Dr. Paul Gillespie is a columnist and leader writer on international affairs for The Irish Times (from which he retired as foreign policy editor in 2009) and a Senior Research Fellow adjunct in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin. He was awarded his PhD from UCD in 2007 for a thesis on Multiple Political Identity and European Integration. His main research areas, journalism and publications are in European integration and political identities, comparative regionalism, Irish-British relations, Europe-Asia relations, media and foreign policy, and the EuroMed region. Recent publications include the chapter ’Crises as drivers of integration in Europe and Asia: crisis as threat’ in Drivers of Integration and Regionalism in Europe and Asia and his co-edited volume with Daithi O’Ceallaigh, Britain and Europe: The Endgame, An Irish Perspective.