Europe

If 2020 is to be marked by change and progress, the drive for this needs to come from within – and there will be plenty of opportunities for the international community to start paying attention to the region again.

As the nature of the threat evolves, it is essential that policymakers and analysts are forward thinking and develop innovative measures to further enhance the population's safety.

While it is unlikely that Zelenskiy or Putin will have softened on their positions regarding the Ukrainian border and the election timeline, the Paris summit has re-opened the peace dialogue and de-escalated tensions between the two states.

The European Union has already committed mistakes dealing with China—in the context of 5G and many other infrastructure-related projects.

On 18 October, the European Council failed to agree on starting membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia. The vote showed that, when all is said and done, it is the vision of what the European Union should look like rather than its impact that matters most to some of its member states.

In the short-term, Turkish politics are unlikely to experience radical change, as Erdoğan has created a system for himself that will not be easily pried from his grasp. In the long-term, however, the cracks in his grand design will become too numerous to handle.

Germany wants to set the agenda in Europe, yet it does not commit financially and support a modernisation of NATO through fair burden-sharing.

While the European Union worried about Russian involvement in the Western Balkans, China has been taking advantage of the last few years to quietly become one of the big players in the region.

The UK House of Commons Defense Committee has today published its report into the termination of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, with evidence from the Human Security Centre featuring prominently.

Regardless of whether or not an event of Balkan Spring proportions is coming to the region, it is beyond evident that continuity is no longer an option – and that, one way or another, the present state of affairs will be coming to an end.