BALKAN STUDIES

HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MAY 17, 2017
Serial No. 115–47 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

Copyright: Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ Publication at RIEAS web site: (www.rieas.gr) on 12 March 2018

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Read more

Published by the Authority of the House of Lords
HOUSE OF LORDS Select Committee on International Relations
1st Report of Session 2017–19 HL Paper 53

Copyright: www.parliament.uk
Publication date at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 14 January 2018

Summary

In the 20th century, the Western Balkans endured a number of serious conflicts—each following periods of complacency, meddling or inattention from the international community, each expanding beyond the borders of the region, and each involving the UK. It is a region which, in many respects, remains in the shadow of the wars of the 1990s. Whereas many of its neighbours have progressed, political instability, inter-ethnic tensions and the competing influence of third countries have slowed progress towards regional reconciliation and greater consonance with the rest of Europe. The region suffers from authoritarian leadership, weak democratic institutions and serious challenges from organised crime and corruption. This situation is exacerbated by uncertainty about EU accession, a brain drain of young and educated people, and a rise in extremism and anti-democratic nationalism....Read more

Alexander Clapp
(Journalist based in Athens. His work has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement and The National Interest)

Copyright: https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/01/05/new-greek-oligarchy/

The strange saga of a Greek-Russian tobacco tycoon shows how crisis-era Greece has regressed into a post-Soviet-style oligarchy.
Ivan Ignatyevich Savvidis has played many unusual roles in his life—one of the great tobacco tycoons of Eurasia, a member of Russia’s Duma, a confidante of Vladimir Putin —but it is his latest one that is now sounding off alarm bells throughout Europe. Savvidis is the parvenu of Greece’s oligarchic scene. Since the onset of the economic crisis, he has effectively seized personal ownership over vast sectors of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city and its maritime gateway to the Balkans. The fire sale of old state assets—an auctioning process ordained by the European Union as part of its enforcement of economic austerity, but which has become overwhelmingly rigged by vested political interests within Greece—has given Savvidis a rare opportunity to invest hundreds of millions of euros into his ancestral homeland. A soccer team, a grand luxury hotel, a tobacco conglomerate, a water-bottling company, a fleet of beach resorts, a television station, a trio of newspapers, great stretches of coastline and blocs of Thessaloniki real estate, the port of Salonika and its industrial warehouses: these are but a few of the holdings that Savvidis has quietly acquired in the last eight years. The buying spree has lately given rise to a strange new coinage across the newspaper headlines and streets of his adopted city: Ivanaptiksi, “prosperity emanating from Ivan.” Read more

Muslims are projected to increase as a share of Europe’s population – even with no future migration







Copyright: http://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/ 
Publication date on RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 23 December 2017

In recent years, Europe has experienced a record influx of asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in Syria and other predominantly Muslim countries. This wave of Muslim migrants has prompted debate about immigration and security policies in numerous countries and has raised questions about the current and future number of Muslims in Europe. Read more

Joshua Rovner
(Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University. He is the author of Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Cornell, 2011), and writes widely about intelligence and strategy).

Copyright: https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/thucydides-long-war-problem/ Publication at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 15 December 2017

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment of “The Brush Pass,” a new column by Joshua Rovner (@joshrovner1) on intelligence, strategy, and statecraft.

Is there anything left to say about Thucydides?

In a year dominated by concerns over modern technologies — ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads, and cyber weapons — scholars have spent a remarkable amount of time arguing about a very old conflict. Thucydides’ classic history of the Peloponnesian War documents the catastrophic fight between Athens and Sparta from 431–404 BC. It was a horrendous affair. Conventional combat, gruesome disease, mass murder, and civil war tore apart the fabric of the ancient Greek world. The post-war was chaotic, violent, and impoverished. Read more

Fragoulis S. Fragos
( Ret-General, Greece)

Copyright: http://greece4greeks.blogspot.gr/
Publication at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 4 December 2017

Honorable Minister,

Your Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America,

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening.

Energy is not only difficult to find but it is the driving force behind political developments and re-alignments. All wars were fought due to competing interests, and this holds even truer for larger conflagrations. The most important of these were primarily triggered by the struggle over energy resources. ..Read more