question: how do different groups of EU citizens form opinions about participatory innovations (PIs) such as mini-publics? While there is a growing body of scholarship that seeks to measure the effects or the external legitimacy of PIs, the state of the literature remains ambivalent: not only is there conflicting evidence but consistent findings e.g. about the influence of demographic or political factors are open to various theoretical interpretations. 

To get a better understanding of the way that citizens form opinions about PIs, I develop a qualitative empirical design that utilises (focus) group interviews to gauge the discourse of participants in three Western EU member states. 32 groups of three to four participants (n=120) were sampled in Germany, Ireland, and Italy on the basis of education, residence (urban/rural), and political vote choice (GAL-TAN). To further address methodological limitations of existing studies, video vignettes were developed which introduce a participatory and deliberative decision-making scenario in a realistic way. 

Fieldwork in Italy: group interviews 

The costly fieldwork was kindly supported by a UACES scholarship, which allowed us to host eight group interviews in the North and in the South of Italy. With my co-author, Elena Pro, we recruited participants in Tuscany and Campania and conducted the interviews in Florence and Naples – with further support at the EUI and Parthenope University. 

With a view to the practical requirements of the research design, I could not have realised the project without the additional support from UACES. It was crucial to travel to the field in-person: Outsourcing recruitment and/or moderation would not only have been beyond the budget of my doctoral research but also methodologically risky in that I would have lost significant control over the process. The scholarship subsidised expenses for two one-week field trips in April and July. 

Funding for doctoral research 

I am grateful for the support by UACES, which allowed me to study how Italian citizens form opinions about participatory and deliberative innovations in the EU. Dedicated research and fieldwork grants for doctoral students are scarce, while the possibilities to collect original empirical data as part of a PhD seem greater than in the past. Digital applications and connectivity lower the bar to implementing comprehensive research designs and the UACES grant allows early-career scholars like me to realise them as part of their PhD.

The post Forming opinions about participatory innovations in the EU – fieldwork in Italy, supported by UACES appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The European Commission lowered its proposed tariffs on China-made electric vehicles (EVs) on Tuesday (20 August) and offered one of the clearest signals yet that it was open to resolving the long-running trade dispute through negotiations, in a move that could ease flaring trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

DÉCRYPTAGE - Désormais à la tête de son propre groupe à l’Assemblée, le président contesté des LR prépare sa rentrée politique.

A close reading of two books by authors who advise Kamala Harris reveals a vision for a humbler approach to foreign policy.

Just ten EU countries have submitted their long-term climate action plans to Brussels, with Austria being the most recent, as large countries like Germany and Spain continue to disregard the June 2024 deadline.

Meet Sly, a young BMXer in Lagos who is looking to outride the boys and turn professional.

Aid to Africa and the climate conference circuit are fundamentally flawed, requiring an overhaul of the international institutions’ missions.

Der Krieg im Sudan hat die größte Flüchtlingskrise der Welt ausgelöst. Die USA organisierten internationale Verhandlungen in der Schweiz, um den Krieg zu beenden – aber die Armee des Landes nahm gar nicht erst teil. Sudan-Experte Gerrit Kurtz sieht vor allem einen Akteur kritisch.

De nombreux Haïtiens semblent frustrés et désillusionnés par le fait que les forces de sécurité du Kenya n'aient pas agi plus rapidement et de manière plus décisive contre les gangs et leurs chefs.

Élus dans le cadre d’une alliance entre Éric Ciotti et le Rassemblement national, ces 16 parlementaires font leur rentrée dans un contexte singulier.

Son émission hebdomadaire, 24 minutes avec Zoran Kesić, est devenue un rendez-vous incontournable en Serbie depuis 2013. Avec humour, le présentateur passe au peigne fin l'actualité de la semaine, donnant à voir toute l'absurdité du jeu politique. Portrait.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Personnalités, Médias

President Joe Biden cemented the Democratic Party's elevation of Kamala Harris to lead the fight for the White House against Republican Donald Trump with a convention speech on Monday (19 August).

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about an alleged leftist plot to investigate Meloni's sister, Slovakia's ice hockey team reinstating players competing in the Russian KHL, and so much more.

Nicaragua on Monday (19 August) shuttered 1,500 NGOs, bringing to more than 5,000 the number of such entities scrapped in a crackdown on opponents by President Daniel Ortega.

A European Commission deadline for Hungary to respond to questions about the easing of entry requirements for Russian and Belarusian nationals expired on Monday (19 August).

Cyprus will propose former agriculture minister Costas Kadis as a new EU commissioner, the government in Nicosia announced on Monday (19 August).

Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.