Serbian people, like their political leaders, seem to be in two minds about the world and their place in it. According to a recent poll, 42 percent of young people in Serbia would like to see the Russian political system implemented in their country. But on the other hand, when asked where they would ideally like to live, 70 percent of those between 18 and 35 chose the United States or Europe.

There is a growing anxiety among some observers in the EU that a disinformation strategy pursued by the Russian government since the Ukraine crisis might fragment and disintegrate the Union. It is claimed that Russia’s use of targeted disinformation is seeking to influence public opinion within the member states with the aim of paralysing decision-making processes at the EU level.

Last Wednesday afternoon, four thousand miles away, Wolfgang Tillmans slouched at his desk. The photographer had Skyped me from the apartment above his Berlin studio, to discuss the poster campaign he’d released that day against “Brexit,” the British referendum on quitting the European Union, slated for June 23rd. […] if the E.U. is to survive, Tillmans said, it must become fashionable.

The UK’s former minister of universities and science, David Willetts, has said outbound student mobility is essential to the country’s soft power agenda. Speaking at the International Unit’s Go International event this week, Willetts said two-way mobility programmes facilitate negotiations with overseas partners.

The German chancellor, Angel Merkel, has arrived in southern Turkey to inaugurate the EU aid programme for Syrians in the country, amid concerns that her visit validates Turkey’s creeping authoritarianism and overstates the EU’s humanitarian contribution to the Syrian crisis.

Valentina Simeone hails from the city of Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia, but has spent the past six months a world away — in Iran. The 21-year-old became the first ever European Union exchange student to the Middle Eastern country, studying Farsi at Tehran University under the Erasmus Program, a EU student exchange program established in 1987. 

From the earliest moments of Barack Obama’s candidacy for president, there was an interesting debate about whether he would enhance America’s soft power in the world or not. Over the past eight years there have certainly been some data points that offer evidence of Obama’s soft power — but there has also been a legitimate debate about whether it means all that much for American foreign policy.