No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Humanity has consumed tobacco since the dawn of times, but it took two cataclysmic global conflicts to elevate the cigarette into a defining symbol of modern life. What began as a marginal indulgence soon became both a weapon of comfort and a vehicle of mass addiction. So, beware, reading might cause dependence! More
No. 57, Jan.-Feb. 2026 Europe’s driest periods in over 5 centuries rampage through the continent, with experts warning that even worse is in sight. This prompts concerns regarding water security and looming shortages, as many sources are depleting or externally dependent. More
No. 56, Nov.-Dec. 2025 3SI’s transformation from a CEE cooperation framework into a broader regional platform reached a pivotal moment with Greece’s accession as its 13th member during the 2023 Bucharest Summit. This expansion, which literally added a fourth sea to the initiative’s geographic scope, represents more than symbolic growth, it signals a strategic recalibration that has proven mutually beneficial for both Athens and the evolving regional architecture. More
No. 56, Nov.-Dec. 2025 For centuries, the Black Sea has been a vital crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Today, renewed geopolitical turbulence and the discovery of vast energy resources are turning the region into a sea of opportunity, especially for Romania. More
No. 56, Nov.-Dec. 2025 Europe’s inclusive multipolarity, driven by climate diplomacy, faces its greatest test as geopolitical fractures threaten to derail the Paris Agreement’s momentum. With Washington and Beijing heading on a collision course and developing nations embarking on strategic non-alignment, Brussels must reinvent itself as a credible bridge-builder. More
No. 56, Nov.-Dec. 2025 Renowned for its enchanting myths and timeless folklore, Romania continues to cling proudly to its spiritual dimensions. So much so, in fact, that the nation began a new era of (sacred) magnificence by raising the world’s largest Orthodox Cathedral, right in the very heart of Bucharest. More
No. 55, Sep.-Oct. 2025 For centuries, international relations have been defined by the rise or fall of great powers, but in today’s architectures we might be witnessing the emergence of a system where no power is truly great enough to lead. In this death of polarity what purpose do the uni-, bi-, multi- prefixes still have? More
No. 55, Sep.-Oct. 2025 Romania’s landscapes have always rewarded those who explore them, from Carpathians’ ancient forests, layered cultural palimpsest, mythical monasteries to legend-worthy fortresses, living traditional villages and wildlife that still resides where it always belonged. When imagination met skills and perseverance, those gifts coalesced into Via Transilvanica, a road that is at once a hiking route, art gallery, strand of social infrastructure, and, increasingly, an engine for regional cohesive regeneration. More
At the 2022 Summit, which was hosted in Madrid, NATO officials presented an innovative multi-sovereign venture capital fund, now headquartered in the Netherlands. The establishment of the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) in mid-2023 saw its 23 member nations pledging over 1.1 billion EUR in the first funding round to foster the Trans-Atlantic deep tech landscape. What has happened since then and can this mark the beginning of a “pot of gold” for Central and Eastern European states?The idea for a quasi-private investment scheme was presented almost two years ago during one of the Summits, yet only by mid-autumn 2023 the NATO-backed venture capital fund officially commenced its first financial rounds. This was done to infuse defense and security-oriented start-ups with some acceleration or seed capital, aspects that would bolster the alliance’s technological edge and development of firsthand innovative solutions. More
Meanwhile, from the same datasets we can observe that, even though most of the 3SI countries increased in this period their minimum hourly pay rates (on average by a quarter), an issue that dragged the rest of the brackets with them (as there is an inverted cascade into the median and high-end salaries), these actions did not necessarily translate into an overall prosperity growth, with even the hours needed to exit the poverty line increasing by approximately 10%. Despite this fact, the redistribution brought them closer to their Western counterparts, with respect to the minimum wages expressed in purchasing power standards, with the region growing faster than France, Germany, Italy of Spain in this timeframe. In turn, labour costs have grown at the same pace, while remaining lower than the EU averages, with some practitioners arguing that this can strain the operational capabilities of companies, particularly SMEs, since every minute worked by the employees is more valuable. More
