Language: English

An interview with Isabelle Durant. Great upheavals have occurred and are still occurring in the Middle East: the successive revolutions and counter-revolutions of the Arab spring, the lightning emergence of ISIS, the agonies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the stagnating civil war in Syria. How do the Greens analyse the situation?

While the traditional European way of peace-making was based on separating peoples, the Green European way of peace-building should be based on power-sharing and trust-building.

In the most recent conflict with Russia, the EU has tried to find a solution that avoids war. The EU considers military action only as the last resort – and that should not change in the future, even if we accept that the world won’t become an entirely peaceful place from one day to next. An interview with Rebecca Harms.

Over the past decade, an ongoing reshuffle in the balance of global power has seen China change scale from regional to world actor, Russia reassert its ambition to be treated like a major player, and calls emerging for Europe to play a more active role in world politics.

Foreign policy, as is generally known, is the extension of domestic politics. With Minsk II threatened by its collapse only days after the agreement was reached, stern warnings have been voiced on both sides of the Atlantic on the looming possibility of a transatlantic rift in case the U.S. would decide to arm the Ukrainian government with defensive military equipment. But where do the German and U.S. public stand on this issue?

The aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian military intervention and the undeclared war in eastern Ukraine brought about a crucial change in the EU’s foreign affairs. The new understanding of a conflict-oriented and imperial rationality based attitude of the Russian leadership caused a substantial shift in the EU’s Russia-politics – and raises security questions not only at European level but also at the global scale.

By what laws of criminal justice does the Maldivian peasant claim redress for a home washed away into the Indian Ocean? To whom does the Brazilian smallholder farmer appeal when her crops fail to grow? A Review of Peter Christoff and Robyn Eckersley’s Globalization and the Environment.

Viktor Orbán’s evolving relations with the oligarchs both in Hungary and the wider region are having serious effects on Hungary’s energy strategy. Now, Putin is in town for meetings that will no doubt result in a new contract for the supply of gas, a development which will be to the benefit of a minority and to the detriment of most of the population, and which could also lead to tensions arising with the EU.

By electing a new radical left government determined to oppose the corruption, clientelism and tax-evasion, the Greek people have opted to exit the vicious circle of austerity that has left the country with no prospect for recovery. However, it is not only Greece at the crossroads but Europe as a whole. The new Greek paradigm is not written in stone and it is therefore inviting all those who are interested in the political future of the European Union.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, the French and European responses have focused on security and how to reinforce it. At the same time, far-right movements are making gains across Europe, attacks on mosques have increased and a distorted secularist discourse is leading to further marginalisation of religious groups.