When we speak of the future of the EU, it’s about more than saving the Euro. The question is whether Europe wishes to remain relevant as a strategic actor. If it does, then we must strengthen internal solidarity, as well as our capacity to act externally.

American Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons (NSNWs) currently forward deployed in five Europe countries - have always been endowed with a symbolic value that far outweighs their strategic importance. It was therefore not surprising that NATO’s Defense and Deterrence Posture Review (DDPR) discreetly published at the Chicago Summit concluded that in the current circumstances, the existing mix of capabilities is a sound one.

With the ink on the Treaty of Lisbon scarcely dry, the European debt crisis has once more raised the question as to how the EU should be constituted. The Union’s ability to hold together and withstand the crisis is being put to the test. Against this background, the Heinrich Böll Foundation set up a commission in 2010 to examine the future of the EU and a summary of its findings can be found in this publication. FULL PUBLICATION NOW AVAILABLE.

The European crisis is not only a Euro or financial crisis, it also has far reaching political implications. In his article Rainer Emschermann analyses the political dynamics while Europe is struggling for ways to solve its deepest crisis since the foundation of the European Union.

Just before the start of the decisive crisis summit on the Euro, leading politicians of the SPD and Green party criticized Merkel's crisis management and demanded a radical rethinking from the German Chancellor.

The proposal is part of the annual report of the German Council of Economic Experts, which advises the German government in economic problems. Leading economic experts support this proposal, which also has been endorsed by the Parliamentary Group of the Greens in the German Parliament.

The German Green Party suggests turning climate change cooperation into a strategic priority in the transatlantic relationships. This is the core demand of the motion 17/7356 passed by the Greens in the parliament, the Deutscher Bundestag. Though Congress is so far not acting on climate change, there are other pillars in the US society to connect to and foster collaboration and mutual learning across the Atlantic. One of the vehicles for this is the Transatlantic Climate Bridge of the German government that should be strengthened, according to the resolution of the Greens.

What deep currents are likely to affect Europe and the United States over the next decade? Will they draw Europeans and Americans together or drive them apart? In this new book, Dan Hamilton and Kurt Volker offer “four futures” for the transatlantic relationship – each a narrative of how trends evident today could interact and evolve to shape the world we live in tomorrow.

In the European Union, the Euro, the common currency of 17 EU countries, has been under speculative attack in global currency markets for some time. This is due largely to the debt crisis sweeping several of its member countries, but also a signal of larger global imbalances and power shifts in global financial markets.

The attacks in New York and Washington DC on 11 September 2001, almost exactly ten years ago, represented a historic turning point of a scope comparable to that of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. While the latter was a sign of hope and new beginnings, 9/11 meant uncertainty and recrimination.