Blätter International

I want to bracket the chaos and the calamity, the horror and even absurdity of the Trump regime to ask this: how was it brought into being from a popular base that stands to gain so little from it?

This event, entitled ‘Which future for Europe?’, was hosted by the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin on 16 March 2017 and moderated by Henrik Enderlein, the Hertie School’s Vice-President.

In an article in Spiegel Online, Andre Wilkens and Jakob von Weizsäcker call for a publicly financed media channel that is produced in and for Europe.[1] It is their hope that the project will make an important contribution to European democracy.

After 1989, all the talk was of the ‘end of history’ in democracy and the market economy; today we are experiencing the emergence of a new phenomenon in the form of an authoritarian/populist leadership – from Putin via Erdogan to Donald Trump.

Three years ago, on 21 November 2013, the protests commenced on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kyiv, that quickly became known as Euromaidan. Euromaidan, because the Ukrainian government had broken off negotiations concerning the Association Agreement with the European Union shortly before they were due to conclude.

Forced exits can be created by traumas of environment, economy or national civil war. They produce refugees who are invariably traumatized.

Throughout Europe – from Finland to Greece – right-wing populist parties have been mushrooming in recent times.

The contrast could not be greater: where, twenty-five years ago, border fences between Austria and Hungary were coming down, and the path was being cleared for German reunification and the creation of a new, free Europe in the West and East, we are now seeing the complete opposite.

The conflicting messages of welcome displayed by the German government towards refugees is hindering integration processes, for the state, the refugees and the citizens. For the sake of all three, accepting the situation is the only way of moving forward.

During almost a decade in office, the German Chancellor has never been so prominent as now: first in energetically trying to settle the crisis in Ukraine, and then pokering with the newly elected government of Alexis Tsipras about Greek debt remission and whether Greece is to remain in the eurozone.

In June 2013, Edward Snowden's revelations about the massive surveillance programme of the NSA and the British GCHQ caused global outrage. Almost two years later, the burning question is whether effective means exist to prevent blanket surveillance by the security services. One thing is for sure: there will be no return to the analogue era.

In June 2013, Edward Snowden began to uncover the machinations of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), prompting a worldwide debate about the alarming power of the secret services.

Europe finds itself in what may well be its worst crisis since 1945. More and more historically aware commentators are reminded of the situation prior to 1933.

The European Union's approach to refugees is causing a humanitarian catastrophe: almost everyday, people die attempting to cross the tightly guarded external borders of Europe. According to estimates, lives lost since the 1990s total 19,000.

Events are unfolding fast in Turkey. No one would have imagined that protests against building over a green space in Istanbul would lead to a countrywide explosion of social unrest. But within days, it was clear: nothing in Turkey would ever be the same again. Some have already branded the daily mass protests a "Turkish Spring".

At the beginning of the year Prime Minister Victor Orbán predicted that 2013 would be the "Year of Harvest" for Hungary and that everything would be better than in 2012.

Almost a quarter century has passed since the citizens of central and eastern Europe took to the streets to demand more democracy. Though the memory remains fresh in reunified Berlin, I wonder whether, elsewhere, 1989 and its aftermath are still debated with any real urgency.

The proposed international treaty ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) provoked much resistance in 2012 – both online and on the streets. Participant states intended to establish global standards for the protection of intellectual property and sharp penalties for copyright infringement.

In Iran, the revolutionary dogma prevailing at the official level has obliged "post-Islamist" philosophers to provide profound justifications for Islam's compatibility with democracy. Katajun Amirpur puts contemporary Iranian thinking on religion and politics in the context of the intellectual anti-westernism of the Khomeini era.

Both the European Union and the "idea of Europe" are facing their sternest test since 1945: this is the pessimistic tenor of many of the comments on the euro crisis and the unpopular cuts being made in national budgets. Members of the wartime generation refer warningly to Europe's self−destruction and division in the twentieth century.

The existential crisis of the European Union

Addressing a panel hosted by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Mercator Foundation on 6 April 2011, Jürgen Habermas criticized political elites for shirking their responsibility of delivering Europe to its citizens, instead relying on opportunism that threatens to "sink 50 years of European history".

"Freedom is a great, great adventure, but it is not without risks [...]. There are many unknowns."

Fathi Ben Haj Yathia (Tunisian author and former political prisoner), New York Times, 21.2.2011

The whole world is talking about renewable energy, sympathetically, as if about nice weather. Hardly anyone still disputes that it represents the future of energy supply for humankind. However this shift of perception is only a few years old. The attention that renewables receive worldwide has developed despite the mainstream energy discussion in politics, finance and the media.

Though the regime struggled for two more weeks, practically little government existed during that period. All ministries and government offices had closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on 28 January. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again.