AGI

Domestic Policy

A variety of reasons, including demographic change, global migration patterns, economic hardship, and climate change, demand that both Germany and the U.S. craft domestic policies that effectively address their populations’ concerns. This imperative is also seen in the political sphere, as voters make their voices heard in state, federal, and supranational elections.
Reset

A Long View of Transatlantic Crises: Increasing closeness, increasing friction

In 1969, when I was elected national chairman of the Young Socialists (Jungsozialisten – Jusos), the SPD youth organization, the future US ambassador to Germany John Kornblum was a young …

The Perfect Storm

The ongoing refugee crisis has exposed new cracks in the European Union. While some European leaders, including those in the German government, had been reluctant to define the debt crisis …

Joschka Fischer on German Leadership, the Refugee Crisis, and Chancellor Merkel

From the Jacques Delors Institute, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer speaks on the topics that are dominating the discussion in Europe: German leadership, the ongoing migrant crisis, and the …

Guenter Schabowski, East German who announced Berlin Wall opening, dies

Guenter Schabowski, a senior East German official whose cryptic announcement that the communist country was opening its fortified border precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, died Nov. …

The Migration Crisis: A Test to the Union

Germany is a nervous country right now—nervous about what can go wrong. But it is also a moment in which Germany has to demonstrate leadership in its own interests and …

The Next Generation: Remapping the German-American Relationship

Policy Report 63 This year’s Symposium is framed around the idea of “A New Transatlantic Generation.” We know that German-American relations have long been shaped by the personal connections that …

Data Transfers: EU Court Declares EU/US Safe Harbor “Invalid” – What Now?

U.S. companies with European business will most likely mark 6 October 2015 as a dark day on their calendars. The highest EU court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in …

A Natural Aspiration

AGI is pleased to present this collection of essays reflecting on the 25th anniversary of German unification in October 2015. We are grateful to those who have contributed to this …

Facing the Future: Germany and the U.S. in a Transforming World

Those who remember the heady days of 1989 in Europe will recall a breathtakingly fast pace of change. The chain of events in Eastern Europe seemed like a volcanic eruption of citizens and governments—an eruption that would change the contours of the continent in ways many had hoped for, but few expected in their lifetimes. In retrospect, it was in large measure set in motion by ordinary citizens who changed the course of history. The ripples of those days are still being felt today—a quarter of a century later.

United Germany at 25

When Germany’s leaders gather on October 3 for the 25th anniversary of German unification, they will celebrate the progress they have made in integrating the eastern and western parts of the country and will likely also speak of the work still to be done in the ongoing process of unification. If last year’s festivities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall are any indication, they will also praise the courageous East Germans for their Peaceful Revolution of 1989-90 and draw attention to the vast changes people in the east have experienced in transitioning into a very different system in the Federal Republic of Germany.