Democracy

2022 is shaping up to be a big year for European digital policymaking. The Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts as well as the Artificial Intelligence Act will reverberate beyond the EU’s borders. For the EU’s comprehensive vision for platform regulation to become reality, it will be crucial to coordinate the enforcement mechanisms of these laws.

Rasmus Andresen is the new spokesperson of the German Green delegation (Europagruppe Grüne) in the European Parliament. The Director of our European Union office, Eva van de Rakt, talked to him about the opportunities opened up at EU level by the Green participation in the German coalition government.

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.

The year 2021 was an unprecedented one for the European Green Party (EGP) and its members. The transnational political party organisation of environmentalists in Europe enjoyed some of its best election results in Austria, Denmark, Germany, France, Norway and Switzerland. At the same time, European Greens often failed to meet the high expectations set by polling. Moreover, substantial levels of support remain limited to Western Europe, although the elections in Bulgaria show that EGP member parties can make it to the national parliament, and even into government, in Eastern Europe.

In the second round of the presidential elections on 19 December 2021, Chile will be deciding between the far-right candidate, José Antonio Kast, and the left-wing progressive Gabriel Boric. Non-voters and anti-politicians may be able to tip the balance in these pivotal elections. Interview with Gitte Cullmann, office director of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Santiago de Chile.

Frieder Wolf-Buchert, our colleague at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung for many years, has passed away at the age of 66, following serious illness. He built up and led our European Union office, which opened in January 1997.

The chapter of the coalition agreement of the new German government on integration, migration and flight is highly ambitious. What changes does it set out at EU policy level?

Whilst the national governments have been reflexively ducking responsibility for years, there are many cities in Europe, from London to Munich and Vienna to Lille, Barcelona and Lisbon, that are expressing solidarity and a readiness to take in refugees.

The launch of the “Moving Cities" website on 21 October 2021 is a clear indication of how much dynamic power cities and communes are generating in the hosting and integration of refugees.

Every single day, women are abused, threatened or slandered on digital social networks. Yet the operators of these platforms are doing very little to make the digital space a safer place for women. The whistleblower Frances Haugen talked to Spiegel journalist Ann-Katrin Müller and Alexandra Geese, Member of the European Parliament, about what needs to be done right now to stop violence on the net.