How should Europe present itself in this age of smart power and public diplomacy? I suggest three images that Europe could strive to promote to foreign audiences, especially the US.

Journalists in Turkey marched in protest on Friday after police arrested 10 reporters and writers, detentions that prompted the European Commission to warn the EU candidate country over its democratic credentials.

A group of experts and political figures who have been involved in the Northern Ireland and Cyprus peace processes is visiting Baku. I am part of this group as an expert from Cyprus. We will be attending a series of round-table meetings together with Azerbaijani experts and politicians.

On March 3, Judith McHale, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and Ambassador Mikhail Shvydkoy, Special Representative of the Russian President for International Cultural Cooperation, will launch a dialogue between Russian and American media professionals as part of the U.S.-Russia Presidential Commission.

A new poll shows that 81 percent of the French think France’s importance on the international stage is declining. After a widely criticised reaction to uprisings in the Arab world, the survey is the latest bit of bad news for French diplomacy.

The Czech Republic is preparing to mark the 60th birthday of the launch of Radio Free Europe broadcasts in Czech across the Iron Curtain to Czechoslovakia. The broadcasts were a key factor in telling people under communism not only what was really happening in their own country but also keeping them up to date about events in the West.

Unfortunately, Euro-pessimism is on the rise in the United States. Large numbers of Americans think that the political, economic, and cultural foundations of Europe are crumbling, and there is widespread talk, even amongst “experts”, of how the adoption of the common currency was a mistake.

Unfortunately, Euro-pessimism is on the rise in the United States.