The New European Union Forest Strategy for 2030 has been controversially discussed by all relevant interest groups: member states, forest owners, forest-related industry, environmental NGOs. The analysis reveals two central conflicts characterizing the Strategy: sovereignty vs. increased Union control—the primary concern of member states and forest owners; and commodity vs. amenity—a central issue between forest-based industry and environmental NGOs. In this respect it is interesting to note that, while being competitors over influence in European forest policy, both forest-related industry and environmental NGOs share the demand for clearer definitions in the Strategy. The Commission’s position is discussed in view of the central conflicts with no unequivocal results—while in the first conflict the Commission can be assumed to, indeed, seek to obtain more power vis-à-vis the member states, with regard to the second conflict three assumptions are on the horizon: (i) the Commission tries to balance the demands of commodity and amenity- oriented interest groups; (ii) despite environmental rhetoric used, the Strategy is dominated by economic goals; (iii) the strategic vision of the Commission inclines towards environmental goals.

I believe that the phenomenon of regionalization that currently gains weight as a characteristic of the international system bears a great potential for increasing the effectiveness of complex international environmental regimes. Constituting a sub-level within the international system, macro-regions create a bridge between the anarchy of the international system and the order of the state, by doing so, allowing for a certain amount of intra-regional cooperation to emerge and facilitating inter-regional coordination. The corresponding fragmentation of complex environmental regimes into sub-regimes consisting of groups of states sharing certain characteristics and interests can be expected to contribute to an increase in their effectiveness.

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This article seeks to analyse the security dilemma in light of the transforming international system of today. Hereby, K. Waltz's three images of war (men, the state, the international system) were taken as the basic approaches to the causes of the problem, while the carcass for the formulated systemic macro-models (federal world government, mature anarchy, balance of power) was provided by the key IR theories. The logic behind this approach lies in the belief that the international system periodically re-structures itself as to form the most stable structure possible for the respective period in history. The analysis revealed that the foundation of a federal world government could be excluded with near absolute certainty, while the prevalence of either the mature anarchy or the balance of power model was found to depend on whether the mental and physical interdependencies generated by the forces of globalization can create universal values and which functional type of the key international regimes they producecooperation or coordination. The results indicated the primacy of a multipolar power system balanced between civilizational blocs, which proved to be a natural consequence of the verified systemic trends as well as to display a sufficient potential for stability.