Abstract
The economic integration of Europe has almost come to a end. The single market, the single currency and the common marketing policy are the result of a unique world enterprise which strongly contributes to ensure peace and prosperity on the continent. Is it necessary to continue to transfer other national competencies? With regard to the economic questions, the answer is largely negative. Whether taxation or social policies, the divergences reflect deep differences in national preferences. The risks of dumping are real but are often exaggerated, insufficient in any case to justify new transfers of sovereignty. The priority is no longer 'more Europe'. The challenge in the years to come is to call into question what does not function well.

Charles WYPLOSZ is Professor of International Economics at the Institut universitaire des hautes études internationales in Geneva and Director of the Centre international d'études monétaires et bancaires. His works deal with monetary and budget policies and the integration process in Europe.

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Abstract
Since the 1990s, growth in the EU15 has been weak. The share of the EU15 in world production has been declining below that of the US and the transatlantic gap has increased to reach 30%. The EU as a trade area has also become more open to global flows, including from emerging countries. The weakness of innovation-based growth in Europe has become a major issue on the EU agenda. The Lisbon Strategy (2000) aimed precisely at strengthening the EU's potential growth. The heterogeneity of the EU and the Union's limited competencies in such policy areas as labor markets and innovation have hindered progress towards the Lisbon objectives which depend on a better identification of the respective roles of national and EU policies.

Frédérique SACHWALD is Head of Economic Studies at Ifri and her present works deal with the impact of global production and innovation networks rising on productive systems, in the advanced countries like developing ones.

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Abstract
The European Union has a tradition of using its external trade policy as an instrumentof diplomacy, as a basis to further its own development. It also attemptsthereby to lean on its partners, so that the latter may come to respect its norms andpoints of reference. The limits of this de facto external policy are howeverincreasingly obvious: these are linked in particular to the internal divergenceswhich exist between different members of the Union, as well as to the evolution ofconditions external to the Union, such as the WTO negociation rounds, the rise ofChina as a superpower, or policies stemming from the American and Japanesecompetitors. Can the EU have a common trade policy which carries decisiveweight, without at the same time holding a global diplomatic vision?

Raphaël DELPECH is Research Fellow at the Centre de recherche européen of Bayonne (France) and Legal Adviser marketing policy Subdirectorate and investment of the General Direction of the Treasury and the Economic Policy.

Jean-Marie PAUGAM, former student of the École nationale d'administration, is Research Fellow at Ifri. He was an adviser near the Minister for the Economy, Finances and Industry (2001-2002), and represented France at the Committee of marketing policy of the European Union.

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Abstract
Trapped in a US-dominated environment, the Syria of Bachar Al-Assad lives under a strong injunction to democratize. What kind of political and social reactions does such international pressure arouse in the domestic arena? The regime itself adopted a reformist stance and pretends to aim at political liberalization. However, it gave priority to economic growth and the kind of unruly capitalism it enhances leaves little hope for a democratic transition. Non Governmental Organizations and secular political parties are caught between governmental strategies of coopation and exclusion. As for the Islamic movements, outlawed for the past 25 years, they might mobilize a frustrated eighty percent of the Sunni population. In this critical juncture, the ruling coalition appears weakened.

Elizabeth PICARD, Director of research at the Institut de recherches et d'études sur le monde arabe et musulman (CNRS-IREMAM), teaches in the Institut d'études politiques of Aix-en-Provence (France). She has published La Nouvelle Dynamique au Moyen-Orient: les relations entre l'Orient arabe et la Turquie (Paris, L'Harmattan, 1993) and Lebanon, A Shattered Country: Myths and Realities of the Wars in Lebanon (New York, Holmes & Meier Publishers, 2002).

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Abstract
The oil-kingdoms of the Gulf have been very responsive to the Bush Administration's appeal to democratization. As a matter of fact, countries like Kuwait and Bahrain have quite a long experience in political participation as their regimes always had to deal with civil societies. However, while both countries have elected parliaments, their democratic institutions have always had to fight against the authoritarian tendencies of the rulers. Indeed, the latter conceive political participation as a way to strengthen their power. The need is all the more urgent for them now that the welfare state they set up following the oil-boom of the 1970s is on the verge of collapse, putting in question the notion of citizenship as a set of exclusively social rights.

Laurence LOUER is Research Fellow at the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) and Permanent Consulting at the Centre d'analyse et de prévisions (CAP) of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry. Specialist in the Arab Middle East, she works on the Gulf area and has written Les Citoyens arabes d'Israël (Paris, Balland, 2003).

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Abstract
This article deals with the electoral process that has taken place in Palestine since the death of Yasser Arafat. It tackles the issue of the internal and regional political changes that have followed Mahmoud Abbas' arrival as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA). What are the links between the Palestinian-Israeli diplomatic agenda and the political liberalization of the Palestinian institutions? And to what extent can the victory of an islamic party affect the opening and development of peace negotiations? The PA is currently trying to stop in some ways the democratic process, fearing an Hamas overwhelming landslide. The Authority is supported in that scenario by the European Community, the United States and Israel, which would have preferred another more 'moderate' majority on the scene.

Aude SIGNOLES is a Lecturer at the University of Réunion, specialist of Palestine. She's the Head of a research program on the Palestinian communities at the Institut d'études sur l'islam et les sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM, Paris) and Associate Researcher at the Institut de recherches et d'études sur le monde arabe et musulman (IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence).

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Abstract
The crisis of the Ivory Coast is rich in general lessons, on the impossible setting in supervision of the companies by international institutions, whose strategies are often contradictory; on the manufacture of the instrumentalized representations through media systems; on the dynamics of external alliances from the opposite factions; on the return, vis-a-vis a process seen like a recolonization, to precolonial registers of action and fight, with a strong ethnic component.

Michel GALY Political Analyst, is Research Fellow at the Centre d'études sur les conflits (Paris) and at the Centre de recherche of the Écoles de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan (CREC).

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Résumé
The coup d'etat (August 3, 2005) overthrew Maaouya Ould Sid' Ahmed Taya (1984-2005), whose internal management (fallen through democratic turning) and choices of foreign politics (bringing together with the United States and fights at their side against international terrorism...) had made very unpopular. The new transition authority, directed by colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, will undoubtedly not inflect these main axes: fight against international terrorism, problem of the Western Sahara. It will have to act quickly on two files intern alarming: the question of the refugees and the control of the economic capacity by some 'oligarchical' groups. Failing this, functioning today with the same men, it will quickly be regarded as the new preparing of an unchanged mode.

Alain ANTIL, Doctor in Political Geography, is a Associated Researcher at Ifri, Specialist in Sahelian and West Africa. He is currently part-time Lecturer at the Institut d'études politiques (IEP) of Lille. Alain Antil is the Author of the report of the International Crisis Group (ICG), The Islamist Challenge in Mauritania: Threat or Scapegoat? (2005).

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Abstract
The Franco-British relationship, with respect to Europe in a historical context, demonstrates that, despite the absence of any ongoing dialogue about the EU's project, there have been significant moments when the French and British have been more convergent than divergent. Moreover, despite how their approach to social and economic policy defines the polarization of policy preferences, they are both seeking, in the context of globalization and the Lisbon Strategy, to discover a socioeconomic formula for high growth, low unemployment and low inequality. The Franco-British dialogue over Europe therefore lies at the heart of the EU's current self-interrogation over the way forward.

Jolyon HOWORTH is Professor Jean Monnet of European policy at the University of Bath (the United Kingdom) and professor invited to the University of Yale (the United States). He is a Associated Researcher at Ifri and Author of (with Anand Menon) de The European Union and National Defence Policy (Londres, Routledge, 1997); L'Intégration européenne et la défense: l'ultime défi? (Paris, IES-UE, 2000); (with John T.S. Keeler) Defending Europe: The EU, NATO and the Quest for European Autonomy (Londres, Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).

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Abstract
The Bush Administration launched in 2004 the 'Global Posture Review'. This plan will, over several years, reorganize the ways US forces are stationed or deployed overseas, therefore amounting to the biggest change in the US military's overseas posture since the end of the Cold War. The major objectives of the realignment are to alleviate political constraints stemming from foreign governments, increase US freedom of action, reposition US forces closer to the 'arc of instability', and experiment with stationing US troops in and around Africa or Central Asia. Such an ambitious plan is fraught with risks, notably whether this extension of the US global security perimeter will be supported domestically and whether it will overextend the US armed forces internationally.

Etienne de DURAND, Specialist of strategic and military issues, is Research Fellow at the Security Studies Department at Ifri and teaches at the École spéciale militaire of Saint-Cyr (Coëtquidan) and at the Institut d'études politiques of Paris.

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Abstract
For a majority of observers, the political reality of the North Korea system is today divided into two potential scenarios: reform or collapse. These two readings are the basis element of the North Korea conundrum referred to a fundamental debate on the choice of the political option confronting to such a regime: dialogue or military option. Above these two binary notations, an alternative analysis is emerging on the fact that perhaps the North Korean leadership is building the conditions of a political transition based on the liability of an economical reform. The main problem lies in the capabilities of the regime to reform itself. In the absence of an ideological aggiornamento, as China did, the North Korean regime is condemned to sink.

Marianne PÉRON-DOISE Part-Time Lecturer at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO, Paris) and at the Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS, Paris), works on the Asian problems of safety, in particular in Korean peninsula and in Japan, like on the maritime aspects of the policies of defense of the principal Asian States.

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Abstract
This article examines the role of the US government's perceptions in shaping the conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq. It insists on the potency of universal values such as 'freedom': breaking the binds of tyranny is thus expected to trigger a spontaneous process of democratization -construed with Americanization- an assumption that forms the basis of a policy bent on society transformation while neglecting the very relevance of Nation Building. Both by letting loose local politics and structuring the political processes according to a simplistic understanding of the Iraqi and Afghan societies, the US triggered instead dynamics of fragmentation along sectarian and regional lines, yet paradoxically reinforced the preconceived categories on which they based their policies.

Gilles DORRONSORO, Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, is Member of the Centre de recherches internationales de la Sorbonne (CRIS, Paris).

Peter HARLING is Senior Analyst in charge of Iraq at the International Crisis Group (ICG), and Associated Research Fellow at the CRIS.

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Abstract
After years of self sufficiency, China has become a net importer of oil. This evolution creates an increasing feeling of vulnerability toward the outside world. The main discourses on energy is founded on a 'security' and balance of power analysis: there is a stress on the illusionary will to control sources of supply by building 'privileged' relationships, rather than participating to an energy framework on a multilateral and cooperative basis. The way China is trying to deal with the energy issue is a good tool for evaluating the degree that China is integrating into the regional or global post cold-war system. It is in this framework that the energy components of the Sino-Japanese relationship, and its influence on relations with third significant parties like Russia, must be analyzed.

Valérie NIQUET, Director of the Centre asie Ifri, is a Professor at the Collège interarmées de défense (CID-École militaire) where she teaches Geopolitics of China. Sinologist and Japonologist, with a Ph. D in Political Science, and Translator of major works of the Chinese strategic thought, she is a specialist in the strategic and military issues in Asia.

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