Tunisia is often deemed the main success story of the “Arab Spring” after long-term dictator Ben Ali was ousted ten years ago. But in the first contribution of our series “Reminiscence of the future”, Rim Benrjeb writes about a revolutionary spirit that is in danger of falling asleep, patriarchal and state violence, and the impossibility of discussing all of this with one's own father.

The EU’s southern flank has been under immense security pressure by external actors recently. These security challenges require the EU to adopt a holistic approach and address a range of complex regional issues, making use of a wide range of tools.

The EU strives for strategic sovereignty and the capability to master global politics. The crisis in Belarus presents an opportunity for Brussels to contribute to stability in its eastern neighborhood. In order to support a democratic transfer of power in Minsk, however, the EU must enhance its engagement across five areas.  

The vision of a strategically autonomous Europe is not met with great enthusiasm in Poland and the Baltic states. On the contrary, the preferences between Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn point to a renewal of the transatlantic bond and a stronger NATO in order to contain the challenges represented by Russia and China.

President Macron has been promoting the concept of European sovereignty and strategic autonomy for quite some time. His vision of a strategically autonomous Europe is based on the premise of profound geopolitical shifts and a new reality of big power rivalries. Still, Paris will have to convince skeptical EU Member States about the soundness of this concept.