Toby Vogel

Brussels, Belgium

Writer on international affairs, Brussels.

Toby Vogel

Brussels, Belgium

Writer on international affairs, Brussels.

Bosnia’s Dangerous Path
In the Balkans, and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, images from Ukraine of besieged cities, massacres, and mass displacement are re-traumatizing a society that has never been allowed to heal after the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in
Foreign Affairs
Why EU needs a US ‘foreign agents registration act’ post-Qatargate
The recent bribery scandal shaking the European Union has drawn attention to democracy's soft underbelly. Far from simply being a reflection of individual greed and venality (the accused deny all allegations), it underscores that the basic infrastructure
EUobserver
Ukraine should prompt wider EU rethink of enlargement
Ukraine's dogged fight to defend its democracy against a brutal, unprovoked Russian attack deserves the West's full support: Ukraine's struggle for survival is Europe's, too. Declaring the country a European Union candidate member would be the right signa
EUobserver
EU-US Plan for Bosnia Risks Undermining New Sanctions and Bolstering Putin
U.S. State Department official Matthew Palmer and his European Union counterpart Angelina Eichhorst are due to return to Bosnia and Herzegovina next week in another effort to stave off a political meltdown that threatens to spark renewed violent conflict.
Just Security
No, Bosnia and Herzegovina is not ready for the EU
The European Commission has asked the member states' leaders assembling in Brussels next week for the customary end-of-year European Council to approve EU candidate status for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Doing so would be a mistake, however. It would undermin
EUobserver
The EU's perverse agenda in Bosnia
In its quest for a quick deliverable in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Union is trying to broker a deal that risks entrenching the power of Croat nationalists who are resisting moves to make the country more functional. There is a growing understanding that the country's constitution, part of the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended the bloodiest conflict in Europe after World War II, needs changes in order for Bosnia to properly function.
EUobserver
EU’s ‘Containment’ Approach to Balkans May Doom Reformers
The failure of the Brussels summit to reward Macedonia and Albania with a start date for membership talks will have a chilling effect on the prospects for reform all across the region. Last week, the European Union dealt a hard blow to Albania, Macedonia
Balkan Insight
Macron breaks Balkans promise in quest for EU dominance
When people power forced out North Macedonia's regime in 2016, this was an inspiration to dissatisfied citizens around the Balkans. Other authoritarians such as president Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia took note and tightened their stranglehold on political and economic life, determined not to let the same happen in their countries.
EUobserver
Featured
Ary Zolberg: Beginnings of a biography
Picture: The Chicago Maroon || On September 5, 1944, Father Pierre Goossens, the principal of the Institut Notre- Dame de Cureghem, a Catholic high school in Brussels, celebrated mass to mark the city’s liberation from the Germans by the British 2nd Army the previous day. But father Goossens also had an announcement to make to the staff and 500 students of the Institut: Henri Van den Berghe, who had enrolled in the school’s Greek-Latin section a year earlier, was not who he appeared to be–a Catholic Fleming who had commuted from Schepdaal, just outside of Brussels, until January, when he became a boarder. Henri Van den Berghe, Father Goossens said, was really Aristide Zolberg and had been forced to hide ”for being a member of the same race as Our Lord Jesus Christ”.
American Political Science Association Organized Section on Migration and Citizenship
Cleaning up both the EU and Western Balkans
A recent New York Times investigation into EU-funded corruption related to agricultural subsidies , The Money Farmers: How Oligarchs and Populists Milk the EU for Millions shines a spotlight on one of the most troubling cases of a member state gaming the system. The case of Hungary is notable for several reasons. Prime minister Viktor Orban openly opposes the EU's policies and values while benefitting handsomely from its money.
EUobserver
The U.S. Congress, a Voice for the Balkans In the 1990s Wars, Needs to Step Up Again
President Donald Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton are engaged in a campaign to pressure a close American ally into ceding parts of its territory to a historic adversary. The two are pushing a strategy to strong-arm Kosovo into border changes or a land swap with Serbia that would upend a decades-old bipartisan policy – one that has been supported by the entire Euro-Atlantic community — of opposing the redrawing of international borders along ethnic lines.
Just Security
Germany Must Stop Dangerous Drive to Partition Kosovo
As the US and the EU foreign policy chief up their pressure on Kosovo to change its borders with Serbia, Germany must stand up for the principle that redrawing borders on ethnic lines is wrong. For two decades, European countries have worked closely with the United States to implement and safeguard a fragile peace in the Balkans.
Balkan Insight
Juncker Tour Highlights Gaps in EU’s Balkan Strategy
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s Balkan roadshow earlier this week was supposed to highlight Brussels’ new strategy for the region – and its message, that all six countries that want to join the EU have a solid prospect of doing so.
Balkan Insight
Christopher Bennett BOSNIA’S PARALYSED PEACE
Twenty years of peace implementation in Bosnia-Herzegovina are a powerful reminder that bad institutions encourage bad behaviour. The country has been exceptionally ill served by its leaders; but these leaders are the product of a particular post-war order put in place by the Dayton Accords of 1995. They are behaving rationally when they behave badly, as Christopher Bennett suggests in his excellent new book Bosnia’s Paralysed Peace.
The Times Literary Supplement
Europe Must Respond to Threats to Liberal Values
As the crisis over the judiciary in Poland has shown, the EU must be more vigilant in defending values that both member states and candidate countries seem determined to test. For the past several months, the European Commission has been accused of inaction over moves by Hungary and Poland to strengthen the hold of ruling parties over the institutions of the state.
Balkan Insight
Rule of law: Double standards undermine EU's role in the neighbourhood
Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty defines the European Union as a community of values and then goes on to list them: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are supposed to inform all EU policies, including enlargement and foreign and security policy, which crucially depend on the strength of the EU’s ‘soft power’. But what happens to the EU and its power to persuade and lead by example when it fails to safeguard its values at home?
European Neighbourhood Watch

About

Toby Vogel

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Editing

Researching

Reporting

Policy

Politics

International affairs

Toby Vogel is a writer on foreign affairs based in Brussels, Belgium. In 2007-14, he was a staff writer on political and home affairs with European Voice, the Economist's EU affairs newsweekly. Previously, he was a contributing editor of Transitions Online and a writer on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s daily Newsline, with a focus on the Balkans.

He was educated at the University of Zurich (MA, philosophy, 1995), completed his PhD coursework in politics at the New School for Social Research (MA, 1998), and was a Andrew W. Mellon Foundation research fellow on security and humanitarian action at City University of New York (2003).

Vogel worked in New York for the Open Society Institute and the International Rescue Committee. In 1999-2002, he was head of monitoring and evaluation for the IRC's $20m refugee return and reintegration program in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and subsequently worked as a consultant on refugee and governance issues with the UN Development Programme and other organisations in Bosnia and Kosovo. He has since worked with a variety of UN agencies and offices.

Vogel is a regular reviewer of current-affairs titles for the TLS and has publ;ished opinion and analysis pieces in Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, and EUobserver.

Vogel is a co-founder and senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council in Washington, DC, and Berlin.