Sofia Salejeva – Ordförande
Jon Gjonnes – Vice ordförande
Rickard Björkén – Sekreterare
Anna Ehnhage – Aktivitetsansvarig
Dennis Besseling – Mentorskapsansvarig
Elin Liljenbladh – Medlemsansvarig
Gabriella Sá Gustafsson – Programansvarig
Anna Savolainen – Programansvarig (suppleant)
Carl Jensfelt – PR-ansvarig
Sanna Hyvönen – PR-ansvarig (suppleant)
Jesper Lundin – Reseansvarig
Meenakshi Malik – Redaktör
Lisa Backman – Redaktör (suppleant)
(meddelas senare) – Kassör

Föreningsrevisorer:

Emma Lundstedt – Revisor
Lina Irstad – Revisor (suppleant)

Valberedning:

Lukus Fondin – Valberedning

Utdrag ur UF Stadgan
§ 6 Valberedningens uppgift är att bereda nyval och fyllnadsval vid årsmöte och höstmöte och föreslå personer till föreningens valbara poster. Valberedningen ska bestå av minst en person.

§ 7 Revisor och suppleant väljs på årsmötet och är ansvariga inför detta. Revisorn skall vara oberoende gentemot styrelsen. Revisorn ska utföra förvaltnings- och verksamhetsrevision.

§ 8 Styrelsen utgörs av ordförande samt de vid årsmötet valda ledamöterna, dock minst fem fysiska personer totalt. Ordförande väljs direkt av årsmötet. Styrelsen konstituerar sig själv.

Stadgar UF (pdf)
Dagordning (pdf)
Verksamhetsberättelse 2011 (pdf)
Verksamhetsplan 2012 (pdf)
Revisionsberättelse 2011 (pdf)

/Valberedningen UF
Elias Efvergren, Åsa Brannestam, Louiza Asoyan

By Elena Krivovyaz

The recent success of Russia in its gas activities remains one of the main stumbling-stones not only for the economical, but also political relationship between Russia and the EU. While Gazprom intensifies its key projects, Nord Stream and South Stream, the fear of Russian political expansion continue growing in Europe. However, the experts insist that this notion misses another important problem within the gas dispute.

Chessboard of energy market

As it is widely known, Russia remains the largest external gas supplier for EU, which imports about 60 percent of natural gas. Since the 1970s when the first gas contracts between Soviet Union and the Western countries – Austria, France and Italy, were signed, Russia’s share of EU gas import has gradually declined from 80 percent to 40 percent. This significant decrease became a result after Europe’s attempts to diversify its supply system. Whereas about 40 percent of natural gas is produced within Europe, UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, the rest is imported from Russia, Norway and Algeria. These three countries almost cover about 80 percent of whole import in Europe, while the rest flows through the pipelines from Nigeria, Libya, Egypt and Qatar.

However, the level of gas imports is not identical to its actual use. EU’s present consumption of Russian gas accounts are about 25 percent of its total record while the import of Russian gas roughly doesn’t exceed 40 percent. If we compare this figure to the level of primary energy supply, the data shows that EU relies only on 6, 5 percent of Russian resources, which means that more than 90 percent of the energy demand in Europe, is satisfied by other countries.

Nevertheless, even if one consider the scale of EU’s gas consumption in total, the situation is far from Europe being sentenced to overdependence on Russia, assures Per Noel, an expert on energy policy. While Norway, Algeria and some African gas suppliers increase their energy export to EU, this hopeless scenario is unlikely to become true, he continues. Thus, in case if anything all of a sudden goes wrong in EU-Russian energy bilateral agreements or if domestic gas reserves ever reach exhaustion point, Europe will find alternative ways to recoup its losses of the Russian gas. But if suspected energy reliance on Russia is not that critical for Europe, then what all this ballyhoo is about, one might ask.

Powder keg syndrome

The problem is not about possible energy dependence on the Russian gas, as we might assume, but it has much more to do with the political implications for EU, as many Western politicians and experts assert. Russian gas is not only a source of energy, but an important political tool for Russia to accommodate its ambitions in European region, they assume. It was probably in 1997 that Brussels fairly realized for the first time that the relationship with Russia regarding the energy market would hardly become easygoing. That was the year when Russia refused to ratify The Energy Charter Treaty, a document which aimed to integrate energy sectors of EU and simultaneously limit Russia’s influence on it. Not to mention “gas wars” between Gazprom and Ukraine in 2006, 2008 and 2009 which European countries also felt on their conscience.

Military operations in Georgia became another conspicuous affirmation of Russia’s unwillingness to compromise on fundamental issues with the European parliament. And even if this threat of direct political intervention remains rather potential than actual, Russia’s influence on the EU energy policy makes many European countries feel like living on a powder keg.

Even though later on, after Ukrainian-Russian gas conflicts it was adjudicated by the court that Ukraine practiced sabotage over the Russian gas in 2006-2009, this fact couldn’t mitigate EU’s suffering under reiterated gas supply stoppage. It was also remarkable that in May, 2006, during Russia-EU summit held in Sochi, when European Union representatives suggested Putin’s administration to consider a program designed to depoliticize Russian gas supply in Europe, but it explicitly refused to do so.

In this case, the political aspect of energy supply relations between both sides points out to another major problem: the features of EU’s gas market, which lacks integrity and consistence and therefore, makes it almost impossible for EU to speak to Russia in one voice. Moreover, EU’s energy market is a vivid example of unequal power distribution, as only a minority of its states that fully takes advantage of unlimited gas supply and distribution, while Eastern and Central Europe are subjected to severe dependency on the Russian gas import. The latter feature is especially characteristic for a dozen of member states like Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia, Bulgaria and some others. That’s why many experts in energy policy share the opinion that Russia’s political strategy turns out to be rather divisive for European Union when it comes to gas. The Iron Curtain still divides Europe in two polar parts: West and East, states Per Noel in his document named: “Beyond the Dependence: How to Deal With Russian Gas?”.

The taps are on

There are even more extreme opinions regarding the EU and Russian gas relationship, like the one of Radoslaw Sikorski, former defense minister of Poland, who qualified Russia’s Nord Stream project similar to Molotov-Ribbentrope pact, which implied division of Europe into Western and Eastern parts and their direct subordination to Germany and Soviet Union respectively. Though this parallel lacks validation, it expressively indicates to the redundant level of mutuality between Russia and Germany together with Italy regarding energy projects. Nonetheless both parties enjoy their advantages. – Russia maintains its importance for the EU market and gains political and economical benefits, and Germany and Italy acquire a number of other privileges together with financial profit. In order to be fair, we might argue that there is, probably, no evil in the dominance of Germany and some other gas-beneficiaries in EU, but the gain of less privileged Member States, therefore, turns out to be rather indirect and in some way doubtful in a long-term political prospective.

Inasmuch Russia’s political and economical course remain the raw-material oriented and while stronger Western states delay with energy market integration, the gaseous -political games are on, unfortunately for other countries that might feel as pawns in a chess-game.

Photo: Creative Commons license, nist6ss (Title: Gas- Tamanna)

(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)

Är du intresserad skicka då en intresseanmälan till resa@ufstockholm.se med namn och personnummer. OBS! UF kan endast erbjuda ett antal platser och ber därför ansökande om att motivera varför man vill följa med samt vad du skulle vilja se väl på plats i Israel! Sista dagen för intresseanmälan är den 10/2 och kort därefter kommer UF meddela vilka som har fått en plats på resan.

Mejla gärna vid övriga frågor annars kommer vi även finnas på plats på årsmötet den 7/2 för eventuella funderingar!

Välkommen med en intresseanmälan!

Detta är en unik möjlighet för våra medlemmar att tillgodogöra sig nyttig projekterfarenhet, knyta värdefulla kontakter samt få uppleva politik i praktiken under en intensiv vecka av föreläsningar, mingel och debatt.

Vi söker fyra personer varav en projektledare. Vi ser gärna att du som söker till projektgruppen har tidigare erfarenhet av Almedalsveckan, samt att du både har tid och möjlighet att engagera dig till fullo både under arbetets gång och på plats i Visby. För att söka till dessa poster måste du vara medlem i någon av våra medlemsföreningar.

För mer info titta in på www.ufsverige.org

Skicka din ansökan som ska innehålla ditt CV och ett personligt brev till adressen valberedningen@ufsverige.org senast den 19:e februari. Tillsättning sker i början av mars. Väl mött och lycka till med din ansökan!

Vänliga hälsningar,

Utrikespolitiska förbundet Sveriges styrelse

Dagordning (pdf)
Verksamhetsberättelse 2011 (pdf)
Verksamhetsplan 2012 (pdf)
Revisionsberättelse (pdf)

By Mohamad Zakaria

This year is expected to have some major political events worldwide that may shape the world years to come. Such examples are the management of the ongoing economic crisis in the USA and Europe, the outcome of the presidential elections in almost half of the permanent members of the Security Council (SC), the consequences of the ongoing “Arab Spring”, and the extent of the tension between Iran and the other major powers.

This article aims to give an overview of the impacts of the outcome of the presidential elections in the United States of America (USA), The Russian Federation (Russia), and the French Republic (France), and on the  international relations and global peace in the coming few years.

USA Presidential elections

Even though the USA foreign policy is not set by the President Obama himself, it’s highly designed and influenced by his administration and highly influenced by the lobbies in Washington, but Obama’s personal traits and charisma still make a difference on how he is perceived internationally. In November 2012, a president will be elected by the citizens of the USA. During his first term as President, Obama and his administration have, to some extent, succeeded in the health policy reforms, in international diplomacy, as well as withdrawing from Iraq according to schedule. However, President Obama’s first term in office has been difficult as the consequences of the 2008 economic recession continued to over-shadow his success.

USA’s citizens and also many people around the world have had overly-high expectations from President Obama. By not fulfilling many of his promises during his presidential campaign, his popularity as a leader has now declined, mostly from inside of the United States of America, but also to a lesser extent from outside the USA.

Some examples of Obama’s unaccomplished promises are: the failure to close Guantanamo Bay detention camp, to make a significant success in improving the life-quality of African Americans, not succeeding in easing the utterly strict immigration policies of relatives to the USA with Mexican origin, and to bring peace to the Middle East.

The 2010 USA mid-term elections results have made the Senate dominated by the Republican Party. This may have made it more difficult for President Obama to go ahead in fulfilling his presidential campaign promises. Moreover, the recent economic difficulties in Europe have also contributed to slowing down economic performance of the USA.

During the 2012, USA presidential campaign, President Obama will be challenged by a Republican Party candidate. From the declared agendas that show radical religious views of the current nominees for the Republican Party presidential candidate, anyone with sincere wishes for fewer conflicts in the world would wish that President Obama will get re-elected as president of the USA for a second term despite of his shortcomings during his first term. The fear is that some members of the USA Democratic Party and also party- independent voters would boycott elections because of their disappointment of President Obama’s first-term performance in office. However, the Republican Party’s supporters are expected to participate very actively in voting for their candidate in the presidential elections. Due to that, there is a risk that President Obama won’t be re-elected to a second-term in office unless his campaign successfully convinces people to vote.

The presidential elections in Russia

Another presidential election will take place in The Russian Federation in March 2012. Despite the recent demonstrations in Russia, particularly in Moscow, against the parliamentary elections procedures and results, as well as the disappointment related to the deal on exchange of role between President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it is widely expected that Putin will be elected as a president from first round.

He is still a popular figure in Russia and none of the Russian political opposition parties’ leaders in Russia is a viable challenger. Putin is promising to fight the corruption in governmental institutions in Russia, to improve efficiency in public institutions, and to encourage much needed reforms which will strengthen Russia’s economic, political, and social stand, both nationally and internationally. Russia is a major international power and its role in the world peace is therefore vital. A strong, stable, and democratic Russia that is willing to play a positive role in global politics may become a major player in world peace.

The president of Russia has great power and influence in Russia’s foreign policy and in its decision-making process. Therefore, The Western countries have not been happy since Putin declared his willing to run for office again. In any case, the world powers will have to respect the Russians’ choice and work with Putin’s administration.  If Putin and Obama both have another term as presidents and provided they will have good working relations between them and also with the rest of the world, there might be hope for less major international conflicts in the world during the next five years.

The presidential elections in France

The current President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, will also seek another term in office in April 2012. During his current presidential term, Sarkozy has been very active at the European political arena and, to some extent, at the international one. However, his popularity in France seems to be low due to high unemployment rate (10%) and his personal traits.

To add to his troubles, in January 2012, Standard & Poor’s credit-rating agency, has downgraded France from AAA to AA+, which means France has a less capacity to meet its financial commitments in terms of their debt. This makes President Sarkozy’s prospects for re-election even more difficult since he was always claiming to be the guardian of a strong economic position in France. Sarkozy’s strong cooperation with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, has been central in the efforts to find adequate mechanisms and strategies to stabilize the economic situation in Europe. It is highly unlikely that Mrs Merkel will have such a close cooperation and mutual understanding with France’s Socialist Party presidential candidate François Hollande if Sarkozy loses re-election. If France and Germany won’t be able to effectively cooperate, then the economic crisis in Europe might further deteriorate leading to real threat to the EU existence as a global economic and political power.

The world economy will likely face very turbulent economic situation during the year 2012. Economic crisis usually lead to less political stability and future conflicts. However, international cooperation among the countries’ leaders may bring solutions to world troubles. Therefore, there is international interest in the outcome of the presidential elections of these three major global political powers.

Photo: Creative Commons license, Sterneck (Title: Party and Politics)

(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)

UF Stockholm välkomnar Walter Kegö, forskare vid Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP). Seminariet behandlar den problematik som omgärdar den internationella brottsligheten i termer av omsättning, hur den ryskspråkiga brottsligehtens påverkar EU samt narkotikans smugglingsvägar till Sverige. Seminariet behandlar även vilka förbättringsmöjligheter som finns för att bekämpa den framväxande internationella brottsligheten.

Valberedningen utlyser nu följande valbara poster:

Ordförande
Vice ordförande
Kassör
Sekreterare
Aktivitetsansvarig
Aktivitetsansvarig (suppleant)
Bidrag-­ och mentorskapsansvarig
Medlemsansvarig
Programansvarig
Programansvarig (suppleant)
Pr-­ansvarig
Pr­‐ansvarig (suppleant)
Webbansvarig
Reseansvarig
Redaktör The Stockholm Journal of International Affairs
Redaktör The Stockholm Journal of International Affairs (suppleant) Revisor
Revisor (suppleant)
Valberedning

Läs mer om vad de olika posterna innebär här (pdf).

Valbar till styrelsen och valberedningen är medlem av föreningen.

Styrelsen utgörs av ordförande samt de vid årsmötet valda ledamöterna. Styrelsen leder, planerar och utvecklar föreningen och dess verksamhet. Styrelseuppdraget sträcker sig över ett verksamhetsår, dvs. till nästa årsmöte.
Revisor och suppleant väljs på årsmötet och är ansvariga inför detta. Revisorn skall vara oberoende gentemot styrelsen. Revisorn ska utföra förvaltnings-­ och verksamhetsrevision.

Valberedningens uppgift är att bereda nyval och fyllnadsval vid årsmöte och höstmöte och föreslå personer till föreningens valbara poster.

Ansökan inkl CV, med angivande av vilka områden du helst skulle vilja arbeta med skickas till; valberedning(at)ufstockholm.se senast den 29 januari 2012. Intervjuerna äger rum vecka 5.

Eventuella frågor besvaras av valberedningen:
Louiza Asoyan 0704175422
Åsa Brannestam 0739080379
Elias Efvergren 0739439324

By Elena Krivovyaz

Late in October an ordinary official meeting of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev with students at MSU turned into a wide-scale scandal. Though national and state-related media mostly ignored the event, the debates regarding the issue on the internet and on the Russian blogosphere were still on.

The faculty of journalism of MSU, the Moscow State Lomonosov University; one of the major Russian state universities, is located right in front of the Kremlin. This was one of the reasons, according to the president’s spokes-person Natalia Timakova, why the meeting was planned to be held there. Though the students of the faculty were not informed about it in advance, the morning before the meeting, on the 20of October, everyone in the building could notice that something special was going on.  The cleaners were polishing the marble stairs and floors, while the auditorium was being renovated and furnished with carpets. The military cordons took the entrances under control one hour before the meeting planned – at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and started checking visitors’ documents more thoroughly and didn’t let many of the students and teachers to come in.

-         Yes, I understand that our president wants to visit the faculty of journalism. But why are we denied entering the building, even though we have our student cards with us and our clothes are in the wardrobe, says one of the students who were affected by the entrance restrictions, in a reported clip posted on Youtube.

“The president is asked only two types of questions: the ones he’s been asked ten times before and the ones he expects to be asked”

The main surprise was still ahead. Several journalism students, who got to know by occasion about Medvedev’s visit the night before, decided to attend it and ask the president some questions.

-         We were aware, that the questions we wanted to ask would probably be left without any answer, but we felt it was necessary to at least raise them, says Olga Kuzmenko, a second-year journalism student.

-         The president is asked only two types of questions; the ones he’s been asked ten times before and the ones he expected to be asked. So we printed posters with the questions as we were not sure that we will be given a chance to ask them at the meeting; otherwise we could just lift up the posters so that Medvedev would be able to see them.

-         The questions we wanted to ask were, for instance, why Medvedev is sitting on Twitter, while Khodorkovsky is sitting in jail, she continues.

The plan of the three journalism students, Olga, Vera and Katya didn’t work, and they were not let inside the faculty by the federal guards, who had already blocked the entrances. Though, many of the students were not allowed to enter their university, there were many young people standing in front of the building. They turned out to be members of the youth branch of “the United Russia” state party, brought by the organizers of the visit.

-         Well, we are just here for the meeting, some of members replied.

Medvedev, as many Russian media suggest, was not likely to be aware that he was meeting, not the students of the faculty, but the young members of his party mainly, called for the event from all over Russia.

“No classes for you today. You know why“

-         One of the security guards was even stricter and he didn’t let us in though we showed him our credentials, tells Vera Kichanova, a four-year student journalist at the Novaya Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta is an oppositional newspaper which is known for investigative political articles, and for one of its staff, Anna Politkovdkaya, who was killed 2006.

-         When he left for a while, we tried to slip to the doors again. But when we were already inside, he came back after us and said: “No classes for you today and you know why”, Vera Kichanova continues.

The three students later decided, to meet the president in front of the faculty with the posters.  They were however immediately tied by the guardians and firstly taken to the police bus and thereafter to the police station. According to what the three girls, they only spent a couple of hours at the police station. The policemen, as Olga and Vera assumed, were also confused and didn’t know what to do with the “arrestants”, so they searched on the internet for news about their accident and said: “Well, they should at least have written, what we were arrested for”. After a while they returned the confiscated documents and the phones to the girls and let them go. The actions of the students were evaluated by the officials as “provocative and aimed to self-PR of the students involved”.

The day after visiting alumni, the students and the staff of the faculty decided to clean out the faculty as a protest against “that shame”, as many of them claimed. About 1700 of staff members and students wrote a petition to the administration of the faculty, stating that they were ashamed by the accident and asked for an official apology. The administration, on the other hand, assumed that both parties were not completely right. The presidents’ spokes-person Natalia Timakova made an official statement where she pointed out that “Medvedev will definitely come back to the faculty to answer the questions of the students”.

Because of the upcoming parliament and presidential elections, the confusing accident that occurred at MSU, is not the main focus of those in power right now, though the “rebellious” faculty is still across the road.

Photo: Creative Commons license, World Economic Forum (Title: Dmitry Medvedev – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2007)

(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)

By Meenakshi Malik

Society has increasingly become xenophobic, and in an atmosphere of both war and monetary difficulties, it has almost become a habit to blame most of the troubles on “illegal aliens” or “terrorists”. They are apparently destroying this western society through no fault of the society itself.

Sweden’s recent condemnation from Amnesty International on its policy to forcibly return many Iraqi refugees, and Americas (republican) tendencies to blame the “illegal aliens”, UK’s recent sudden hike in prices for education to threefold, and  constriction of visas to any foreign person and the overall stern and unreasonable immigration policies of Europe, along with those in USA and Australia have somehow become acceptable.

Most notable is the increase in reactionary language in media and growing support for xenophobic parties in the above-mentioned parts of the world. A recent trigger, and perhaps the piece of news that this article is a retort to is the recent death of Anuj Bidve, an Indian student who was visiting the UK. An intimidating attitude of ‘as long as they are not our citizens, why should we care less?’ is approaching and suffocating the political attitude of most notably northern Europe and USA.  Although Anuj Bidve’s family was compensated due to extensive media coverage and public opinion, what about the (not so sporadic) instances of racism?

A certain amount of xenophobia and resentment for increased crime have, no doubt, simmered under the surface in this globalising society, mostly due to statistics binding increased immigration with crime in media i.e. showing crimes with alien perpetrators.  So then what causes this sudden boiling over of this simmering pot? A couple of just the right ingredients suffice- the recent discourse from politics and media regarding the ‘War on Terror’ combined with the Economic recession (which caused many to lose their jobs) with a pinch of the revival of the post-colonial aspect of “us versus them” resentment, and voila, you have yourself a perfectly intolerant government, with a reasonable support from this society.

What irks most is that such an attitude almost cyclically emerges at a time of economic decent, or at the event of a war, both situations which are not at all connected to those it is blamed on. Instead of siding with reforms, long term, intelligently thought out and lasting plans we revert to war. Instead of abiding by established moral ideas of tolerance, freedom and mutual respect we revert to bigotry.

Economic recession and war seem to be instigated by the short-sighted decisions of those who we allow to make these decisions. So then who should we actually be angry at? Is it us, or them?

Photo: Creative Commons license, aymanfadel (Title: Aby Gayth Family – Iraqi Refugees in Jordan)

(The opinions presented in this article represent those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of UF in any way, nor are they intended to represent the views of any organisation or company which the author represents. UF is a politically and religiously independent organisation.)