Located in the South Caucasus, the region that connects Eastern Europe to Central Asia, Azerbaijan is one of the most significant “geopolitical pivots” of Eurasia. Due to its geography, Azerbaijan has a “sensitive location” that presents itself as a “defensive shield” for the Caspian Sea : it opens or blocks the access to many significant extra-regional actors, oil and gas thirsty. Baku has a pair of keys to the rich energetic Caspian Sea region whose place in the global geopolitics of energy is increasing proportionally to the degree of instability in the Middle East.

As the holiday season approaches, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. On behalf of AALEP, we would also like to thank all our partners for their support in 2013, and we look forward to continuing our dialogue with Europe's public policy advocates in the next year!

In 2012, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan met in Trabzon to sign what is now known as the Trabzon Declaration, which codified the growing links between the three Caucasus powers and signaled the pooling of their efforts within a common format. The signatories pledged to support each other's candidacies within international organizations, including, crucially, Euro-Atlantic integration. The Declaration also reiterated the three states' longstanding policy of the inviolability of sovereign borders - a direct nod to Georgia and Azerbaijan's separatist conflicts.

Romania’s EU membership makes it eligible for billions of euro in EU grant funding. Structural Funds are available to support investment in physical infrastructure and many other types of projects, and require a co-financing component from the recipient, in addition to the national government. The EU has allocated approximately 27.5 billion euro to Romania for projects in areas ranging from transport and rural development, to energy and environment. However, Romania has a dismal record of availing itself of these funds.

There are five groups of companies that can be distinguished in the field of government relations.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told lobbyists beating a path to his door before Christmas what they need to do. He wants them to play Santa Claus for the less fortunate. Lobbyists are urged to bring a gift for the Prime Ministers's Xmas tree. Xmas is a time when politics should be left behind. Perhaps Martin Schulz President of the European Parliament could make the same appeal to European lobbyists given that 16.4 % of the population, 80 million people, live below the poverty threshold in the European Union.

The EU was overconfident about its soft power and both unwilling and unable to play by the rules of the region, where money rules the day. Brussels' soft power simply could not compete with Moscow's hard alternative.

For operational and analytical purposes, economies are divided among income groups according to Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, calculated using the World Bank figures until 1 July 2011. The groups are: High Income $ 12,195 or more; Upper Middle Income $ 3,946-$ 12,195; Lower Middle Income $ 996-$ 3,945; and Low Income, $995 or less. Classification by income does not necessarily reflect development status.

Recent internal studies comparing the European Parliament with four national parliaments (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) and the U.S. Congress identified a number of weaknesses in the current support structure of the European Parliament. One of them is an independent scientific advice available for Members on demand. This was also one of the main conclusions of the EP 2025 Study. That is why the guidelines for the 2014 budget urged the development of the current Library Service into a fully fledged Parliamentary Research Service for Members.

Cyprus bailed out economy is not expected to see any recovery until 2017 when GDP will have contracted by a cumulative 20 percent. After falling by an estimated 7.4 percent in 2013, Cyprus GDP is forecast to shrink by a further 8 percent in 2014 and 2.7 percent in 2015, against a backdrop of shattered consumer and investor confidence, soaring unemployment and a credit crunch according to EY.