International Relations

Green recovery. Social protection. Smart containment. Decarbonisation. Putting progress in climate action at par with measuring GDP. Creative capacity. These phrases have been running through conversations these days around changing Southeast Asia's template for development in the post-COVID era.

How does the current pandemic influence multilateralism? Which role can the European Union play in shaping its future? A debate.

In Israel, as in other parts of the world, the COVID-19 virus crisis is not only a health challenge.

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.

Until May 2020 Cambodia has only registered 122 infected people without any casualty. Many experts fear that the figues are highly underreported due to a lack of testing capacities. The government has decided not to go for a general lockdown so as not to hamper the already weak economy. 

In Colombia too, public life and the economy have been at a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic. There is, however, hope that the early measures taken to stem the pandemic will pay off in the medium and long term. The country is currently between hope and fear regarding the measures to ease the social and economic lockdown in place since March.

In the shadows of the Covid-19-crisis, refugees and irregular migrants in Europe’s neighbouring countries are afraid for their very existence and terrified of long-term detention in reception camps. In Tunisia, political provisions are being put into place and emergency plans negotiated to deal with migrants and refugees on their way to Europe.

The new online course on masculinity has now been released in a version with English subtitles, making the cooperation project of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Moscow available internationally to anyone interested.

Britain is in the midst of finalising the Brexit transition process while also being hit especially hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. The German Council Presidency has to protect public health all over Europe while also preventing another financial crisis from happening. But this might also give new momentum to systemic change towards a more sustainable economy.

In its response to coronavirus, Britain has fared substantially worse than most other countries. The roots of this failure are in the neoliberal consensus – a consensus that is now vanishing.