Spain’s EU presidency will be remembered for its “messy” foreign policy and the invisibility of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero. It began with a hacker putting the face of a TV character, Mr Bean, a comic bumbler who bears a passing resemblance to the Spanish leader, on the Spanish presidency website at the moment of its launch in January. [more]

Five years ago, Ukraine’s presidential elections captured the imagination as Viktor Yushchenko emerged triumphant. [more]

This week, Brussels will host a meeting of NATO foreign ministers which will give a comprehensive assessment of Ukraine`s progress in conducting reforms. Among other things, the meeting will discuss NATO`s Membership Action Plan for Ukraine. [more]

The United States is set to re-think its role and leadership in the world. Europe shows signs of being newly assertive and more self-confident. And Russia may have to acknowledge its vulnerabilities and the limits of adventurism. These three developments mean right now, the EU and the US have a unique opportunity to craft a new policy toward Russia. [more]

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko‘s decision to sink his country into a winter election may split the former Soviet state, a member of the Russian State Duma and director of the Institute of the Countries of the CIS, told New Europe recently. Konstantin Zatulin said in Athens in an interview that Yush chenko has failed to unite Ukraine after the Orange Revolution. [more]

We offer you the article published by Prime-minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko in Financial Times. “As usual with European crises, the best solution for Europe is more Europe. That “more Europe” also needs to include every European nation” – writes Tymoshenko, You can read more here….

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Nov. 22 was the fourth anniversary of the Orange Revolution and, in the West and in Ukraine, fatigue is growing with Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president and erstwhile Orange Revolution hero. [more]

I’ve recently returned from Ukraine, a country I’ve visited many times in the past. The occasion this time was the eleventh EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, of which I am vice-chairman. The meeting came at what is a critical juncture in Ukraine’s nascent democracy which has been marked in recent years by a political reorientation away from Russia and towards the West.  [more]

Sir, Like the rest of the world, Ukraine is being influenced by the global financial crisis. The strategic sectors of the national economy - banking, metallurgy, and construction - were most struck by the crisis. However, the situation is under control. [more]

Like a blue spacecraft it sits, pulsing with shocking brightness amid the grey mud of the building site that surrounds it. Across the road, the old Olympic Stadium, where a statue of Serhiy Bubka glowers over those making their way to watch Shakhtar Donetsk play, looks unfeasibly small and dowdy. All the indications are that this will be a magnificent stadium when it is completed next summer; but there is a gnawing feeling that that isn’t really the point. [more]