Word: valasek
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...Even if Nabucco succeeds, the E.U. will face other challenges, says Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "Nabucco is only part of the puzzle to improve Europe's energy security," he says. "It also needs to reduce its overall consumption, improve its efficiency, create a fully liberalized energy market and speak as one voice when it deals with Moscow." With so much to do before the E.U. can secure its own energy future, odds are it will continue to rely on Russian gas for many years to come...
...Until now, it was not obvious how to resolve Guantánamo," says Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defense at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "The Portuguese initiative neatly allows the U.S. to tie up the loose ends. It's brilliant: it allows the U.S. to do something it had always wanted it to do. It also makes the E.U. look proactive, showing it is not just waiting for the Obama Administration to come in and set the pace...
...Afghanistan will be at the top of the U.S. priorities for Europe," says Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defense at the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. He says Obama will appeal for more soldiers in the dangerous southern part of Afghanistan to fight Taliban insurgents. "Obama will put more troops in the country and expect Europe to do the same. And even though all European governments are short on troops and money, many will respond in kind." (See pictures of Obama's family tree...
...appropriate mandate allowing the use of armed force if necessary." That makes this the most ambitious mission since the E.U.'s 7,000-strong Operation Althea in Bosnia, which took over from NATO mission in 2004. "It's very significant, and about as big as it gets," said Tomas Valasek, a director at London-based think-tank the Centre for European Reform (CER). "And unlike Bosnia, it not in Europe...
...little steps: the mission to Chad and the CAR will be a key test of military resolve in difficult conditions, and a possible precursor to more efforts sending E.U. soldiers to foreign fields. "This is quite unlike anything the E.U. has been involved in ever before," CER's Valasek said. Although he felt Chad was less of a clear E.U. foreign policy priority than, say, Afghanistan, Valasek said the mission would still be remembered as a landmark for the E.U. "It is no walk in park: Chad is by any measure a less stable and more dangerous theatre of operation...