The Slovak Veto

Why have a European Op-Ed section in Futuribles?
The unforeseen events that occurred in Europe starting in 1989 have brought about great upheavals on the continent as the static situation after 1945 suddenly started to change at unprecedented speed. The rapid spread of the market economy, and to a lesser extent of democracy, in Eastern Europe radically altered diplomatic relations and generated a strong demand for international co-operation and for some degree of shared sovereignty.
This situation has brought with it new challenges for foresight studies. Whereas in the 1970s 1980s there was plenty of time to analyse what might happen in Europe, it is now necessary to keep ahead of the constantly changing scene in order to maintain both its role in exploring possibilities and the quality of its work.
These transformations are closely linked to the moves towards European unification: expansion of the European Union, development of as yet ill-defined policies towards its neighbours, and the first hesitant steps towards a common policy on security and defence.
Indeed, the role of EU institutions is often not properly appreciated since information about them tends to be limited, biased or incomprehensible. As recent debates have shown, this can sometimes result in serious failures to analyse situations correctly, which leads to erroneous assessments of the future of Europe and of the world in general.
For all these reasons, we have decided to include a new section in Futuribles which will examine aspects of current affairs in Europe that have a future-oriented dimension and could therefore be valuable for analyses of what is happening in France or other European nations. The intention is not to take the place of existing publications, nor even to comment on all the varied and complex events occurring in Europe, but rather to highlight some things that could help to promote a better understanding of possible future developments. The editor of the section will be Jean-François Drevet, a former civil servant with the European Commission; his views are obviously freely expressed and are his alone. The first article of this section deals with the Slovak opposition to a common position of the EU foreign and security policy on the independence of Kosovo.