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On January 27, 2026, the International Peace Institute (IPI) hosted its annual Peacekeeping Observatory workshop, in partnership with the French Ministry of the Armed Forces’ Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS). This year’s workshop focused on mission transitions. Participants included member state representatives, UN personnel, and independent experts.

The first session provided an opportunity to take stock of the UN Transitions Project, which concluded in 2025. Comprising the UN Development Coordination Office (DCO), the Department of Peace Operations (DPO), the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), and the UN Development Program (UNDP), the project, which started in 2014, provided direct support to countries undergoing transitions and contributed to the development of UN Secretariat guidance on transitions. In addition to reflecting on the conclusions and practices that emerged from the project, participants considered how the political landscape on transitions has changed since the adoption of Security Council resolution 2594. The discussion emphasized the importance of ensuring flexibility and coherence in transition planning while sustaining political engagement with host governments. Experts discussed opportunities for sustaining efforts on critical tasks, such as the protection of civilians during and after transitions through integrated planning with UN country teams and leveraging financing mechanisms like the Peacebuilding Fund.

The second session focused on critical challenges from the field in current and recent transition settings. Much of the discussion centered on responses to accelerated withdrawals and transitions in crisis settings, drawing on the experience of MINUSMA. Participants discussed ways to address challenges related to financing gaps, knowledge and capacity transfer, and sustaining political engagement in volatile contexts. Experts also reflected on the importance of strategic communications in transition planning and in managing public information and awareness, especially around mandate renewals, transitions, and/or reconfigurations of the UN presence.

During a working lunch, participants were briefed by the co-facilitators of the recently concluded 2025 peacebuilding architecture review (PBAR), including reflections on the role that the UN Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund can play in transition contexts. The ensuing discussion focused on funding challenges for peacebuilding, obstacles to the implementation of the PBAR, and the willingness of member states to engage with the peacebuilding architecture.

The final session considered potential future transitions and how they can be informed by key takeaways from the workshop. Participants discussed the need for missions to have exit strategies from the beginning while anticipating different scenarios, the importance of engaging host states authorities, civil society and local communities in transition processes, the relevance of transition benchmarks, and challenges and opportunities for developing networked approaches to multilateralism.

As part of its Peacekeeping Observatory series, IPI will also publish three issue briefs in 2026 on UN mission transitions, including:

• The role of strategic communications in mission transitions, by Albert Trithart
• Accelerated withdrawals and transitions in crisis settings, by Dirk Druet
• Women, peace, and security and transitions, by Lauren McGowan and Evyn Papworth

The post IPI Peacekeeping Observatory Series on Mission Transitions appeared first on International Peace Institute.

A deep dive into China’s changing propaganda narratives on the South China Sea.

Uzbek media reports that Bakhodir Siddikov, until mid-December head of Uzbekistan’s state oil and gas company, has been taken into custody amid a corruption investigation.

Dauer des Videos : 90'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 90'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

While in China this week, Starmer must directly challenge Beijing on its treatment of Hong Kong and of Hong Kongers living abroad, particularly those who now live in Britain.

With RCEP’s first general review scheduled for next year, this is a timely opportunity to assess its relevance and potential amid profound global uncertainty today. 

Given the stakes, it is critical to chart a better course through China’s overseas ports presence.

China led the exercise, South Africa hosted it, and India sat it out. 

The new strategy pairs "denial defense" with a strategic silence on Taiwan to maximize executive leverage. Yet this design rests on a dangerous gamble.

Dauer des Videos : 15'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 15'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

By Marius Guderjan (Centre for British Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Mario Kölling (Department of Political Science, Spanish National Distance Education University)

Although the COVID-19 pandemic seems something of the past and meanwhile overshadowed by other crises, we should still remember its profound impact on public health, people, employment and businesses. In 2020, the real GDP in the EU fell by more than 6%, which was higher than during the 2008 financial crisis. The management of the crisis was clearly dominated by national as well as by regional and local governments. Nevertheless, the EU also introduced massive economic and fiscal measures and departed from the austerity policy following the 2008 financial crisis. The EU amended its budget, created new loans, activated the general escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact and expanded the lending capacity of the European Stability Mechanism. Most importantly, the Member States agreed the largest stimulus package in the history of the EU: Next Generation EU (NGEU), which was worth €750 billion financed by joint borrowing.  The key instrument of NGEU was the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), providing €672.5 billion in loans and grants to support reforms and investments undertaken by the Member States.

Given the scale and multilevel nature of the EU’s intervention, our recent JCMS article takes a close look at the EU’s socio-economic responses to the COVID-19 crisis. By analysing existing decision-making procedures and democratic practices, principles of good governance and effective performance, we draw conclusions about the political legitimacy of the RRF and we discuss how the legacy of this measure may shape future governance arrangements.

There is a strong rationale for governments to take fast and extraordinary actions during crises, circumventing and even breaking existing conventions, procedures and rules. However, crisis management may not only challenge the political legitimacy of these actions but may also result in permanent changes to a system of governance. Therefore, we considered who took and authorised decisions and whether this was in line with existing democratic practices, and whether the input legitimacy of the EU’s crisis response (as conceptionalised by Schmidt 2022) was compromised.  Similar to previous crises (as discussed in the literature on new intergovernmentalism, e.g. Puetter 2016 and Bickerton et al. 2014), decisions were dominated by the European Council and the Commission and negotiated behind closed doors. The latter set the RRF’s policy objectives and governance structure to which the former agreed. During 2021 and 2022, Member States then had to submit national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRP) with detailed targets, milestones, estimated costs and proposals for structural reforms. The RRPs were designed in close bilateral cooperation with the Commission, which gained the authority to decide together with the Council over their implementation.

As during previous crises (see e.g. White 2022 and Kreuder-Sonnen 2016), the newly introduced EU measures lacked transparency, accountability and judicial scrutiny. To capture these, our article also focuses on the RRF’s so-called throughput legitimacy: namely, on its compliance with rules, efficient governance, public engagement and access to information about decision-making processes, and the inclusion of (territorial) interest groups. The RRF is a performance-based instrument that is assessed and disbursed based on the fulfilment of specific milestones and targets outlined in the RRPs. Various criteria (e.g., population size, GDP per capita and unemployment levels) and formats (e.g., the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard, performance audits by the European Court of Auditors, Recovery and Resilience Dialogues, evaluation reports) were introduced to enhance the accountability and transparency of allocation of RRF funding. Yet, our article traces various issues regarding the transparency of policymaking. Only two thirds of Member States committed to publishing detailed information about the implementation of the RRPs.

It is often suggested (e.g. by Lindgren and Persson 2010) that the EU’s legitimacy relies largely on its output legitimacy, meaning on its ability to deliver effective results to the satisfaction of its Member States and citizens. It is fair to say that the RRF has supported substantial reforms within the Member States, but rather than stimulating new innovations many RRPs have not dealt with structural challenges and only supported outstanding reforms that would have been carried out anyway. The scope of the RRPs has also varied considerably. While RRPs in Italy, Spain and Greece were ambitious targeting structural challenges of labour markets or tax systems, in northern Member States RRF funding is relatively small in comparison to GDP (less than 1%) and reforms played a minor role in their RRPs. Whereas the RRF financed measures to support employment, living standards and social protection, the funding was insufficient and too short-termed to drive a sustainable green and digital transformation. Inflation and supply shortages increased the costs of investment substantially, and the administrative workload undermined the distribution of funding and delayed the delivery of milestones and targets. We conclude in our article that due to the exclusion of subnational governments in the development of the RRPs in many Member States, the delivery of the RRPs was often inefficient and failed to meet local and regional priorities and needs.

Despite some shortcomings, we suggest that the legitimacy of European crisis governance rests on its ability to deal with complex, transnational issues to the satisfaction of the Member States rather than on its democratic credentials. Whereas this may not come as a big surprise, it is particularly significant to highlight that exceptional provisions introduced during crisis are subsequently adopted and normalised within future governance frameworks. While the Commission and Member States have empowered themselves, place-based principles and multilevel partnerships with subnational governments, which were strengthened during previous decades in areas such as Cohesion Policy, are currently under threat. In its proposal for the new Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034, the Commission has adopted the RRF’s approach and seeks to maintain performance-based policy programmes and centralised planning with targets, milestones and structural reforms. This fosters exclusive top-down policymaking at the cost of inclusive bottom-up approaches. Two years of complex negotiations lie ahead, during which adjustments to budget items, the EU’s institutional design and the redistribution of power between the European, national and subnational levels are at stake. We do not know for sure yet what the outcome will be and to what extent it will be the legacy of the crisis.

Marius Guderjan is a Fellow at the Centre for British Studies at Humboldt-Universität Berlin, and used to work at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include European integration, multilevel governance, intergovernmental relations and territorial politics; including the book Local Government in the European Union.

Website: https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/en/polwiss/forschung/systeme/polsystem/Team/Marius-Guderjan.html

Mario Kölling is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, and Senior Researcher at the Fundación Manuel Giménez Abad. His research focuses on methodological issues related to territorial decentralisation and multilevel governance. He has published extensively on the European Union budget.

Website: https://www.uned.es/universidad/docentes/politicas-sociologia/mario-kolling.html

The post Legitimacy and legacy of the EU’s socio-economic crisis governance during Covid-19 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

From initial denials, through later partial acknowledgment and “legalization,” to rapid downsizing and eventual formal closure, the Chinese government’s handling of the re-education camps in Xinjiang suggests a series of unintended shifts.

Dauer des Videos : 135'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 135'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Dauer des Videos : 90'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 90'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Dauer des Videos : 90'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Length of video : 90'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP