The German environment minister Norbert Röttgen (CDU) revived the German debate about the future of nuclear power in February when he argued for a limited lifetime extension of Germany’s nuclear plants.

8 % of worldwide gas reserves are located on the African continent. Its relative economic weakness and the almost total absence of gas networks leads to a very reduced interior consumption (almost nonexistent outside Algeria and Egypt) which permits an important export capacity of the continent’s gas. Linking Sub-Saharan-Africa and the European Union (EU) with a gas pipeline thus is a reasonable project in economic terms.

Sub-Saharan African hopes of democratization raised by the end of the cold war and the decline in the number of single party states are giving way to disillusionment. Today, even countries such as Senegal and South Africa, reputed for their democratic nature, are threatening to veer towards authoritarianism.

The European gas market has an unusually large number of moving parts just now. Demand forecasts are buffeted by announcements of great expectations in de-carbonizing the energy mix, differing expectations on the longer term economic growth path and a range of assessments on how soon Europe will recover from the economic recession.

The Lisbon Treaty was meant to mark the dawning of a new era for the EU. But as this issue of Politique étrangère demonstrates, the present outcome, which is only in part the result of the Treaty, is far from satisfactory.

The present paper aims to describe the vitality and complexity of bilateral trade along the Sino-Myanmar border. 

An Interim Agreement on Trade and Trade related aspects (ITA), signed between the European Community and Serbia in April 2008, entered into force on February 1, 2010. This ITA, as a part of the Stabilization and Association Agreement, “establishes a bilateral free trade area over a period lasting a maximum of six years starting from the entry into force of this Agreement in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement and in conformity with those of the GATT 1994 and the WTO”.

On 3rd of March, the European Commission will publish its final proposal for the new EU 2020 strategy, which will replace the Lisbon Agenda. A few days ahead, we may ask: were lessons drawn from past mistakes? Does the current commission draft look different?