Germany

At the third session of the 22nd Heinrich Boell Foundation Foreign Policy Conference, the penultimate panel will focus on the German-Indian relationship - and the blurred lines between environmental and climate issues.

Germany leads as a destination country for migrants from Azerbaijan ahead of other European states. It is hard to provide an accurate number but according to various expert estimates, Germany is home to approximately 20 to 30 thousand Azerbaijani migrants. 

For a significant part of the last two years, the United States and Germany were polar opposites with regards to their success in handling COVID-19. While the Trump administration’s chaotic response to the virus left states effectively to fend for themselves, widespread testing, ample intensive care beds, and high levels of trust in the government led to talk of a “German exception” in the early months of the pandemic.

What does a police raid on a bathhouse in Cairo have in common with a police raid on a queer rave in Berlin? Through an examination of two case studies of homophobic violence in Cairo and Berlin, separated by temporal and spatial dimensions, the architecture of homophobia employed by state and media is revealed.

In an interview, Dr. Franziska Brantner MdB comments on the results of the “Actually European!? Citizen expectations of the next German government’s EU policy” study and makes the case for greater German engagement in the fields of climate protection, tax policy and ensuring the rule of law.

As a representative survey reveals, citizens expect the next federal government to set clear priorities, to pursue an active and cooperative European policy and to invest more jointly in European issues of the future.

German schools have been slower to embrace digital education than US schools over the past decade, due to concerns about the influence of commercial players and data protection. The Covid-19 pandemic has now significantly increased reform pressure in Germany.

Is data protection an obstacle to innovation? And is its easing in favor of digital educational opportunities inevitable? On the contrary!  

The Covid-19-related switch to online learning in German schools could exacerbate existing educational inequalities, due to wide variations in access and digital literacy at home.

The murder of George Floyd has thrown the United States into a state of unrest. President Trump is throwing fuel on the fire in an attempt to increase his re-election chances. The main problem, however, is historical, structural racism – and not just in the U.S. An interview with Bastian Hermisson, Head of the Foundation’s office in Washington, and Mekonnen Mesghena, Head of Migration and Diversity at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.