The European Institute for International Relations in partnership with the National Defence Review and the University of Paris 1 is organising the Ecole Militaire's second "Strategic Workshop" on 14th October in Paris. Joachim Bitterlich, a member of the Robert Schuman Foundation's Scientific Committee will be speaking during the second round table that will address Germany's return to the turmoil of geopolitical imbalances.

On 7th October the IMF published its new economic forecasts. The IMF cuts its world growth forecasts to 3.3%. Whilst growth in the USA is up to 2.2%, figures are down in France (0.4%), Germany (1.4%), Italy (-0.2%), and more generally in the euro zone (0.8% in 2014 and 1.3% in 2015). Only Spain's growth has been raised (1.3% in 2014 and 1.7% in 2015).

In agreement with the Member States, the European Commission decided on 9th October that two markets in the European telecommunications market would no longer be subject to regulation and that two others would be redefined so that the "development of market and technology would be taken into account." The two markets in question are the retail landline telephone network access market and the wholesale market of landline calls. These new rules will be applicable immediately.

On 7th October the European Parliament's Budgets Committee approved the budget funding for 2015 designed to finance priority policies in support of growth and employment, education, notably Erasmus+ for student mobility and humanitarian aid to regions affected by conflict. These amounts will be submitted to MEPs vote who will meet in plenary in October. There will then be three weeks of debate with the Council starting 28th October. Both Parliament and Council have to come to an agreement on the 2015 budget that will be subject to vote on 26th November by Parliament and signed by the President.

On 8th October the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Ministers adopted a general guideline on a draft directive on cross-border information exchange regarding road offences as well as a general approach to new port service market access rules in the EU and financial transparency of ports. Ministers also debated two proposals that aim to improve rail services in the EU by the opening of the national passenger services market and the strengthening of governance. They took note of a progress report regarding the project to revise the European Open Sky rules thereby aiming to accelerate the modernisation of EU air traffic management. On the basis of this discussion they will continue to work towards a more strategic approach in view of coming to an agreement in December.

On 9th October the EU and Jordan officially introduced a partnership for mobility. European Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and ministers responsible for migration from 12 EU Member States taking part in the partnership (Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden) signed a joint declaration establishing a framework for their future cooperation in the area of migration and mobility.

On the occasion of an intergovernmental meeting in Berlin on 10th October Germany and China said they wanted to step up their strategic links in various areas like foreign policy, agriculture, education and innovation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang also said they wanted to find peaceful solutions to the Hong Kong demonstrations. Economic and political relations between China and Germany have grown significantly since the creation in 2005 of a Dialogue Forum between the two countries.

On 11th October, four months after the general elections, a coalition agreement, between the four winning parties was found in Belgium regarding the formation of a new right-leaning federal government,. The Flemish Christian Democrats of CD&V, the French-speaking Reform Movement, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and the Flemish Liberals of Open VLD came to agreement on the appointment of Charles Michel, the young chairman of the Reform Movement (MR) as Prime Minister. The MR, which only won a quarter of the vote, is due to take seven of the ministerial portfolio, as many as all of the Flemish parties, since the government in Belgium has to include equal numbers of both communities. The new Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also said that the agreement of 7th October "provides for a budgetary framework to bring Belgium to budgetary balance by 2018." This new government brings 26 years of participation by the French-speaking Socialist Party in federal power to an end. The government comprises 18 members, four of whom are women.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Prime Minister of Denmark announced on 7th October in Parliament that a referendum would be organised after the general elections planned for the end of September 2015 on the issue of greater integration by the country into the EU. Denmark does not belong to the euro zone and did not take up certain measures included in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 regarding justice, domestic affairs and common defence. The Prime Minister insisted however on the fact that her country should retain room to manoeuvre regarding immigration policy.

The Nobel Economy Prize was awarded to Frenchman Jean Tirole on 13th October. He is one of the leading specialists of the "games theory" which dissects mechanisms and arbitration at work behind economic agents' decision making, which also calls on aspects of psychology. Tirole combines French mathematical excellence with Anglo-Saxon influence.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras won the vote of parliament's confidence on 10th October regarding his plan to exit the IMF/EU rescue programme. He won the support of 155 New Democracy (his own party) and PASOK MPs, the socialist party linked to the government coalition; 131 MPs voted against the motion and 2 abstained. A Greek delegation met the IMF Director General Christine Lagarde on 12th October to discuss an early exit from the 240 billion euro rescue plan that had been granted to the country.

On 8th October the Italian government won the Senate's confidence regarding a draft bill designed to make in depth reform to the labour market in spite of the opposition of the party on the left and the country's main union. This draft bill called the "Jobs Act" was adopted 165 votes in support, 111 against and 2 abstentions. The Senate's vote is just the first greenlight and the draft still has to pass before the Chamber of Deputies for final adoption. The Jobs Act is designed to foster employment in a country where youth unemployment totals 44%.

On 9th October Eva Kopacz, the new head of the Polish government, visited her German counterpart, Angela Merkel, in Berlin. Both leaders said they wanted to harmonise the German and Polish positions in view of the European Council on 23rd and 24th October next. The German Chancellor and the Polish Prime Minister said they both shared the same vision in terms of energy policy, climate, as well as on the EU's economic direction.

The three parties in the coalition in office in the Czech Republic came out ahead in the first round of senatorial elections according to official results. Voters must elect 27 Senators out of 81 in the Upper Chamber. The second round is planned for 17th and 18th October. After 99% of the votes have been sorted the Social Democratic Party of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka will have 19 candidates in the second round, the populist central party ANO of Andrej Babis will have 9 and their Christian Democratic allies 8. The social democrats had 41 mandates in the Senate to date - whose main role it is to assess and possibly change draft bills adopted in the Lower Chamber. Its decisions and observations are often ignored however by MPs who have the final say.

The European Commission gave its greenlight on 8th October for the construction of an EPR nuclear power plant in the UK by the French energy group EDF. This project to build two new generation EPR reactors by the Areva group at Hinkley Point (South West of England) by EDF and its Chinese partners CGN and CNNC will cost around 31 billion euro according to the Commission. During the inquiry London "accepted the significant modification of the terms regarding the financing of this project," which will help prevent any "distortion of competition" explained the Commission in a press release.

On 12th October general elections took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina to a backdrop of economic crisis. 3.3 million voters turned out to ballot electing the three members of the collegial presidency for a four year mandate. The first official results announced by the Central Electoral Committee declared that the nationalist candidates from the main communities had won (Muslim, Serb and Croat). The candidate of the Bosniak Nationalist Party (SDA, conservative) Bakir Izetbegovic won amongst the Muslims and Dragan Covic (Croatian Democratic Union, nationalist) amongst the Croats. Regarding the Serbs, the result is still tightly run. The seat is due to be given either to Mladen Ivanic or Zeljka Cvijanovic. The final results will be announced within the next ten days.

On 7th October the Ukrainian Parliament approved on first reading a package of five laws that provides a programme to counter corruption. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk noted that this legislative package aimed to guide the anti-corruption policy over the period 2014-2017. The head of government emphasised the success of the regulatory path for this programme in terms of managing positions of a certain number of public authorities.

On 9th October the Council of Europe's European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice- the CEPEJ, published its fifth report on the assessment of judicial systems in Europe. In this report the CEPEJ observes that the crisis does not seem to be affecting the judicial systems since access to justice in Europe is improving. Moreover the CEPEJ presented its accounts regarding the assessment of these systems.

The annual assemblies of the IMF, the World Bank, the IIF and the G20 Finance - took place from 10th to 12th October. Christine Lagarde, the IMF's Director General recalled that structural reform has to be introduced to create a more viable, balanced world economy which will create employment. Further determined, ambitious measures are to be defined like strengthening cooperation to contain the effects of contagion and to continue rebalancing world demand.

On 6th October the European Commission published its quarterly review on employment and the social situation. The review comprises a comparative assessment of employment, inequality of income in the EU's member states and highlights the need to invest in life long training in order to improve employability. According to its sources there has been a clear improvement in terms of the number of hours worked, full time contracts and the situation of young people, with a reduction in unemployment in most Member States. However the economic recovery that started in the spring of 2013 remains fragile and the development of employment uncertain.

The new book by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has been published under the title "Europa, la dernière chance de l'Europe" (Europa, Europe's last chance). The former French President, along with former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, calls for the urgent construction of a strong, federated entity comprising firstly 12 EU countries that will gradually harmonise their tax regimes (15 years) and also their social legislation. Their project, EUROPA, which requires no changes be made to the European treaties will help the European continent to become powerful and united in the face of the two giants of globalisation, embodied by the USA and China.

Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded on 9th October to French author Patrick Modiano notably for his most recent book "Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier". More generally the jury wanted to award Mr Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".