Diplomacy and International Politics

The UK's vaccination program is a rare pandemic success story for Boris Johnson. It's a different story on the other side of the Channel, where Europe is still struggling to get rollout programs off the ground.

The Coronavirus and its variants know no borders. Despite falling numbers in Germany, the virus continues to have a firm grip on Europe. The reason? Vaccine procurement is worse in Europe than anywhere else in the world. Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook discusses the current state of the pandemic in the EU. [partially translated from German; interview in German]

Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, the transatlantic community faced enormous domestic and geopolitical challenges. The pandemic reinforces these tendencies and at the same time makes it clear why cooperation will remain essential in the future.

Nicholas Burns spoke to former President of the Congress Party in India, Rahul Gandhi, about COVID-19, U.S.-India Relations, and the George Floyd protests in the United States.

The panel considers how the US, UK and EU can contribute to a global response. It also asks what a global response to the health and economic crisis in the developing world would look like.

Given the ravages of the coronavirus crisis, the future of Europe cannot be one of permanent division between its northern and southern states.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken our economic and political institutions. Less detectably, the crisis also rattles our ideals of democracy and individual freedom. Public health imperatives have collided with democratic principles as fundamental as the freedom to come and go. We have every reason to believe that the exigencies of the moment will also come into conflict with privacy.

In Finland, they’re drinking boxed wine and playing Korona, a board game. In Greece, they’re stockpiling feta. The French refuse to stop kissing. ISIS is telling its members to avoid traveling to Europe to conduct attacks. And, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hand-washing stations are everywhere; they know the drill.

European capitals are taking a variety of steps individually to try to beat back the outbreak. But few countries are working together to combat the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. 

Europeans awoke on Thursday morning to news that President Donald Trump had announced the suspension of “all travel from Europe to the United States.” Blaming the European Union (EU) for failing “to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China,” Trump suggested “a large number of new [coronavirus] clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe.”