China and Africa share a strong relationship since the wave of African independences in the 1960s. Nevertheless, China-Africa trade has experienced an unprecedented surge since the late 1990s and has been accompanied by the rise of a discourse of "win-win" partnership between China and Africa. 

Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the Bundeswehr has been led to refocus on territorial defense and collective security, which constituted the core of its activity for decades. This evolution break with the long period of efforts during which the Bundeswehr painfully tried to transform itself into an intervention army.

The current geopolitical situation has disrupted the European and global order, which were both consolidated in the 1990s and have been key factors in the modern German model. The Franco-German duo is currently facing new challenges and it will have to respond appropriately in a time when the EU’s global influence is shrinking in the face of what some analysts call a “new Cold War”.

A rapidly-expanding market

After several decades of reforms, the situation in centralized power sectors has hardly changed. The sub-Saharan power sector remains underdeveloped, and power sectors are experiencing significant financial difficulties that have been further exacerbated first by the effects of the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has underlined the need to upgrade the European armed forces, the urgency of the fight against climate change—as illustrated by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—requires the political mobilization of the European Union (EU) to carry out the transition to climate neutrality.

For decades, the large Groningen gas field has been a central pillar of the Dutch welfare state. The availability of gas was so self-evident that many generations still identify with the slogan “Nederland gasland” (“The Netherlands, a gas country”). The nearing end of Dutch gas now requires a mentality shift.

Facing multiple crises, the European Commission (EC), backed by European Union (EU) Member States, has embarked on a pathway to accelerate the decarbonization of the EU energy system, while fostering its resilience and accelerating the roll out of hydrogen and derivative by-products.