EU/North America

In the nine years under the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has focused primarily on its oil industry without regard for the environment and local populations. However, that line of reasoning is now losing its force.

This Sunday, September 20, Greek citizens will go the polls for the third time in just eight months. While the refugee crisis in Europe has ousted Greece from the international headlines, the country’s political landscape is undergoing some deep and significant shifts. We spoke with Olga Drossou, director of our regional office in Thessaloniki.

If the EU is serious about an ambitious agreement at the UN talks in Paris, it must prioritise adaptation and resilience to climate risk in the negotiations, write Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's Presidents Barbara Unmüßig and Ralf Fücks and E3G's Chief Executive Nick Mabey.

Ahead of the 19 October election, there is a tight, three-way race to run Canada. The embattled incumbent - conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper – is running neck-in-neck with two contenders: Tom Mulcair, Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberals.

For Europe, the current refugee crisis presents a two-fold challenge: Will we uphold our humanitarian values, that is, do we view the refugees as people in need and with a right to a safe haven? And will the EU act as one – or will national selfishness erode European togetherness?

After images of Budapest’s Keleti train station illustrating the need for a fast EU assistance programme for refugees: the governments of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia reaffirmed their vehement “no” to refugee quotas.

After Danish Jews fled to their neutral neighbours in 1943 and Sweden agreed to offer temporary refuge to some thirty thousand survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, a country deeply averse to foreigners transformed. So can Europe today. An article of the "Berlin Anthology".

From my hotel room in Budapest at the weekend, I followed the images of Germany’s Willkommenskultur, the country’s policy and manner of welcoming refugees and migrants. They have now been granted permission to travel via Austria to Germany.

For four days now I have been in Budapest, a witness to a drama that I would have considered impossible in an EU capital not long ago.

Turkey is undergoing a period of turmoil. An interview with Kristian Brakel, office director of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Turkey, about the recently announced snap elections, chances for reviving the peace process with the Kurdish PKK, and U.S.-Turkish cooperation in fighting the Islamic State.