Diplomacy and International Politics

The Project on Europe hosted a post-COP 26 discussion about how European integration of a climate change agenda is now at the very center of its political project. Europe is exiting almost two decades of existential crisis during which it lost its narrative: it no longer had a compelling story to tell. It has now found it once again. Today, a green Europe represents a normative vision, an economic growth strategy, as well as a route to a political Union: it promises to be the new narrative to revive the European project. Precisely because it is so existential for the future of Europe, getting both the story and the practice right is crucial. This is a tall order.

A normative vision for the future, it represents both a clear growth strategy and a route to a political union for the bloc. Yet, as has been made clear at the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow this week, the EU — responsible for only around 8 percent of global emissions — is but a small part of the global picture. And a green Europe can only be realized if it’s a global one too.  

The American economy is in an artificial coma, unemployment is soaring, and estimates of corona deaths in the U.S. are appalling. The President is currently speaking to the press almost daily about the situation. In the podcast, Tyson Barker, Deputy Director and Fellow at Aspen Institute Germany, and David Deissner, Managing Director of Atlantik-Brücke, speak with Peter Rough, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Cathryn Clüver, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, on the President's crisis management, the role of states in managing the pandemic, and more.

Dear America,

In London there is much talk of a new “spirit of the Blitz” in the face of another deadly threat to us all.

But 80 years on, that spirit is expressing itself very differently. When the Luftwaffe bombs fell, to continue with normal life was an act of patriotic defiance. Now as COVID-19 spreads, to continue with normal life is an act of punishable deviance.

How does the coronavirus change international relations? After the corona crisis, little will remain at the international level as it was before. A change in the balance of power is already becoming apparent: countries that are better able to cope with the crisis are likely to expand their influence, especially China, others will lose. And the border barriers within the EU represent a massive burden for cooperation in the EU. How can and should states react to this? Cathryn Clüver-Ashbrook, political scientist and expert for international and European relations at Harvard University, analyzes this in an interview.