If not for the familiar awkwardness of social distancing rules, the scene at the digital party conference of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) would have been fit for a daytime game show. With the theme from “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” playing in the background and the CDU's...
The vacuum of leadership and the visible missteps throughout much of the Western world have turned developed nations into a fertile ground for what some people see as the resurgence of modern versions of fascism. Until the past few months, such a statement would have sounded provocative at best,...
Wirecard AG, the Munich-based payments and financial services company that was a member of the DAX index of Germany’s 30 leading blue-chip stocks, collapsed spectacularly and filed for insolvency on June 25. Among many lessons, this disaster has revealed major gaps in audit...
Nearly 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, powerful images come to mind from those heady days of 1989: people dancing on walls and the related assumption that from now on freedom would reign around the world. Global capitalism had prevailed over the state-run socialist model, and people...
How real is the French-German pact signed at Aachen this week? Can it save and even reinforce Europe? What many assumed to be simply the routine renewal of the 1963 Elysée Treaty between France and Germany has turned into a possible pivotal moment in the history of modern Europe. As Brexit...
Deutsche Bank is in hot water after recent raids by police. What will happen next? Deutsche Bank faces its most severe test yet in the wake of police raids on its Frankfurt offices on November 29 over suspicions of helping its clients in money laundering. The scene was dramatic: 170 officers...
For Germany, the greatest gains to be made from Angela Merkel’s trips to Argentina and Mexico are political. The election of US President Donald Trump in November 2016 brought political and economic uncertainty to the world. Upon being elected, Trump announced radical changes to US domestic...
For leftist critics of the EU, reform looks unlikely—but aligning with right-wing Euroskeptics looks worse. Maybe there's a third option. When European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg this past September, he told them the organization...
