President Trump is reportedly planning to demand payment from host countries of U.S. troops covering the entire cost of stationing plus 50 percent. Seoul and Tokyo should treat this so-called “Cost Plus 50” as a wake-up call to deal collaboratively with the threats their U.S. alliances are facing. South Korea and Japan need to coordinate their Special Measures Agreement negotiation strategies, not just to save money, but to preserve the long-term viability of U.S. alliances in...
05/2019
The Status of Foreign Immigrant Crime in South Korea
Dohee Jeong
This policy brief gives a brief statistical survey of the immigration situation in South Korea and looks at the legal status of foreigners in the country. It examines the question of whether, as is commonly assumed, immigrants are responsible for the increase in criminal offences.
04/2019
The EU’s Fight Against Transnational Crime in the Sahel
Eva Magdalena Stambøl
The pursuit of internal security objectives has become increasingly important in EU foreign policy and external relations. The EU now invests a growing amount of efforts towards fighting ‘security threats’ and transnational crime in the (extended) neighborhood. This is particularly evident in the Sahel region of West Africa, where initiatives focusing on bolstering internal security apparatuses and borders are mushrooming. The question is whether the EU’s emerging role as a...
2019/15
Science, technology and innovation diplomacy: a way forward for Europe
Jos Leijten
This policy brief explores how innovation becomes an increasingly important topic in international relations, with a deep impact on collaboration as well as on competition between countries. It analyses how the patterns of techno-economic change lead to changes in the global distribution of innovative activities around the world. It outlines three near future scenarios of the international politics of innovation. The first, called “populism and protectionism” describes an...
03/2019
How does the LULUCF Regulation affect EU Member States’ forest management?
Seita Romppanen
- The new EU land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) Regulation takes a novel approach to emissions accounting, giving EU Member States discretion in sustainable forest management.
- The Forest Reference Levels (FRLs) in the National Forestry Accounting Plans required by the Regulation need to be in line with other requirements of the Regulation, including the critical requirement to maintain or strengthen long-term carbon sinks.
- The FRL does not constrain...
02/2019
(In)visible generations: from integration to equality
Maryna Manchenko
Despite growing criticism on extending the category ‘immigrant’ to children of immigrants, research in the field of migration studies generally distinguishes between different generations within the population of migrant descent. Those who migrated as adults are called ‘the first generation’, while children of immigrants who were born in the host country are labelled ‘the second generation’ and children of immigrants who migrated before or during their...
01/2019
The EU policy for civil drones: the challenge of governing emerging technologies
The extensive commercialisation of civil drones has made them accessible to a broad range of users for leisure, business-related, and professional activities. However, their growing number has also raised a series of societal concerns about this fast-evolving technology, related to security, safety, privacy, protection of personal data, liability and environmental issues. To mitigate these risks, and to allow their eventual safe integration into the European airspace, the European Commission...
11/2018
KF-VUB Korea Chair Policy brief: North Korea’s Nuclear Problem: A More Pragmatic Approach Will Help
Dr. Yoon Young-kwan
Despite the historic U.S.-North Korea summit in June, little progress was made on denuclearizing North Korea due to the clash between the U.S. and North Korea on the formula of denuclearization. Both sides are demanding the other to do its work upfront. Due to the inability to resolve this dilemma, North Korea’s nuclear problem has gotten worse during the last three decades. In order to make a breakthrough, North Korea needs to come to the table as soon as possible recognizing that the...
02/2018
The Belgian approach to tackling violent radicalisation: a practitioners’ perspective
Rik Coolsaet
The prevention of violent radicalisation as part of counter-terrorism measures is a top priority of the European Union and national security agendas. In 2015 Belgium introduced promising reforms in countering radicalisation and terrorism that aimed at connecting not only intelligence, security and police services across different policy levels but also the multitude of other stakeholders representing the government and civil society. However, the implementation and further development of the...
1/2018
The political trilemma of the economic and monetary union
Nicola Acocella
Paolo Pasimeni
The analysis of divergences and imbalances in the EMU suggests that failure to reduce inflation rate differentials in a monetary union may lead to increasing economic and political tensions and has indeed done so. However, it is also true that a top-down coordination of national policies for implementing structural policies in order to pursue that reduction would raise issues of democratic legitimacy. This epitomises the existential challenges that the EU faces nowadays.
IES is a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the 