11.03.2015 | Benjamin Tallis

The Island at a Loss

„The Ukraine crises pointed out the fall of influence that Britain has over the world events. That is important news, for the Czech Republic as well.” That is how the Respekt article begins and it further focuses on scrutinizing the current position of the Great Britain in the international relations. The analysis quotes also Benjamin Tallis, the Co-ordinator of the Centre for European Security of the IIR and at the same time the Editor in Chief of the IIR journal New Perspectives.

Selected quations:

Question of departure

Benjamin Tallis is an energetic man in his thirties who gave preference to living in Prague over living in London years ago. He is a researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and a coordinator of the Centre for Central European Security. While pensively sipping his coffee, he is getting ready to answer whether the British are indeed withdrawing from the scene and what will this mean for the European foreign policy and for the Czech Republic. „Although Britain nowadays focuses on its own problems, Britain´s influence on EU´s foreign policy is still significant despite its cuts in diplomatic sector. This is due to the higher quality of experts whose arguments simply cannot be ignored”, says Tallis. If Britain abandoned the European Union, the EU would be considerably weakened. But what does this threat mean for the Czech Republic? According to Tallis, even though NATO, where Britain and the United States are the key members, is an important alliance, “in a long term the best security strategy for the Czech Republic would be to focus on building a strong and unified European Union”.

What do the Brits think

The decline of Britain´s influence in international affairs is best illustrated by referring to its commitment to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine from 1994. As a nuclear super-power, Britain, together with the USA and Russia, committed to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine´s abandonment of its nuclear weapons arsenal that Ukraine was left with after the fall of the USSR. Today, Britain only sends 75 soldiers to Ukraine. According to Tallis, this move represents Cameron´s “desperate gesture” which supposes to create the impression that Britain wants to keep its age-long promise.

When it comes to securing their own future, the Czech people should take Tallis´ advice seriously and focus on building a unified EU and hope that Britain stays within it.

Full article by Martin M. Šimečka and Jiří Sobota can be found (in Czech) here.

About B.Tallis: Benjamin Tallis is the Researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague as well as the Co-ordinator of the Centre for European Security of the IIR and at the same time the Editor in Chief of the IIR journal New Perspectives.




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