Beyond Russia’s ‘Versailles syndrome’. Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 58, November 2014

Russia alleges that at the end of the Cold War it underwent a soft version of a Versailles Treaty, pushing it into the periphery of global politics and cutting it out of European decision-making. The crisis in Ukraine is about the survival of Putin’s regime and the dismantling of the post-Cold War settlement. We should not accept the fallacious narrative of victimhood propagated by the Kremlin’s Versailles syndrome. Even so, it is time to explore practical ways of coexisting with Russia. The Helsinki Process and the disarmament and arms control agreements of the Cold War could serve as a model for a mutually acceptable security architecture.

Who Benefits from a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement? Policy Brief #2013/04

From a purely economic standpoint, the US and the entire EU will profit from a dismantling of tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers between both regions. The real gross domestic product per capita would increase in the US and in all 27 EU member countries. Also when one looks at labor markets, the positive effects on employment predominate: Two million additional jobs could be created in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) zone over the long run. The public welfare gains of these economies admittedly do stand in contrast with real losses in income and employment in the rest of the world. On balance, however, the beneficial effects on economic welfare prevail.