By Giles Merritt and Shada Islam The impression that Europe is too busy dealing with internal challenges to play a strong global role is especially strong in Asia. While China gets a great deal of EU attention, there is more to Asia than China - and trade and investment agreements must not be made a substitute for a more pro-active EU foreign policy.

We are deeply concerned about all the loose talk regarding a possible military attack on Iran because of the growing uncertainty over parts of its nuclear program.

The exact composition of Europe’s future energy mix remains a subject of contention and the problem of the ‘energy gap’ persists, for if nuclear sources are phased out before a full transition to renewable resources, it is apparent that meeting the European energy demand may be problematic.

In a major shakeup in the Communist Party’s top ranks, Bo Xilai, has been dismissed as party chief in the city of Chongqing, according to the Xinhua news agency. The report came one day after Prime Minister Wen Jiabao publicly rebuked Bo for a scandal in Chongqing, and also called for more political openness in China.

Coinciding with the publication of the United Nation’s Fourth World Water Development Report, which warns of greater pressures on freshwater following the intensification of climate change and the expanding needs of agriculture, food production and energy consumption, the World Water Forum has made a clear call to bring clean water and appropriate sanitation to billions of people in need.

Despite the huge sums expended to write down Greece’s foreign debt, there has been an outcry of censure against “interference” with the country’s national sovereignty. Javier Solana, President of the ESA asks whether complaints that Greek sovereignty has been severely impaired are justified.

Anna Diamantopoulou, former EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, and Friends of Europe Trustee, was named Greece’s new Development Minister on Tuesday 6 March, following a partial Cabinet reshuffle.

By Shada Islam The EU has given encouraging signals of progress in negotiating a free trade agreement with Tokyo. In talks in Tokyo recently, Denmark’s Minister for Trade and Investment, Pia Olsen Dyhr, Japan’s Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba and Yukio Edano, Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, agreed to try and speed up the so-called “scoping” exercise aimed at exploring the pros and cons of an EU-Japan FTA. Negotiations on the free trade pact should start during t...

This year Asia’s military spending will surpass that of Europe’s for the first time in modern history, according to a recent report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).   The IISS’s annual assessment of global military capacity says that European defence budgets remain under pressure since the financial crisis in 2008.

The Director General of the World Trade Organization says a ‘Declaration of Global Rights and Responsibilities’ is required before global governance can succeed. Calling for a platform of common values, which would be shared “not only by the ‘West’, but with the ‘rest’”, Lamy emphasised the need for basic agreement between nation states on a strong set of core principles to underpin all discussions on global public goods.