Safe Democracy Foundation - Safe Democracy

Struggle for power in the Region

Asoka Ranaweera explores the history and present-day oil conflicts within the little known region of the Caspian Sea. Ever since the discovery of abundant resources in the region, the world’s nations have been vying for control over the land not only within a market context, but also on geopolitical, and ethno-linguistic levels. Ranaweera argues that the world has entered into a second Great Game, much more complex than the first and with much more at stake.

Miguel Angel Benedicto discusses the progress of negotiations for Turkey’s membership into the European Union and the conditions that the European Parliament has set on Ankara. Despite Ankara’s battle against torture, corruption, and the violation of women’s rights, 48 percent of Europeans are against Turkey’s integration into the European Union. In Benedicto’s opinion, the interruption in negotiations could endanger the establishment of ties between the East and the West. Will it be possible to salvage the almost inevitable train wreck?

Miguel Angel Benedicto explains the crisis of the European Union, which is stuck behind an impasse of inefficiency: unable to act but in starts and leaps and following its impulses rather than working collectively. Benedicto believes that responding to day-to-day problems is not enough. The pressing issues of expansion, immigration, foreign policy, globalization, and the distribution of energy require intelligent planning, and frameworks for action for which the EU is unprepared. In order to avoid paralysis, the EU must put radical reforms into action to create change for both the short and long term.

Javier Ortiz explains how, six months after ETA’s call for a definitive ceasefire, peace may fail in Basque country. In Ortiz’s opinion, the peace has grown stale because no one –neither the Spanish Government, nor the opposition of the Popular Party, nor the Socialist Party of Euskadi, nor ETA, nor the illegal political party Batasuna– is willing to make the first move toward compromise. Each player seems to be waiting for the others to capitulate, out of a sense of responsibility, and so no one is budging, consequently the stagnant peace process could likely fail.

Per Persson examines the overwhelming defeat of the Social Democratic Party in the recent elections and explains why, after more than twelve years of uninterrupted governance, the Swedish people have decided to change governments. Not only did the Social Democratic Party fail to outline its plan to create more jobs, but as rigid political lines blur, and all parties drift towards the center, the renewed and revitalized Moderaterna (Moderate) Party and its center-right Alliance were able to attract a vast majority of the votes to lead them to an overwhelming victory. In Persson opinion, this victory presents a golden opportunity for the new majority government of the Alliance and Prime Minister Reinfeldt, to lead the newly transformed Swedish politics towards important, lasting change.