The ongoing transformation of Hungary’s foreign policy aimed at enforcing the country’s economic interests more effectively has reached the halfway point, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in an interview to MTI. (...) The government has already carried out the biggest change, namely integrating the institutions overseeing external economic relations and cultural diplomacy into the foreign ministry’s structure, he said. 

The idea of Russian “soft power” became fashionable, but it was very different to European “soft power”. So-called Russian soft power was just “softer power”, including any means of coercion not involving tanks. It was, in the English phrase, “softly-softly” power, or “covert power”, the type of behind-the-scenes influence encapsulated in the Russian phrase kuluarna polityka – politics in corridors, not just away from public influence, but without formal record.

Some of these emerging diplomatic trends seem to have the potential to solve real problems, but can they really guarantee results or are they diplomatic fads that will go out of style as soon as the diplomatic community is faced with more complex challenges?

The standoff between NATO and the European Union is one of the most debilitating and shortsighted disputes between the two organizations, whose headquarters are but a twenty-minute bus ride from each other in Brussels.

The EU foreign policy chief said that the main priority of their visit to Turkey will be Turkey's accession EU saying support for Turkey is over 50%.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin doesn't rely much on soft power to get its way abroad, in the same way it doesn't do much liberal democracy at home. It does, however, do manipulation, and Europe is only just waking up to how much and how well.

Given the current turmoil along Turkey’s eastern borders, many have forgotten that Ankara is still technically vying for EU membership. This bid, however, remains in the doldrums due to a combination of factors involving Turkey and Europe.
 

Operation Atalanta (EU NAVFOR) has unquestionably grabbed the limelight as the EU’s most important contribution to combating piracy. However, that mission’s mandate ends in 2014, and while it may be extended it appears to be scaling down as the piracy epidemic off the coast of Somalia has much reduced.