Europe

There is a word that has been on everyone’s lips in recent days and weeks in Germany: "Brandmauer." Meaning firewall, it refers to the consensus among the country’s mainstream political parties that forbids any cooperation with far-right parties.

That non-codified agreement was thrown overboard recently when the opposition centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), poised to win the upcoming snap federal elections on 23 February, proposed an anti-immigrant parliamentary motion that passed with support from the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The firewall against the AfD might have crumbled, but it was never very sturdy to begin with due to one key engineering flaw: mainstream parties’ complicity in the unstoppable rise of the far right.

A prime example of liberal Germany’s selective outrage is the utter lack of indignation at an anti- democratic resolution passed on the same day the AfD-supported CDU motion to toughen migration policy which shocked German complacency into action. Entitled "Anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel at schools and universities", it is an unprecedented state-sponsored attack on the constitutionally enshrined autonomy of universities and academic freedom in the service of "Israel".

Nor has Germany’s centre-left coalition government’s steadfast support for the most fascist Israeli government in the Zionist entity’s history while it conducted the world’s first live-streamed genocide, described by Palestinian American legal scholar Noura Erakat in an X post as the "cruelest phase" of a 76-year-long Nakba, led to any kind of self-critical reflection among these so-called antifascist protesters, many of whom are Social Democratic and Green party loyalists.

On the contrary: The Greens boasted a record number of 5000 new membership applications in five days following Merz’s political sacrilege of collaborating with the AfD.

Greek civil protection authorities have declared a state of emergency on Santorini as natural disaster experts voice mounting fears over the “intense” seismic activity that has rattled the island.

The emergency measures were declared by the island’s town hall hours after seismologists recorded a 5.2-magnitude earthquake – the most powerful tremor to be felt on Santorini since the first of an estimated 7,700 temblors were registered last week.

The measures, under which the army is expected to take a more active role in crisis management, will be in effect until 3 March when the Christian Orthodox nation marks the beginning of Lent.

On Thursday, Spanish media reported that Gascón – who has apologised for the comments made in old posts on X – would not be attending Saturday’s Goya awards, which are Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars. It also emerged that Dos Bigotes, a publishing house specialising in LGBTQ+, gender and feminist themes, has dropped plans for a revised edition of a biographical novel that Gascón published in Mexico in 2018.

His colleague, the labour minister and deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz, was asked about the matter during a radio interview.

“I was absolutely delighted when she was nominated because of the symbolism and the force of what she represents,” she told Cadena Ser. “When I read the tweets, which aren’t tweets but are reflections of what a person thinks, I was deeply upset.”

Although the recently unearthed social media posts – in which Gascón called George Floyd “a drug addict swindler” and said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity” – are thought to have destroyed her Oscar hopes, some have questioned the scale and ferocity of the backlash the actor faces.

Green light for marketing of UV-treated whole Tenebrio molitor larvae powder added to EU "novel food" list. Attempt to block a yes vote in the Environment Committee at the EU Parliament fails.

Okay, we know that the US can't be trusted because it's political compass wil lalways be changing. So what now? We need to organize, but how? Volt Europa is pretty weak and several people I have met have expressed dislike for them, the EU is gonna be reactive instead of proactive towards threats as always, Elon is trying to buy out more parties in EU...

How to proceed? Anything to do that doesn't seem hopeless, like voting for paneuropean parties, or leaving US based platforms for EU based, less developed platforms (like Peertube instead of Youtube, or Matrix instead of Whatsapp?

I wish EU was stronger and both the EU and its citizens (and netizens) les reliant on external services (like youtube, reddit, whatsapp, discord, etc.), and I want to do something about it, but I feel completely lost and hopeless.

The German parliament has just closed the vote on a draft law suggesting tightening of the country’s immigration rules, with changes to family reunification rules and stronger powers to the federal police.

The motion, put forward by the main opposition party CDU/CSU, is highly controversial as it could be passed with the votes of the Alternative für Deutschland, breaking the historical firewall against any sort of political cooperation with far-right parties.

The sitting broke for a few hours earlier today as the main parties sought to strike a last-minute agreement that would allow them to avoid the vote, but the crisis talks ultimately failed – and this is why we are here.

In 2008, the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, claimed before the Knesset that ensuring Israel’s security was part of Germany’s Staatsräson, or raison d’état. The phrase was repeatedly invoked, with more vehemence than clarity, by German leaders after 7 October 2023. Less than two months before the Hamas offensive, Israel had secured, with American blessing, its largest ever arms deal with Germany. German arms sales to Israel surged tenfold in 2023; the vast majority of sales were approved after 7 October, and fast-tracked by German officials who insisted that permits for arms exports to Israel would receive special consideration.

As Israel began to bomb homes, refugee camps, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches in Gaza, and Israeli cabinet ministers promoted their schemes for ethnic cleansing, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, reiterated the national orthodoxy: “Israel is a country that is committed to human rights and international law and acts accordingly.” As Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign of indiscriminate murder and destruction intensified, Ingo Gerhartz, the head of the German air force, or Luftwaffe, arrived in Tel Aviv hailing the “accuracy” of Israeli pilots; he also had himself photographed, in uniform, donating blood for Israeli soldiers.

The German health minister, Karl Lauterbach, approvingly retweeted a video in which an English far-right agitator claims that the Nazis were more decent than Hamas. Die Welt claimed that “Free Palestine is the new Heil Hitler” and Die Zeit alerted German readers to the apparently outrageous fact that “Greta Thunberg openly sympathises with the Palestinians”. When the minister of culture, Claudia Roth, was caught on camera applauding the Israeli film-maker Yuval Abraham and his Palestinian colleague Basel Adra at the Berlinale film festival – for their now Oscar-nominated documentary – she clarified that her applause was intended only for “the Jewish-Israeli” Abraham.

For months, German leaders put up the strongest resistance to joint European calls for a ceasefire. The German president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, unstintingly backed Israel’s vengeful violence, much to the chagrin of many of her own colleagues; she also ignored repeated calls to sanction Israel from EU member countries such as Spain and Ireland. In October 2024, as Israel bombed hospitals and tent encampments in Gaza, and blew up entire villages in Lebanon, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, justified these violations of international law, asserting that civilians could lose their protected status in war.