Presentation of our member of the Advisory Board, Prof. Heinz Gärtner at a panel on the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Stanford University, July 19, 2017.

The 28th Crans Montana Forum took place in Barcelona from the 5th until the 8th of July 2017. The topics varied from migration to African-EU cooperation, water sanitation, the “one belt, one road initiative” but also on the empowerment of African women.

The International Institute for Peace, already since many years, is cooperating with the Center for International and European Studies of the Kadir Has University in Istanbul on its annualy International Neighbourhood Symposium. This year it took place in Odessa / Ukraine because Istanbul unfortunately became rather unattractive due to its internal political situation since the coup d'etat in 2016 and because of the rise of terrorist activities and attacks. Another reason, however, was also to foster cooperation with other organisations in the region, this time with Ukraine Analytika and Ukrainian Prism, two organisations dealing with Ukranian Foreign Policy.

On the 7th of June 2017 a meeting between a delegation from the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) and the president of the IIP, Hannes Swoboda, the director, Stephanie Fenkart and the member of the Advisory Board, Heinz Gärtner, took place in the premises of the International Institute for Peace in Vienna.

The Russian Federation and the USA are modernising their non-strategic nuclear arms for Europe. Both are blaming the respective other that they have been violating the INF-Treaty – the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which came into force 30 years ago. Is a new trend developing towards a larger role for nuclear weapons in European security? Is the Trump-Administration receding from the vision of a nuclear-free world? Which challenges and risks arise for those who are putting efforts into the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons? Which consequences can be drawn for the recent negotiations about a nuclear-weapons-convention (NWC)?

There is no doubt about the tense relations between EU and Russia and even more between NATO and Russia. There are many reasons for the deterioration of the respective relations. Unfortunately; the possible peace and cooperation dividend after the collapse of the Eastern Block and the Soviet Union has not been consumed. Too much has it been seen outside Russia as a victory of the "West", it's values, its economic system and its military force. Francis Fukuyama expressed it most clearly: we arrived at "The End of History". Even in Russia many agreed with that interpretation of history. But things developed differently.