Citizens expect administrations to take their contributions into account and, if not, to explain why. When the feedback is inadequate or nonexistent, the trust relationship between the citizens and the administration can be damaged. Progress has been made in 'user-centricity' (i.e. availability, usability and mobile friendliness). Yet online participatory procedures are still, for the most part, time-consuming and rather disappointing for citizens.

Source: Politico

Climate mainstreaming in the EU budget is expected to become one strand of a broader strategy. In the speech presenting her College of Commissioners and their programme to the European Parliament, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the European Green Deal as the EU's new growth strategy, which is meant to cut emissions while creating new jobs.

In 2020, we will hear more and more about 5G – the next generation of broadband infrastructure with gigabit speeds – as according to the Commission's targets, this is the year when it is supposed to become commercially available in at least one big city in each EU Member State. Already in 2019, some countries started launching and experimenting with 5G pilots, but wider deployment is expected once the 5G standards and the dedicated 5G spectrum pioneer bands become available by the end of 2020.

The EU hopes that its free trade agreement (FTA) and investment protection agreement (IPA) with Vietnam will boost trade and investment; the agreements are also an important stepping stone to the EU’s longer-term goal of a region-to-region EU-Southeast Asia trade deal. Vietnam, a fast-growing and competitive economy whose bilateral trade with the EU has quintupled over the past ten years, is equally keen on the deal, which could potentially bring €15 billion a year of additional exports to the EU by 2035.

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), is an island off the southern coast of China that has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) views the island as a province, while in Taiwan a territory with its own democratically elected government that is home to twenty-three million people political leaders have differing views on the island’s status and relations with the mainland.

First-line investigative support: the European Counter Terrorism Centre

Source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Source: KELLY MAGSAMEN is Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. She was the National Security Council’s Director for Iran under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama

Killing the Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani may well have been the most consequential foreign policy decision of Donald Trump’s presidency. Its repercussions will be felt for days, months, and even years to come—but what exactly they will be depends on what the Trump administration does next.