Europe

The Russian political and economic system is shaped by informal rules and personal ties and driven by corruption as an integral part of the system rather than an exception. What kind of strategies have Russian elites developed to export these rules to the European Union and how do they influence politics in former post-Soviet countries like Ukraine? Is Russia successful in influencing Western policies and public opinion through informal networks and the media?

While political and public concerns about the reliability of Russian gas supplies have been driving the debate about the EU’s energy security for several years, the conflict in Ukraine and the European Commission’s proposal to establish an energy union have furthered it significantly. In order to discuss the latest developments, the DGAP and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom invited a panel of experts to assess the EU’s current energy security prospects.

Politische Entscheidungsträger, Verwaltungsbeamte und Think-Tank-Analysten aus der Region trafen vom 29. bis 30. Juni in Berlin zusammen, um Zukunftsszenarien zur Reform der öffentlichen Verwaltung zu entwickeln.

Public administration constitutes a vast area for reform in the countries of the Western Balkans. Political leaders have committed themselves to creating a professional, depoliticized, transparent, and service-oriented public sector – a requirement that also ranks highly on the EU’s priority list for future member states. But will reform efforts succeed in the long run? And what might public administration in the Western Balkans look like in ten years?