8 Items

A photo of the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Federal Constitutional Court") in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Flickr/Al Fed

Policy Brief

Pushing the EU to a Hamiltonian Moment: Germany’s Court Ruling and the Need to Build a Fiscal Capacity Force a Constitutional Debate

May 20, 2020

The recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the ECB was an economic and political bombshell. The deep controversy that resulted – within Germany and on a European scale – illustrates that the ambiguity surrounding the euro area’s legal order and architecture may have reached its limit.

Combined troops from Austria, Belgium, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom take part in the BLACK BLADE 2016 helicopter exercise organized by the European Defense Agency, November 17, 2016

EDA photo / Maximilian Fischer

Policy Brief

A Europe that Protects? U.S. Opportunities in EU Defense

| November 2019

Europe has embarked on a generationally significant increase in its defense ambition. New European Union defense policy, funding, and capability development initiatives, as well as closer EU-NATO cooperation, carry opportunities for the United States. Where EU defense efforts historically fell short, the United States can now focus on the overarching shared interest in a stronger Europe that is less dependent on the United States for its security and defense.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns Testifies in Front of the House Foreign Affairs (March 26, 2019)

House Foreign Affairs Committee

Testimony

The Historic Alliance between the United States and Europe Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy and the Environment

| Mar. 26, 2019

Maintaining U.S. leadership in the NATO Alliance and sustaining the critical relationship between the U.S. and the European Union will continue to be among the most vital strategic aims of the United States in the decade ahead. Both of our political parties and the great majority of Americans in recent public opinion polls support a continuation of American leadership in NATO. We should also continue to view the over 500 million people who live in the European Union as our allies, friends and economic partners.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, and European Security

Testimony

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, and European Security

| July 7, 2016

On the eve of the Warsaw NATO Summit, Professor Burns and his Co-Chair of a recent Atlantic Council report on NATO, General Jim Jones, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They described the current situation in Europe—including Putin's widespread aggression, a weakening European Union, the tsunami of instability from the Middle East and uncertain western leadership—as the greatest threat to peace since the end of the Cold War. 



They advocated strong measures in response including the permanent stationing of NATO forces in Poland, the Baltic States, the Black Sea and the Arctic.  We also advocated that the U.S. and EU maintain sanctions on Russia for its illegal division of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

A Yazidi refugee family from Sinjar, Iraq arrives on the Greek island of Lesvos after travelling on a vessel from the Turkish coast. Dec 3, 2015.

AP Images/M. Muheisen

Policy Brief

"2015: The Year We Mistook Refugees for Invaders"

| January 4, 2016

"As 2015 comes to a close, the annual numbers of migrants smuggled to Greece and Italy and asylum claims lodged in Germany have passed a million, as well as the number of additional displacements produced this year by the conflict in Syria. Moreover, Europe’s Mediterranean shore has now the unchallenged title of the world’s most lethal border. Not only this. The migrant crisis is also putting to the test some of Europe’s most fundamental values, from the freedom of circulation within its territories, to international protection beyond..."