ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

EUROPE June 2: The European Commission will present its 2014 country-specific recommendations in Brussels. June 2: Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades will meet with Turkish Cypriot Leader Dervis Eroglu. June 2: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Chairman-in-Office, Swiss President and Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter will hold official meetings in Azerbaijan after his arrival June 1. June 2: An International Monetary Fund mission will arrive in Bucharest for the third review of a stand-by agreement finalized in September 2013. June 4: The European Commission will present the details of its 2014 Convergence Report assessing the readiness of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden to adopt the euro. June 4: The EU Permanent Representatives Committees, Coreper I and Coreper II, will meet in Brussels. June 4: U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Poland on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the country's first de

The abdication of Spanish King Juan Carlos I, announced June 2 by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, will probably leave bittersweet feelings. In the almost four decades he sat on the Spanish throne, King Juan Carlos simultaneously served as a bulwark of democracy and a symbol of a decaying institution. The monarch leaves the throne at a time when the entire Spanish political system and the institutions that sustain it have been called into question. The mainstream media has amply described the king's role during the 1970s, but this does not diminish the importance of his actions at the end of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. When Spain's longtime dictator died in 1975, it was not a given that the Iberian country would become a democracy. Franco himself had been certain that the king would maintain much of the old regime's political framework. It took significant courage and talent for Juan Carlos to negotiate a transition to democracy and the writing of a new consti

A valve is tightened at eastern Ukraine's Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske underground natural gas storage facility May 21.(ALEXANDER ZOBIN/AFP/Getty Images) Analysis It appears as though Ukraine and Russia are willing to compromise on energy deliveries despite concerns that they would not. On June 2, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced that his company received payments from Ukraine for February and March natural gas deliveries, worth a total of $786 million. In response, Gazprom agreed to postpone the deadline by which Ukraine would fully repay its debts and begin pre-payments for future deliveries from June 2 to June 9. Gazprom has also indicated that it would be willing to lower the natural gas price from its initial offer of $485 per thousand cubic meters, or mcm, of gas to $385.50 per mcm if Kiev repaid its debts. That is not to say the situation is resolved entirely. The price tag for natural gas is still much higher than Ukraine initially demanded ($268.50 per mcm), and the amount

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (R) speaks in Buenos Aires as Economy Minister Axel Kicillof looks on Feb. 12.(DANIEL GARCIA/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Argentina took one step closer to normalizing its financial relationship with the outside world May 29, when the government announced a deal that would settle outstanding debts with the Paris Club, a group of 19 public creditors including mostly European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia and Russia. After 13 years of default, Argentina has promised to pay back a total of $9.7 billion over the next five years, with the first payment of $1.15 billion to be paid in two installments in July 2014 and May 2015. Resuming payments will open the door for these public creditors to once again lend money to Argentina. Thus, the deal is an important phase in the process of Argentina's regaining access to international credit markets, which Buenos Aires will need if it hopes to avoid an economic crisis. Argentina i

Participants attend the two-day Ministerial Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement on May 28 in Algiers, Algeria.FAROUK BATICHE/AFP/Getty Images Summary Foreign ministers from around the world gathered in Algiers on May 28-29 for the 17th Ministerial Conference of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. With representatives from Africa, the Middle East and Asia present, the outcomes of the meetings barely made international headlines. The Non-Aligned Movement, formed in Belgrade in 1961, was the brainchild of several national leaders who, like India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and Indonesia's Sukarno, were part of a new generation of political leadership brought to power as colonial regimes crumbled in the 1960s. Designed as an alternative to the competing U.S. and Soviet-led alliance structures of the Cold War, the Non-Aligned Movement has struggled to define itself since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The bloc has found new life in recent year

A CORE police special forces officer searches for fugitives in Rio de Janeiro's Complexo do Alemao favela on May 13, 2014.(Mario Tama/Getty Images) Analysis Editor's Note: This essay is drawn from the personal notes and recollections of Stratfor's Renato Whitaker, who currently lives and studies in Rio de Janeiro. The boisterous man from one of the leased rooms in the house where I live bellowed for all to hear, "There's a shootout in State Hill!" OK, I thought, another shootout somewhere around here, but where? "They shut down Plaza Shopping!" Ah, well then, I know exactly where that is. Here's a quick breakdown of some terminology: The term "periphery" is used here in Brazil as a sort of social-geographic buzzword. It sometimes denotes the disenfranchised people who live "in the periphery" of society. Often it is used as a synonym for favelas -- or slums -- and the people who live in them. These favelas can sometimes literal

By George Friedman I arrived in Bucharest, Romania, the day after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will be here in a few weeks. The talk in Bucharest, not only among the leadership but also among the public, is about Ukraine. Concerns are palpable, and they are not only about the Russians. They are also about NATO, the European Union, the United States and whether they will all support Romania if it resists Russia. The other side of the equation, of course, is whether Romania will do the things it must do in order to make outside support effective. Biden left Romania with a sense that the United States is in the game. But this is not a region that trusts easily. The first step was easy. The rest become harder. If this little Cold War becomes significant, there are two European countries that matter the most: Poland and Romania. Poland, which I visit next, stands between Germany and Russia on the long, flat North European plain. Its population is abou

Russian President Vladimir Putin (back C) attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council at the Kremlin in Moscow on Dec. 24, 2013ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images Summary Russia , Belarus and Kazakhstan will sign the foundation treaty of the Eurasian Economic Union on May 29, with the bloc set to formally debut on Jan. 1, 2015. The Eurasian Economic Union is about much more than economics; it is a bloc meant to rival the European Union and the United States in its influence in Russia's near abroad. The crisis in Ukraine has aggravated long-standing tensions between Russia and the West, and the Eurasian Economic Union will serve as a primary platform for Moscow to challenge EU and U.S. influence in the former Soviet periphery in coming years. Analysis The very name of the Eurasian Economic Union implies that it is something other than European. This is not merely a geographic distinction; it is a political distinction showing that to be part of this grouping means not